After-Dinner Letter

Verona, Wisconsin, November 2008. Mom and Mr. Irene's Parents read a letter from Lithuania.

A folder of photos marked, "NOT FOR PUBLICATION."

Author Ruta Sepetys writes about a discovery of her family's photos.

Read here and here about the exhibits to which Sepetys refers.

Adapting to modern innovations.

My Dad learned to type later in life. In the mid-1970s, he replaced the Royal typewriter with an electric model.

Years later, Dad had trouble writing with a pen because of pain and weakness in his right elbow. When I moved to Italy, Dad regularly sent me vivid, typewritten letters. I still have those letters, and when I look at this photo, I imagine Dad constucting a narrative for me.

Suburban Chicago, March 1979. Dad wears the zippered, gray cardigan that Mom knitted for him. I still wear that sweater around the house.

Penpals

My Kaunas Cousin and I had never met until this past April, when she visited us for the first time.

Back in our middle-school days, Kaunas Cousin and I used to be penpals. I got very excited when I received mail from her. Lithuania was then a Soviet republic, and the letters seemed exotic. Here in the States, my Dad used to proofread my letters before I mailed them to her to ensure that I didn't write something that might alert the Soviet authorities. My letters were precensored before they reached the censors that mattered.

 
Kaunas, Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic, about 1972. My Kaunas Cousin sits with her mother, Kaunas Nina. This photo dates approximately from our letter-writing era.

Letters and Photos

I spent time in the last few days hunting for some old letters. When I lived in Venice, I wrote weekly to my Parents, and they (usually my Dad) sent me a response filled with news from home. I know where I've stashed the stack of letters my Dad wrote to me, but I cannot find the ones that I mailed to Mom and Dad.

I am frustrated by not finding these letters. Although I kept a diary while I was abroad, I'd now like to compare the letters to the diary. Wouldn't it be interesting to see, thirty years later, what I then decided to delete or embellish when I transitioned from personal diary to parental letter?

I've searched every box that might contain the letters. In the course of looking for those letters, I've stumbled on letters and notes from friends with whom I no longer keep in touch. The letters are more effective than a photograph at jolting me back to the flavor of a friendship.

Erlangen, Germany, 1947. My Mom, on the left, stands with two close medical-school friends. She has only a few photos of the close trio.