Dearest Darling Mildred

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“On the eve of my beginning active duty in the army I am one of the happiest fellows in the world for two reasons.”

My grandfather was just 20 when he wrote those words to my grandmother. She was 18. It was Oct. 9, 1918 and the world war in Europe was still raging.

They had dated for a couple years after meeting in 1916 at the carousel in Ocean Grove, N.J. 

The letter was one of a cache I discovered a few months ago.

My father said he had never seen it. Somehow it was put in a box a century ago and survived numerous moves and even the flooding caused by Hurricane Sandy. 

“The first is that I have left at home the most wonderful girl in the whole world, who loves me still even though I cannot be with her and second I am doing my bit to win the war.” 

My grandfather had no idea that within a month the guns would fall silent. Within four years they would be married.

They were unsettled, their entire lives lay ahead. 

Finding the letter was like unfolding time.

They had yet to make an endless series of decisions that would lead to today. It was before they got married. Before his job at the bank. Before kids.

The letter continued: “Aubrey Riker and Dorothy Downs are engaged but I do not think much of it for his prospects after the war are not very bright.”

I love the staccato transition from love and civic virtue to neighborhood gossip.

It turns out my grandfather may have been wrong about Aubrey and Dorothy.

According to census data, they got married in 1920 and moved to Cranford, N.J. They had two kids, Doris and Edward, and stayed together. Aubrey died in 1981; Dorothy in 1994.

My grandfather passed when I was 11. I only knew him as an older man. My Dad said he never saw a romantic side.

There is always an unbridgeable generational gap.

There was another letter in the box from 1916 when my grandfather would have been 18 and my grandmother 16. It might have been written after their first meeting.

It starts: “Dear Mildred, I know that this letter is out of place but I cannot help writing it.”

It describes how he waited until the last minute to leave her side one night in September and then ran to the station. He arrived one minute before the last trolley departed Asbury Park for Elberon. 

He ends with a promise to see her in Newark on the 1st of October. He asks if she has a telephone in her house.

Reading that doesn’t feel like so long ago. I can imagine waves crashing against the beach in the background, the late summer breeze and salt air. 

Letters are a gift from the past, a reminder that everyone has stories to tell.

BRIEF OBSERVATIONS

BUSINESS CARDS: Three decades of business cards. The large pile in the back are people I don’t remember. The two piles in the middle are people I recall but haven’t kept up with. The smallest pile are people I still talk to.

ADDING CONTEXT ON TWITTER: It’s fair to say that I didn’t expect to enjoy the READERS CONTEXT observations on tweets as much as I do.

HISTORY ISN’T BURIED: Imagine Aristotle’s Lyceum being buried for thousands of years only to be discovered three decades ago. What else will we find.?

CELEBRATING AGE: I agree with this post so much. Let’s celebrate the olds!

SERVICE ANIMALS: We don’t deserve dogs.