Dorothy Brush "Random Thoughts" Published March 6, 2002

Letter-writing is disappearing

Only two more weeks and spring begins officially, even though we have enjoyed spring-like weather all winter. There are a few events coming up that could lure you out on the highway.
Whether you are a quilter or just an admirer of quilts, you have several shows close to us that you would find enjoyable. In Pigeon Forge, the eighth annual "A Mountain Quiltfest" is scheduled for March 13-17. It will be held at the Smoky Mountain Convention Center. You can look, buy or take informative seminars. The only charge is for seminars.

The following weekend, March 21-24, "My Old Kentucky Home Festival of Quilts" will be held at the Bluegrass Entertainment and Exposition Complex in Bardstown, Kentucky.

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Recently, a picture of a Chattanooga couple appeared in the paper. In front of the happy couple stacks of letters were piled on the table. They had met on a Greyhound bus in 1945 and, during the following two and a half years, they wrote letters. All those love letters from their courtship period were saved and what memories they hold.

The centuries-old custom of writing letters is rapidly disappearing, and that is a loss. An e-mail can never fill the role of the personal thoughts put on paper by someone who cares enough to take the time.

Today's biographers worry about the decline of personal letters. David McCullough often mentions how important the letters that flowed back and forth between John and Abigail Adams were to him as he wrote his bestselling biography of Adams.

Sylvia Jukes Morris was working on a biography of Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt, the second wife of our Rough Rider President Theodore Roosevelt. The family members told her the sad tale that Edith had destroyed all the letters she and Teddy had written to each other.

That was devastating news, but a short time later Morris received a phone call from the family. They were cleaning out the house because it had been sold, and in a trunk they found letters which had been forgotten when the others were destroyed. If she wanted them, she had to go immediately; otherwise, they were gone. Morris drove many miles through a blizzard to get that precious bit of history which added so much to her understanding of Edith and Teddy.

When our first born was about 8 years old, even he realized the importance of saving bits of personal history. One day he instructed me in solemn tones to save all his school drawings and stories so that if he became famous they could be part of the record.

That advice came too late because during an earlier time when there were three little boys racing around in our first home I came across letters I had saved. They were letters my husband and I had written each other as newlyweds separated by World War II. I had visions of those little boys growing up and finding those letters. At that time they seemed very steamy and passionate, but by today's standards they would be judged mild. My husband agreed it would be better to destroy them. Into the blazing fire they went, leaving only ashes.

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Dorothy Copus Brush is a Fairfield Glade resident and Crossville Chronicle staffwriter whose column is published each Wednesday.