LETTERS FROM GRANDMA

Earlier this month while attending Marianne Love's Memoir Writing workshop the topic of letter writing came up and how some historians see the lack of letter writing in today's world as a potential problem; especially when it comes to future generations not having a record of the ordinary,everyday habits of family and friends written in their own words and perspective.

I tend to agree with these historians, and think of all we have learned about famous people i.e presidents, poets and playwrites through their letter writing; but not just the rich and famous.

I think of the huge box of letters I have kept over the years from family and friends that tell about the daily big and not so big moments in their lives. I can look back to July 1964 and read in my grandma Cooney's own hand about her long awaited trip to Europe. After seeing St. Peter's Bascilica she wrote, " It is the largest and richest church in the world. St. Peter is buried there. I was fascinated with Michelanglelo's work; I saw his last sculpture - which he made when he was 84 to be placed at his grave. The name of it is ' Descent from the Cross'. It it Michelangelo holding Christ in a slumping position".

In grandma's letter she went on to describe the sheer majesty of the Sistine Chapel and to say she bought me a rosary that was blessed by the Pope, and about the Coliseum completed in 80 A.D to hold 50,000. She wrote about the bus ride and driver and how good it all was. Finally she put her experience to rhyme:

"On a visit to Rome, I'd have felt like a clod
If I didn't walk where the
Caesar's had trod;
Around fountains, through temples
up Rome hills I puffed,
Oh, there wasn't a church
or museum I muffed.
And I thought , as exhausted,
I sat down at last
Midst the ruins of the Forum
whose glory had passed;
History always repeats, it is
nature's design
Here Rome's arches have fallen
and now so have mine" (Vera Cooney July, 1964).

From the time I was a very young girl - after we moved to California from Council Bluffs, I received a weekly letter from my grandmother. They are filled with information about the weather like her letter dated April 8, 1965 "Today we're seeing our first day of spring, the temperature outside is 71; the windows need a good washing and the front porch sweeping", or about the bottles she was filling with color to take to the cake decortating class she taught each Tuesday night at Thomas Jefferson high school or a wedding she was getting ready to cater, "My dining room table is covered with cake which I must make icing for and put together tonight - decorate it tomorrow. I have all the pans washed up and am making a shrimp salad and have a rhubarb pie in the oven".

There was always mention about my aunts and uncles and cousins and what was going on in their lives. By doing so grandma was helping to keep her family connected. And in every letter there was always an encouraging word like she wrote to me the summer before I started high school, " I am so happy you are determined to take Journalism in high school and college, and remember, you are going to college !!! You are the master of your mind - you are the captain of your soul. Your gram is behind you and don't you forget it".

Simple and sweet letters that I wouldn't part with for a hundred million dollars. I see grandma's days through her eyes - the people she knew, what she did, how she lived her life. Not the world's history, but my history.