correspondence - then and now

as an archivist, part of my job involves bringing new collections into the archives. often these new additions, or accessions as we call them, arrive in odd containers - old cardboard boxes, paper sacks, laundry bins. this time, the donor was attending a history symposium at our center and arrived with a rolling suitcase in tow - full of old letters. over the years, i've gotten good at just whizzing through stacks of correspondence - picking up the general date ranges, maybe a overall theme or subject to add to the catalog record - without getting too bogged down in reading the actual contents of the letters.

this time, i've gotten reeled in.

i know the donor - she's an older lady, and an astronomer. we have other collections of her letters and papers already in the archives, so i knew that this addition would contain mostly letters to and from her parents. this bunch is from the 40s and 50s, and begins while the donor is in college and sort of follows her as she starts fellowships, and research projects, and moves around the country - still writing her folks 2 or 3 times a week. sometimes the letters are signed from "Daddy" or from "Mother," but often they written by both parents. They are all typed on an old typewriter with crooked and skippy letters, and often - especially when Daddy is writing the letter - full of cross-outs by the other parent, correcting facts and adding details to the letter.

the correspondence is useful in a couple of different ways - the donor's father was a scientist as well, and he often asks questions about his daughter's work or mentions well-known people that they both know. the donor often talks about lectures or classes taught by well-known people, or speaks of research and schedules of study. but the BEST part is the everyday story telling by her parents. at first i wondered if the daughter was bored out of her skull reading these letters, but maybe not. her parents wrote extremely detailed accounts of their days: where they went shopping for food, how much a cantaloupe costs at the market, who stopped by for bridge (and what kind of ice cream they brought with them, and what kind of cookies Mother served with the ice cream, and when they went to bed), what Daddy accomplished in the yard, how many times the dog threw up in the flower bed. crabapple jelly and how many pans of applesauce from the neighbor's trees. "desert bridge" and "supper bridge." it just goes on and on. i thought it was kind of ridiculous at first. but you know what? they were writing these letters instead of calling each other on the phone - nowadays, letters are reserved for more serious topics or for special occasions. if i compare these letters to phone conversations that I have today - with parents, siblings, friends - the content is pretty much spot on. i tell my mom what i am making for dinner, she tells me what she and dad watched on TV the other night, or how much it rained that morning. dad might say how he fixed something on the car, or his latest project at my sister's house. so these letters aren't ridiculous at all! they could almost be transcripts of any conversation that we have with our own parents, especially those of us kids who live far away. conversations like these keep us from forgetting what home is like, and they show our parents bits of our lives.

aside from all that, these letters are completely inspiring me to sew more. the daughter was going to college in a town without much shopping, and later working too many hours at secluded observatories (most are far from cities, to get away from the city lights) to shop for clothes. she would describe what kind of design she wanted in a blouse, or a skirt or a winter coat - and Mother and Daddy would comb the Baltimore shops for candidates. there are many debates on the color "plum" versus the color "aubergine" and "copper" versus "golden brown." discussion of plackets, and gussets and facings and linings. placement of zippers. aqua fabric with the red sailboat "motif" and the dove gray trim. recycling old clothes into new clothes - aprons made from dresses, belts made from the trimmed-off hems of skirts. this kind of seems modern again.

okay, i am off to go read more letters!