Heber & Caroline A Love Story – Letter 6 – 5/20/1924
When our mother passed away I was going through her things and found a stack of letters written by my maternal grandfather Heber to my maternal grandmother Caroline (aka Carrie). The letters cover an 18 month period during the great depression. My grandparents lived in Newfoundland and work was very scarce. Heber during this time stayed and worked in Massachusetts and Connecticut looking for whatever work he could find. Meanwhile Caroline stayed in Newfoundland with the children. Heber wrote Caroline a letter each month. The letters are very interesting as not only do they give a perspective of the time, it shows just how difficult life was.
I will each Sunday include photos of the actual letters which I have transcribed with the help of my brother Dana Donovan and sister Barbara Ridgway. Although Heber’s handwriting is very pretty to look at, it can be difficult to read.
Here is letter six written 5/20/1924.
May 20th, 1924
My Dear Wife,
I now take pleasure in answering your ever welcome letter received today. Glad to get it and to know that you and the children are well as the writing of this letter leaves me at present. Haven’t anything strange to tell you. At present we are getting some very nice weather here lately. I am glad you got home without any trouble with the children
I hope you spent a good winter at home. Yes no doubt it is lonely home there all alone. I suppose you are staying in the house. I am working now, started today. Loafing three weeks. Some of the girls got here on Saturday. I expect Gar will be going home next Sunday. He is sick with the measles. I wrote to you some time ago. Sorry you did not get it. I suppose you got it by this time.
Give my best respects to all the family and friends. Don’t work too hard
at the gardens. I suppose the children was glad to get back again. I think I have said all for this time. Will write again soon.
From Your Loving & Devoted Husband,
Heber
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Love the letters. I know how fragile older paper can get. But they have some great new acid free and PH balanced products on the market know that can help you preserve them. Thank goodness for digitizing, too. Our family has a private FB group, too. I will have to photograph some of my scrapbook pages and share with them. Thanks for the idea. 🙂
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I am going to have to do something to preserve them all. Once I post them I think I am going to put them in a binder sealed to protect them from further deterioration.
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What are you going to do with the letters? They’ll degrade with time. Do you have plans to keep them for as long as possible?
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I do plan on keeping them! I want to pass down to my kids and grandkids! They already are so fragile! Some have ripped along the seams! I have a Private FB group set up for my extended family and I am putting all these posts in there for everyone to read and see the letters for all time or as long as FB lasts? It’s a great way of sharing them with my family who are spread out all over the world!
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