The Value of Letters

        

My father, in the nineteen-sixties.

   If you've read my book,  "Lawrence DeWolfe Kelsey: The Life of the Explorer", then you would know that among many other things,  my father qualified at sixteen in a number of skills that enabled him to be a ship's radio officer in the Merchant Marines.  One of these skills was as a radio telegraphist. A cross over skill to this was that in life afterward, he would type faster than almost anyone. He occasionally joked that he could type faster than he could think.  I think this was one of his motivations behind getting me a typewriter when I was six and insisting that a percentage of my writing be done in this manner. The skill of typing very very fast did not come to him easily, nor did it to me. He worked very hard in order to develop the skill of typing at 155 words per minute.  One of the offshoots of this, is that he wrote a lot of very long letters. At first, these letters were written at sea to his father, his mother, and his dear cousin Adela.  Later, they were written to other relatives also, and then to friends he'd made in his travels around the world, or to people who became friends on the ships he had been on. He corresponded for the rest of his life to some of the people who had accompanied him on the Finn Ronne Antarctic Expedition.

           When I was a child, e-mail did not yet exist, and so letter writing was something most people did, whether it was thanking our grandparents for birthday gifts sent, or writing friends we had made on summer vacation. Most people wrote letters, but I was unusual in that I kept many of them, and sometimes cataloged them. 

           When I was a child my father had a job as a prototyper for a large electronics company, and occasionally had to write a letter or some technical writing to describe what he had been doing.  His office actually had a secretary. When something was urgent or when something he needed had a number of errors, he used to send the secretary on an errand in the building, and on her return, he would have the letter or the document typed and complete. This used to amuse her.

            When I was sixteen, my father returned to sea as a Head Ship's Radio Officer in the Merchant Marine. Although our family was a little reticent about this, he was delighted and returned headlong into the career he had first known.  His first voyages were long term international ones. He hadn't been gone very long when the letters started.  My mother wasn't too pleased with the long letters as she struggled to maintain cars in our rural home, take trash cans down the very long driveway, and then collect them again. I remember she mumbled something about not having the time to send six typewritten pages in response to his. I tried to respond, but at sixteen, I had started at college, and my time was taken by a number of courses that were to some degree, over my head. I might not have responded with very long letters but I did read the letters my father sent. In those first few years, I didn't realize what a gift they really were, and I did not save them all.

            As the years passed, and I became a registered nurse, married, moved away and became the mother of small children, I looked forward to my father's letters. After my departure from home, my parents had divorced, and so some of the time my father had spent writing letters to my mother, were now directed toward me. Most of the time I read every word. There were challenges in getting oil out of the Middle East. Sometimes, men died aboard ship, five days from port. Sometimes, in off time, Dad visited the pyramids in Egypt or ancient cities in Italy, and I got long letters telling of these places and these experiences.  Sometime in the nineteen-eighties, I began saving all of my father's letters. 

            Whenever I could I answered them.  Sometimes, I commented on something he'd said, or provided information as to side effects of medications doctors he may have seen in other nations had ordered for him.  Eventually, I had four young children, worked part-time as a nurse, and didn't have much time to respond, although I always read the letters he sent me.

            After his passing in two thousand and eight, I decided to buy heavy duty spiral notebooks and place the letters in acid free clear covers, and organize them sequentially.  I had some from the eighties, a number from the nineties, and after two thousand, they became longer, more organized and more detailed.  As I read through them, I realized that after the year two thousand, he was actually providing me with a guide for living. In each letter there was advice from his experiences.  There was advice for keeping real estate transactions smooth and for getting a survey. There was advice for buying life insurance. There was information on estate planning and on buying stocks. There was information on buying annuities. There was advice on raising children, some of which had changed a lot since I had been a child. I realize that I am very lucky to have been the recipient of a typewritten encyclopedia in letter form about life, his perspectives, and our family health history.  I have no idea as to how I might index such a large body of work.

            About a month after my father died, my youngest son died suddenly and joined him.  One of the few comforts I have is that my son has my father to guide him.

           If you, as a parent or a grandparent wish to give someone a lasting gift, or you wish to seriously impart your ideas in those you love, please consider writing them regular letters. I always appreciated them, but now I know just how priceless they are, as does my precious young grandson.