https://www.wsj.com/articles/t...o-the-man-1500501693

‘Yesterday I played in the park. I had a good time. I am a good boy.” So wrote the 7-year-old who would become my father, in a 1932 letter to his parents.

My father told me next to nothing about his childhood before he died in 1997. I knew, of course, that he had been born deaf. I knew, too, that his father had scrounged to send him, at age 5, to the Central Institute for the Deaf in St. Louis, a private school more than 800 miles from home. I knew he lived in a dormitory there for 10 years, seeing his family only on holidays.

Now, because of such letters, I know more than I ever could have expected. My father wrote them while away at school. “Dear Mother. How are you?” the earliest one says. “Dear Daddy. I love you.”

In others, he mentions he made a jack-o’-lantern on Halloween, played with an electric train set, and earned a Boy Scout merit badge in photography. He asks his parents to send “the funnies” every Monday and says he hit a home run to win the baseball game.

I never knew about these letters until recently, when they arrived in the mail out of the blue. They were sent to my sister by the woman my father had lived with after he and our mother divorced. His girlfriend said in a note that she believed the letters belonged in our family.

I’m thrilled she shared them. For the first time they allowed me to hear my father’s sweet, gentle voice speaking across more than 80 years. “I love the spring,” he wrote to his parents in May, 1933. “I saw some violets in the park.” A year later: “Yesterday, I found a toad in the park. He was hopping and I caught it. . . . It escaped, but teacher found it.”

The same letter describes the garden behind his school. “Vegetables and flowers are planted,” he wrote. “They are growing now.” So, too, was my father. As the letters go on his handwriting becomes more legible, his vocabulary larger, his sentences longer—all impressive accomplishments for a boy born deaf. Eventually he learned to speak clearly, read lips and function as well as anyone with normal hearing. He graduated from college and became an honored leader in the deaf community.

Our family has letters from my father’s teachers as well. “He is quite the favorite lad in the dormitory,” one wrote to his mother. Another described him as a “dear little boy” with “cute little habits and sayings.” A third reveals that, when my Nana was pregnant, my father requested she “order a boy so he can play baseball with me.”

If parents and children no longer write letters, what stories will remain when the moment passes? Can you imagine, 80 years from now, a man reflecting on his father’s childhood tweets? How much of ourselves are we losing to history forever? It’s hard to say. But this much I know: Without these letters I would never have found out that my father once wore a Mickey Mouse tie, promised to send his parents a valentine, and signed a letter with a string of Xs.

My father’s deafness prevented him from ever hearing my voice. But all these years later, even now that he is long gone, I can read these letters and hear his.

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I never knew about these letters until recently, when they arrived in the mail out of the blue. They were sent to my sister by the woman my father had lived with after he and our mother divorced. His girlfriend said in a note that she believed the letters belonged in our family.

Sounds like a great guy!
That's a terrific gesture on her part!

That is awesome...

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Dzozer,

Just so everyone knows, this isn't my story but a story I read about in this mornings WSJ. Cheers.

Thanks for sharing that. It was an awesome and thought provoking story.

I enjoy reading about things like this and am glad that those letters found their way home. Thanks for sharing with us. I've also wondered about how the digital age will impact our children and grandchildren from this standpoint. On one hand you could say that there will likely be a lot more pictures and video of us for them to see. On the other hand it is very fascinating to read letters and journals written long ago. It provides a much different view of the person.
I keep a Fly fishing/Hunting journal. I do it so that I can remember, but just as much, if not more, for those whom I will inevitably leave behind. It is not so much water temperatures and weather conditions as it is experiences. My dad has been gone for 18 years and his hunting journal and pilot's log book are worth more than gold to me.

Browndrake - In my case, I'm trying, as time allows, to not only save the paper copies but convert them to digital files so that one or both make it through time. It's more difficult than can be imagined, especially if you are also converting your parents 'stuff' as those items tend to be paper and old school photos..

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Originally posted by 2PAK:
Browndrake - In my case, I'm trying, as time allows, to not only save the paper copies but convert them to digital files so that one or both make it through time. It's more difficult than can be imagined, especially if you are also converting your parents 'stuff' as those items tend to be paper and old school photos..

I think it is great that you are doing that and I'm sure it is a major task. I truly believe that it is worth the effort. Someone down the road is going to really treasure those things.

That is fantastic. There is no better way to learn about someone then from their own writing. It reveals more then other peoples recollections.

Wow, what treasures. Happy for you.

Somethin' in my eye.

I lost my mom 5 years ago this month. Taken slowly over the previous 16 or so years to the slow decay of Multiple Sclerosis. Much of how I remember my mother is with a foot brace, a cane, a walker, a wheelchair. things she most certainly did not want to be remembered by. things she actually feared would come to define her in peoples memories.

I had an old hard drive - an external drive from when my wife and I were engaged 9 years go. the case it was in had died, but the drive was still good. My brother-in-law was able to get all the files off of it. somewhere along the lines, I had ended up with a lot of the photographs my mom had taken and saved over the years. It also had word documents. One was a document she had begun to write with the full purpose of making it a long, life history of herself. by the time she started, I'm sure her left hand was already useless and constricted from the disease. she had to have typed the 4 pages it contained with just one hand.

It didn't contain any info more than a few memories from her childhood years, but it was still an insight.

and the photos - they reminded me of my mom. a woman before the disease. a vibrant, adventurous, kind woman, living a life full of service to others and her family.

I often wonder what I will leave behind. my journal entries are sparse. photos are kept digitally, with only a few printed here and there. but I will keep going. trying my best to actually log everything. luckily my wife is very good at it. she writes in their notebooks - letters to our kids about their lives as children. She writes about her life, too. I am grateful for that.

Thank you for the post.

During my four years at the Academy, my parents and I emailed and used AOL Messenger daily. Just a bunch of innocuous "how are you's" and whatnot mixed with some serious moments. Well, little did I know that my mother had printed and saved every piece of correspondence between us. Every single one. After graduation, she handed my a huge thick binder with all of our conversations. I was amazed that she had done that and extremely grateful.

I of course still keep that binder and will likely share it with my daughter when she's older and soon heading off to to school. Thanks, mom.

What an incredibly moving post, I have tears welling up. It reminds me of my own aunt and uncle, my aunt was a hoot, as full of life and love as anyone I've known. My uncle was an accomplished woodworker and craftsman. Thank you giving me the opportunity to remember them.

I have often thought about keeping a journal and writing to my children. Each time I think about it I end up putting it off. Thanks for sharing this. I think I'll start writing.

I have family pix and some letters. Unfortunately there is a hole in the history, the recent years that coincidentally match up with the computer age.

Just today I lost some months of email that I referred back to for information, links and pix. They are gone. Don't know how, nor why. Gone.

What I suggest to all that have read the above and are touched by the thoughts shared - hit print. Make paper copies, print the photos, letters, articles, etc.

We may think we are saving "hard copies" on a memory stick or whatever is the current technology (much less the "cloud"). The technology changes, the hardware wears out, gets recycled. I have slides and 8mm movies of Christmas and Thanksgiving, most of the family is long gone. Anybody have a projector handy? A spare bulb? Didn't think so.

Don't trust the the vapors to hold your memories.