The GGma Chronicles, Part 22: Writing Letters Instead of Books
Homesickness and a “Daffy” Neighbor
This was written — probably in 1983, when she was 72 — by my maternal grandmother, Alice Green-Kollenborn (1911-2005).
Here I’ve been sitting for two hours, doing my daily routine — writing personal letters. What a time-consuming waste, I thought to myself. How many books could I have produced over the years had I concentrated on serious writing, one every five years; which would be about 12 or 13 books.
This thought often jabbed my conscience, but I had been writing letters ever since I was 10 years old. If I had nobody to write to, I found somebody, even if it had to be an imaginary character. Here I am, 62 years later, still writing letters.
Mama was a great letter writer. She seemed to write to everyone, uncles, aunts, cousins, friends, but I never realized what a wonderful correspondent she was until I went away to school for the first time.
I thought I would surely die of homesickness, but Mama came to the rescue with her long letters, describing in detail the events of the day. One letter is indelibly printed on my memory, a letter that brought tears to my eyes and an ache to my heart. I could see Mama, after a hard day’s work, with her dark hair streaming softly around her shoulders, writing letters, as I read these words:
“As I sit here writing you, I can see the full moon rising slowly above the pine trees on the hill. Like a huge orange balloon, it grows bigger and bigger until it silhouettes the big red oak tree where the whippoorwill keeps repeating its lonely wail. The nocturnal insects are beginning their all-night chorus, and I think of how much you loved nature sounds. I think of yesterday when all you children were at home and would huddle around my rocker on the porch after the chores were done and watch the same moon rise over the pines. You’d beg me to tell you more stories of the old days on the prairie in West Kansas, our crossing the Missouri River on ice in our covered wagon on our way to Kansas.
Your favorite stories were about the wild prairie fires that swept across the plains in Kansas, the Indians that came to butcher a beef and frightened poor Mother out of her wits. You all loved adventure stories and I enjoyed telling them. We were so close then.”
I loved her letters that painted such vivid pictures and still treasure some today. Every letter was a part of her. Letters are like a family history. Often I get out a stack of old faded, yellowed letters and get completely lost in the past, sometimes sad, sometimes happy.
I often wonder if some day my letters will become treasured heirlooms, or will they be consumed by the flames soon after arriving at their destination. Who knows? Maybe one of my letters might inspire someone to write to a relative, friend, or perhaps a lonely shut-in that needs cheering. Why not write to that loved one you’ve been thinking about?
Not all my letters were sentimental and serious, however. My 12-year-old brother often wrote trivia which brought a smile or a full belly-laugh to me, and I needed a lot of humor to survive that first school term away from my loved ones.
Andy would write about his jobs he did for different neighbors, what they served for lunch, etc. such as one old neighbor, Mr. Evans, that was considered quite “daffy” by the other neighbors. He talked to himself a lot and even answered, as Andy mentioned. In reference to him he wrote, “Today, I helped Mr. Evans chop firewood and he invited me for lunch. When we sat down to the table, he bowed his head and said grace, then picked up a bowl of raw oatmeal, and passed it to me. He asked, “Have some oats, Mr. Evans?” Mr. Evans then replied, “Yes, I believe I will.” He did the same with the cream and sugar. Mom said she supposed he had lived alone too long and got lonely for someone to talk to.
The above reminds me of the poem “Mr. Flood’s Party” by Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935), where the protagonist, Eben Flood, has a conversation with himself on a lonely hillside, responding to an offer of a drink by saying: "Well, Mr. Flood, Since you propose it, I believe I will."
Also, GGGma’s (GGma’s “Mama”) stories remind me of the experiences of Laura Ingalls Wilder.
“The world is . . . a kind of spiritual kindergarten, where millions of bewildered infants are trying to spell God with the wrong blocks.” — Edwin Arlington Robinson,