Long ago love letters

One of my favorite pastimes is listening to music. I especially enjoy music from the 50s and 60s. Country songs often revolved around broken hearts and failed romances. Doo Wop music from the fifties frequently features young love, holding hands, and sad farewells.

Another popular theme that found its way into music over the years is the writing of love letters. Some of the more famous love letter tunes are the 1957 Pat Boone hit “Love Letters in the Sand” and Billie Williams’s’ 1957 hit “I’m Going to Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter.” Elvis Presley had the 1962 hit “Return to Sender,” and Stevie Wonder hit the charts with his 1970s hit “Signed Sealed Delivered.”

I have to admit that I have never written a love letter song. However, I wrote my share of love letters to my wife in 1969 while I was teaching in Boyceville, and she attended UWEC. We never failed to write a daily letter from October 1969, when we first met, until the day before we married on August 1, 1970. I am sure of these dates as my wife recently found all these letters of love safely stored in a box in our basement.

I carefully sorted all the letters we wrote those 54 years ago. We decided to reread the letters of our early love in the order in which they were written and read. I knew I would enjoy reading them, but I had no idea those letters would rekindle all the emotions and memories from that beautiful year of my life. Reading those words we wrote so many years ago was almost like reliving a year of our lives. My wife Linda was just 18 when she received her first letter from me asking for a date, and I was 23 when I received her written reply saying she would love to go out with me. The rest is history.

Reading those treasured letters enabled Linda and I to relive the most memorable year of our lives. We read the words of our promises 54 years ago, and we can proudly say we kept those promises. Our words spoke of our young love and, hopes and dreams for the future. And I am not embarrassed to say rereading those letters brought both laughter and tears to me.

History has recorded the love letters of many famous people. I discovered that books of the love letters of English poets Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barret Browning, written from 1845 to 1846, are for sale on eBay. But alas, the love letters of Kenneth Anderson and Linda Peterson Anderson shall remain private forever.

Be Our

G uest