The Lost Art of Letter Writing, a Civic Soapbox by Val Matthews

I recently handed over to my daughter four bulky old folders full of letters. These folders have over the years filled up as members of our family have moved to different parts of the globe for longer or shorter periods, and have sent back to other family members news of their lives. Often in my times of moving house or moving to another continent, I have pondered ditching the files, but in the end they would be packed up and moved with us.

I am not even sure exactly which family members are the authors of the letters or where they originated, but there is a special file for my father’s letters, because he didn’t write often, but when he did they were very detailed and often very funny. During the second World War he was stationed mainly in North Africa and the Middle East and his letters to my mother were very regular and full of intriguing facts about the countries he moved through.

Before handing the files to my daughter, I looked idly through one of the files and found a neatly handwritten letter from my late husband to his mother, written when he must have been not yet a teenager. His mother was on a visit to her native New Zealand leaving her husband in charge of the four sons, the youngest of whom was still quite a baby. The letter (to dear Mummy) was mainly a horrendous description of the four older males bathing the baby. Amazingly this was a letter I never remember seeing – my husband would be seventy nine now if he was still living.

People used to save letters. I think of all the letters of famous people through the ages whose letters are still on record. Now this form of communication is almost dead and sending letters through the mail is thought of as snailmail.

Somehow one slows down a bit, becomes a bit more thoughtful ( I think) when, pen in hand, one puts one’s words onto paper. We’re simply in a different mode when sending emails. And it is also so easy just to text someone.

I know all of it is on record somewhere in the ether, but will we ever be able to retrieve it and reread it with love and amazement sixty years on. Are we not losing something very important, as we let go of the art of letter writing? Are we not losing a magical bit of history?

--Val Matthews lives in Charlottesville

Downsizing by Val Matthews

It seems as if much of my life has been spent in packing up and moving somewhere – first as the daughter of a field geologist who moved around Southern Africa, then as the wife of a physicist who took me plus an ever increasing brood to Virginia, New York, and Cambridge, England. Later as a widow, I packed up the family and took them back to South Africa and then after some years brought them back to Virginia.

Time passed and offspring grown, I moved with a new husband to an old farmhouse in the county. Now, a widow of advancing years, I am in the process of moving again, this time into a bungalow in the city. This, I tell my offspring, is likely to be my last house and I feel very comfortable saying that.

But now the reorganization has to start – the downsizing, or as a recently moved neighbour said – the streamlining of one’s lifestyle. Another concept came to mind, as well – crystallizing my life.

I started with the hardest task of all -- my books. Studying the bookshelves was like seeing my history, my late husband’s history, and our family history, all laid out on the shelves. Precious books saved from high school in South Africa, books of the history, natural history, architecture and literature of places we have traveled to and lived in. So, although I pruned a little bit, I also had bookshelves built in the bungalow.

Furniture next. My family and friends don’t often sit formally on couches but spend a lot of time at tables, eating, playing games and chatting. We have also squeezed more and more people into the farmhouse at Thanksgiving, everyone bringing food. When one of my dear friends heard about my planned move, she said “But what about Thanksgiving?” And so one of the biggest challenges has been to calculate how to squeeze a lot of people at tables into a bungalow for that very special holiday. Of course my mother-in-law’s beautiful old oak dresser has to come with me as well as the beat-up old dresser I bought for $60 that is the perfect music center. The big old couch that unfolds into a bed is also essential, to cope with extra overnight bodies.

Just Dogs By K F Barker 1933

A question I am often asked though is “What will you do with your dogs?” Well, a fence has already been put up and three scruffy old farm dogs will be moving into a city neighbourhood with me. The neighbours have been forewarned and say they are looking forward to meeting the dogs.

I am giving a lot of stuff away, and I know there will be many trips to Goodwill and Salvation Army. But I’ve also realized that crystallizing my life doesn’t mean I have to change my lifestyle; it just means reducing my lifestyle to its essence.

So, downsizing or streamlining, it is another of life’s adventures and I plan to enjoy it as much as I can.

                           --Val Matthews lives in Charlottesville