It’s time to open a letter.

Well, not open exactly, since this letter was opened for the first time almost exactly 87 years ago. And amazingly, after it was opened and read, it was put aside and kept, and it has made the journey all the way to 2019. Now it has surfaced again, to be read by new eyes, in a new age, with very different understandings but very similar human experiences, and that’s what makes it so interesting.

 This is the very first letter between my grandparents.*

Of course, at that point, they were just Elsie Dorries and Sidney Sanderson, two single adults who had just recently become reacquainted in their hometown of Buffalo, NY. The letter was written a month or so after Sid had last seen Elsie while he was home for the Christmas holidays. The first thing that strikes me is that even my grandfather wasn’t always so good at staying in touch. Who knows what connection they had made during those weeks, but it is clear that an earlier letter might have been appropriate.  And that made me start thinking about what my Grandmother had been feeling. We’ve all waited for the call or text from someone we kind of like and we think likes us too, and we’ve all suffered that sinking feeling when it just doesn’t arrive. It makes me wonder if Elsie had been thinking about Sid during the weeks since his visit. Maybe she was doubting their time together over the holidays, given his silence. Had she written to Sid right after he left? Or was she waiting for him to make the first move? Since I do not have any of her letters from this time, I can only guess, but I imagine she might have felt a bit let down by the lack of letters in January.

And then when she finally gets the letter, it is mainly an update on his work, a long weather report and a bit of a diatribe on the state of the nation. It is passionate in its way, but certainly not a love letter. It is full of opinions about politics and war, recommended reading and lecturers. It seems very much like he was continuing a conversation that started sometime over the holidays in Buffalo. It leaves the impression that Sid and Elsie sat and chatted, enjoying each others company, but maybe they hadn’t snuck off to neck in the back hall. 

Here’s where knowing where the story is going can be dangerous. I know that these letters do become passionate in the loving sense; I know that they would surprise many, both being considered over-the-hill when they married four years later. So I’m looking for signs of love when they are are just getting to know each other. Maybe I was hoping to find it was love at first sight, but the reality was they were simply two adults striking up a correspondence.

When this letter is written, Elsie is 36 and living at home, helping to keep house with her mother and father. She’s an old maid, and it’s a good bet that everyone counted on her being the daughter to care for her parents through old age. Sidney is 39 when he writes this letter to Elsie. A professor of psychology at Rutgers University, he’s considered a confirmed bachelor. 

Both Sid and Elsie came from big families, where their siblings had already married and plenty of grandchildren had been supplied. The reunion of the two families, which Sid mentions his letter, must have been a big, noisy affair. I picture a large Victorian house, with tables pushed together to accommodate the crowd, young kids escaping their parent’s watchful eyes behind couches and under tables, the older generations talking about before The War. The kitchen would have been busy, and hot, and maybe there is the smell of roasting turkey. I see prominently bosomed women wearing aprons over good dresses, carrying platters of food and shooing children from sneaking samples. The Christmas tree would have still been up, in the front parlor I would guess, decorated with ornaments that may have come over from Germany, some of which I took down, not long ago, from my tree, 87 years later.

So in the midst of my imagined chaos, I wonder if anyone noticed when the Elsie and Sid found some quiet corner to strike up a conversation? I’d like to picture them sitting on the little velvet settee with horsehair stuffing that ended up in their front hall and now lives in our storage unit. I imagine them holding cups of coffee, my grandfather leaning forward to hear above the hum of the party. And I’d like to think that sometime in that conversation they felt that little spark, the beginning of the fire – a fire that would eventually lead to my being here to tell the story.

* I should clarify that technically this is the first surviving letter between my grandparents, although it is fairly clear that it is the first letter of this era. Family lore says that my Grandfather may have courted one of Elsie’s sister when he was much younger. An interesting twist to the story – and certainly the two families had known each other for quite a while – but I haven’t run into any mention of a past love. These letters show that Elsie and Sid were starting fresh in the winter of 1931/2.

Box 84, Rutgers N. Brunswick, N.J
Feb. 5, 1932

Dear Elsie, 
As a correspondent I seem to be as spasmodic as I am a caller. Without realizing it a month has slipped by since I left Buffalo. True enough, a lot of work has been packed away – the first term has closed, exams given, a few of the boys are packed and ready to close their college careers (or try again another year), and now we have started the second term – but I really intended writing you long before this to tell you how much I enjoyed my visits with you. But I still think some one was sitting in the wrong place when you were in the front of one room and I was in the back of the other. It was a reunion of many years with the Dorries family, and many changes have occurred since I saw you all together before. You can certainly muster quite a family gathering; our own seem a bit feeble in comparison. You are more fortunate in having all your family so conveniently situated.
There are many times that I wish that mine were nearer and I could run in now and then, but I suppose that actually I am more fortunate than some for I have such long vacations.
The drive home was comfortable enough for everywhere the snow had been plowed or worn away, and even in the Poconos where there had been an ice and sleet storm the roads were clear. What a sight it was the trees glistening with ice and snow, and bent almost double with the weight! Mile after mile of trees like those around the Falls with frozen spray covering them. And then on the other side, a warm sun, not a sign of snow, – and home in N.B. [New Brunswick, NJ] on a springlike day.
But this warm and snowless (for us) winter must be a blessing for the poor and jobless. Here in N.B. 1800 families have applied for relief. It is rather appalling to see what little progress we have made in economic stability (ef. Russia) since our beginning not so many years ago. And after our “war to end wars” it is astonishing that people accept with complacence the idea of a war with Japan. I don’t think it will actually occur, not too many people seem to regard it as the panacea for our present trouble. And if this can occur in less than 14 yrs. What are we going to have later?
The League of Industrial Democracy is giving an interesting series of lectures here at N.B. (As well as in many other cities), pointing out present conditions & possible remedies. Such speakers as Paul Blanchard and Norman Thomas are excellent men with good ideas, but it takes more than a passive interest to move the people. It’s as Mark Twain says “a lot of talk about the weather goes on, but little is done about it.” A long depression period would work changes, but who wants that?
Have you read “The Good Earth”? I guess it came out last year but I just read it. Well, compared with peasant life in China we are pretty well off in America.
What a harangue this has been! That’s what happens when I can’t talk to you, Elsie, for then you could stop me. I shall try to do better next time, but I must get this off to you before you entirely forget.
– Sid