Thursday, March 18, 2010

Show and Tell


These are letters from my great-grandfather to my great-grandmother sent during World War One.

My maternal grandmother has always been interested in family history, and recently she's been working on her dad and his time in the Army. He was a qualified pharmacist and was in the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC). He was working in London when war broke out and went to France not long after. He was action around Ypres on the Western Front.

His letters are so amazing to hold and read - there is genuine love for his sweetheart, my great-grandmother. They got married after the war and my grandma was born in 1926. There are, in London, genuinely interesting things about the war, such as 'Germany is fighting a war she cannot win... It will bring her to her knees'.

I never knew either of my great grandparents on this side, so this look into their lives as young people is interesting anyway. Against the back drop of WWI it's even more so :)

I spent all day in bed yesterday throwing up. Today I ache in places I didn't know I had muscles...

11 comments:

Baby On Mind said...

That is very cool. Just noticed the letters are almost 100 years old. That was a different time. I wish our generation still wrote letters to each other.

Caro said...

Very cool

Kristin said...

What an incredible family treasure.

Anonymous said...

those must be such amazing letters to be able to have and read!

Gracie said...

Wow! That is an amazing collection. I love reading through old letters and I wish I had collection to keep.
I hope you feel better!

Thanks for joining my giveaway and for your suggestions!

Unknown said...

What an incredible thing to have! How fun to be able to learn a little more about them through these letters!

Maria said...

My partner has a book of letters that her father sent home to his sister when he was in Japan during the war. They are incredible..the writing so perfect and eloquent.

And I spent several months in chemo not so long ago. I know how those muscles can ache....

Sharyn said...

What a lovely collection of history. It's too bad people don't write as much as they use to.
Hope you feel better soon and thank you for visiting and commenting on my blog!

Unknown said...

the old letters that you have in your possession are amazing. worth everything and then some.
i have a lot of old family photos, the kind that are not even black and white but are brown and white; you know the kind? the oldest one i have dates back to 1899. precious.
and you know, letter writing the old fashioned way is a lost art form. all this email and texting and such, really cool rocket science, but there is something about getting a sheath of paper in an envelope in the mailbox, and reading thoughts that someone especially wrote down for you, that is priceless.

Anonymous said...

Too awesome. Great photo, great blog, can't wait to read more. I'm your newest follower from IComLeavWe.

-K
http://mypottyseat.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

What an amazing piece of family history to have! It almost makes you want to cry...I hope you enjoy reading them!!

happy iclw!