A snowy day in a warm house is the perfect day to continue the story. And, of course, what I really wish I could find next is Elsie’s reply to Sidney’s letter. But unfortunately, when I open the box of my grandmother’s letters to Sidney, the earliest postmarks on her letters date from 1935. So unless I discover another trove of letters, (fingers crossed) it looks like we won’t know her side of the story for a couple years yet.

But somehow it also seems right that her early letters are missing. I was surprised to find that my grandfather had saved any of her letters at all. In my experience, it’s generally girls and women who save the letters, the trinkets, the bits of pressed flowers that used to be a beautiful token of love and are now just something beige and flat. And that includes me – I still have the letters written to me by loves dumped and loves lost. I keep them because they feel like part of me, part of my story, even if they were part of a chapter that ended decades ago. I have wondered if any of the letters I wrote made it out of bedroom drawers and college post office boxes into cardboard boxes of history…somehow I doubt it.

So, I understand the bundles of letters and gift tags that my Grandmother kept in a couple shoe boxes for all those years, and I’m surprised and charmed to find that my Grandpa did eventually start saving her letters as well. A sneak peek into that first saved letter from 1935 finds Elsie professing to be “very, very happy” that she would soon be seeing Sid. Maybe it was that heartfelt declaration that made Sid want to put that letter aside – maybe just to reread it or maybe because that letter contained the words he was longing to hear and it marked a new chapter in their relationship. Either way, it started a stack of letters that he too would hold onto for his entire life. (Sorry, you’ll have to wait to read that letter…) 

Back at my desk, though, it’s still 1932, and we still only have one side of the conversation, but what a wonderful conversation it is. Sid had waited another three weeks to write in response to Elsie’s missing letter. (Sid, by my calculations, you received a prompt response to your last letter so boasting of your improved response time might not have been well received, although I kind of appreciate your boldness!) Sid picked right up where he had left off, with current events, tales of his official academic life, and the woes of being mistaken for a student despite being nearly forty. He even boasts a bit about his skills at bridge, answering one of Elsie’s lost questions. 

I imagine single Sidney, living in drafty rented rooms, enjoyed having someone to tell the details of his life. Although he certainly had friends, I bet it was a bit lonely going up to those rooms after another dinner with his fellow boarders. Maybe the table conversation was lively between fellow academics and maybe the food was good, but somehow I picture a duller scene, of over-cooked meat and a group of tired men wishing it wasn’t mutton again. I picture their landlady at the head of the table, set hair and sturdy shoes, carving modest portions and steering the conversation toward uncontroversial waters.

But Sidney was certainly not shy in his conversation with Elsie.  I wonder what Elsie thought of his quick digression into the politics of the people after asking about her volunteer work – work which,  I can reveal without spoiling anything, proves to be for the Republican Party in Buffalo. They must have discovered their conflicting political views over the Christmas holiday, and maybe there was some gentle ribbing. Sid certainly seems comfortable putting his Socialist leaning views right out on the table. 

A bit bold, perhaps, but I like the way he talks to Elsie. I don’t sense condescension. As a 21^st century woman, I’m comfortable, no, more than that, I’m impressed that he is talking to Elsie like a peer. I don’t sense a dumbing-down of his thoughts because he is talking to a woman, and, remembering that they were both born in the 19^th century and that women had only had the right to vote for 12 years, I find that pretty cool. Maybe it’s that quality that makes his letters so readable throughout his life. In fact, most of the surviving letters authored by my grandfather were written to women, and, despite some other less-than-acceptable views which come to light, he never seems to doubt that women were his conversational and intellectual equals. 

But what really keeps me reading is that there is a story, a slow story, but one that does flow through each letter. And just when I think to myself – enough politics, enough academics, ask her something personal – the letter ends with a new, and I imagine welcome, closing: 

“Here’s to then, Sid”

And you just have to know what happened then.

Box 84, Rutgers
March 17, 1932


Dear Elsie,
This time I have managed to cut the interval of my reply to three weeks, and continuing the same way, the first thing you know I will be answering your letters the day I receive them. Exams and papers and new courses makes the time fly, and even the advent of wintery weather drives me from my room or sends me to bed early. In this blustering weather of the last ten days my rooms quivered in the wind. We ‘Southerners” are not acclimated to this sort of thing.
Life around this part of the country is fast recovering its normal [pace?] since the Lindbergh baby has ceased to become news. Did you realize that a recent Rutgers graduate gave the account of the kidnapping to the world 32 minutes before any other news gathering force. Now it seems possible that more might have been accomplished with less newspaper ballyhoo, but eventually the news would have leaked out. It is going to be an unfortunate commentary on our police forces if the baby is eventually recovered thru the underworld crowd working on the case. It was surprising how quickly the Sino-Japanese war was forgotten during that time. The public is fickle and demands “hot” news.
Our gala affair of the year was a grand reception to the new President of Rutgers in the new gym. It must have taken about an hour for the whole line to pass in review. The grand march was amusing, from ranks of 2 we went to 4,8,16 then 32. By that time everybody was in everybody’s way, and it broke up into a grand rout. I saw more new faces there than at any other college gathering. One wonders where all these college people keep themselves.
It seems as though I must again resort to a stunt I used when I first began teaching – growing a mustache, a sickly affair, then, but in a good light it was visible. Last night at Phi Beta Kappa dinner the man at the door (one of the faculty at the Women’s College) said that if were a student I was entitled to a rebate. It amuses me a lot, especially when I think that last Saturday I attended the 16^th annual winter reunion of my class at Penn.
Yes, I play, or should I say “play at”, contract bridge. And never took a lesson! So far my opponents have only had four or five lessons, therefore, by saying nothing about my skill, I am judged quite competent. Some time, of course, I shall be pitted against or with regular players and then my ignorance will appear. I find, however, that unless one is at it all the time he quickly forgets the rules and conventions. But after playing it, it does make auction seem a bit tame and uninteresting.
You must find your volunteer work interesting and enlightening. Don’t you sometimes think that something must be wrong when we claim there is too much food produced, too much clothing, too much coal, and this and that, and yet people are starving and unclothed; that a person is willing and anxious to work and yet he can’t? It seems as though the present system has got worse instead of better. I enjoyed a speech by Norman Thomas the other night. He is a reasonable sort of Socialist.
If the weather continues to improve, and I see no reason why it should not, I am going to spend my weeks holiday at Easter in N.T. I shall probably arrive next Thursday, and I hope I can see you during that time, Elsie.
Here’s to then,
Sid