Posts Tagged ‘mail’
Easter greetings from the past
In my collection of old post cards, I have quite a few Easter greetings. The postmarks range in date between 1912 and 1922. Some of the cards are not postmarked, so they must have been delivered personally.
I like the hand-written message on the back of one. It says, very briefly, ‘write me a good long letter’ !
Post cards are even rarer than letters in our world of emails and tweets. But a card is so much fun to receive. My brother and sister-in-law often send me greeting cards through the year and I keep a string in the corner of the living room to display them.
The ‘chick’ is a popular theme on the post cards. I thought I would share them with you…
© Jane Tims 2012
from the pages of an old diary – writing letters
Letter writing has become an orphan communication in our world of emails and Facebook and Tweets. But in the past, when these forms of communication did not yet exist, and long-distance phone calls were so expensive they were only used for emergencies, people kept in touch by letter.
My Mom and I wrote to one another regularly for 30 years, even after I had my ‘family calling telephone plan’. I still have all her letters and looking at her handwriting makes me feel near to her. Her words, the beautiful way she formed her letters, and the stories they tell, are concrete evidence of her life and interests and her love for her family.
My great-aunt’s diaries show she also considered letters to be an important part of her daily life. In her diaries, letters received and written were an activity she recorded regularly. The mail arrived twice per day in the community where she lived and her diaries tell they went for the mail daily.

post cards were part of the mail... this funny post card was sent to my great-aunt in 1908 when she attended nursing school
Letters from her son or daughter-in-law were recorded with tangible joy. She wrote to them regularly, approximately three times per month, and they wrote as regularly to her. She records her letters as, ‘I wrote to St. John today’ (she is referring to the place where they lived, Saint John, New Brunswick).
During World War II, letters from her son had taken on a particular importance since they signalled he was alive and well.
In 1957, perhaps the favourite letter received was from her little grand-daughter: on November 26, 1957, she wrote, ‘had a letter from b. a.’
The poem below was inspired by that letter, although I do not have the letter itself and the account is from my head.
~
~
letter from her grand-daughter
~
she watches for your
letter, your definite
hand, the dog-eared page
of a book begun, unfinished
creases in paper once folded
~
as if an envelope could
revive the creak in the upstairs hall
re-clatter the spoon in an empty
jar of jam, jangle the telephone
~
the trouble is, of course,
you grew, learned numbers
the difference between
‘b’ and ‘d’,developed your signature
went to war
~
of course, all that
made possible this envelope, addressed
to Grabma, the stamp
licked on sideways, sweet stick-men
and baby words in pencil
pressed, float
from the page
~
~
© Jane Tims 2012