History Surrounds Us

Steve's grandma passed away a few weeks ago and we went up to Huron, OH for the funeral. While we were there, we went through the house and found many family treasures. One of them was a box of letters exchanged between Steve's grandparents while he was serving as a Sea Bee during WWII. I nominated myself to go through all the letters, type (and possibly scan) them all up and put them together in some sort of a book. Needless to say, I have a big project underway. . .

I started the project by picking a random bundle of letters. It ended up being the very first stack (I've pieced together that he left 2 days before Christmas 1942) including letters from January & February 1943. I've only been through about 30 letters, but I feel like I've read years of their lives. I was even surprised to find out when they started dating (around 1938) and their desire for marriage so early on in the project process!! I can't wait to get through them all to see what other treasures are buried within the words.

All the letters that I have gone through so far are written from Carl to Kay. He was a very detailed and faithful writer. He wrote a letter every day to her, so the letters read more like a journal. He describes life in camp (located in Rhode Island), training, and preparing to head to the tropics. Whenever he explains something, he draws pictures and puts in side commentary -- you can really see his humor, character, and good spirit in the simple words he used. As I type up the letters, I think to myself, I wonder if he had any idea that his grand kids would someday read those letters. By his in depth explanations, I think he did.