EDITOR’S NOTE: For the next few weeks, we will be sharing entries from Old Tillamook Times, provided by Sandi Burgess Botten Dean, featuring Karen Kranweiss Nudelman’s blog in which she describes the search and book writing that started a little over 10 years ago when she first received “the letters” and began reading. Then came the idea for a story, then a book – “Dear Folks” tells a young man’s story through letters he wrote home to his parents in Tillamook, Oregon. Links to the introduction to the story and the series are below.
By Karen Krantweiss Nudelman
You may be asking, “How on earth did these letters wind up in Goodwill?! Wouldn’t the family want to keep them?”
These letters are preserved to near perfection. They were clearly kept out of water, sun and any toxic substance. They were treasured. They were all they had left of him. Sadly, their branch of the family tree ended with Chuck and his sister Helen. Chuck never married, and never fathered children. His older sister, Helen, was briefly engaged, but never became a wife or a mother.
The mystery remained. After Chuck’s folks passed away, who became the custodian of the letters? His sister Helen would be the obvious answer. But she passed away in 2008. The letters were auctioned by Goodwill in 2013. But who had the letters during the time between Helen’s death and when they appeared at Goodwill?
I have a theory based on details I learned from the curators at the Tillamook County Pioneer Museum. They have over a thousand artifacts of Helen Hunter’s life. At the end of her life, Helen suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. With no family to care for her, she depended on a live-in nurse. Apparently, this nurse put together a beautiful scrapbook of Helen’s life. She would share it with Helen daily to remind her of the past and her accomplishments. After she passed away, it was assumed that the Museum was gifted with these items. But, because the donation of the letters wasn’t made to Goodwill until several years after Helen’s death, it’s possible her private nurse took special care of this archive.
Being a curious person with a desire to reach out to each and every person connected to the Hunter family, I inquired about the whereabouts of this nurse. Who was she? And, of course, did she keep any of the letters? I have no answers yet. The mysteries just keep piling up.
But the real miracle here is that these letters even survived at all. You see, the journey of the letters started several decades ago, during war time. I’m sure there were letters that Chuck wrote home that never made it to Oregon. The soldiers were instructed not to write any information that was confidential (I.e. their location or the specifics of their duties.) “Loose lips sink ships” as the saying goes. Each and every letter sent home was opened, vetted and stamped with an approval before continuing to its destination. If questionable information was shared, the Armed Forces Censor Bureau either blacked out entire sentences or cut a confidential word right out of the letter itself.
While reading through hundreds of pages of Chuck’s letters, it amazed me how he was able to share descriptive details about his surroundings. He answered his mother’s questions as thoroughly as he could. He drew pictures of the layout of his base camp. His description of his barracks was so illustrative, I felt like I was there, sharing the sticky humidity with him. How on earth did these letters make it past the censors? His words didn’t contain sensitive information, per se, but they painted a full picture of his life.
Okay, well one page of one letter felt the snip snip of the censor’s scissors.
Sometimes it took many weeks, even a few months for packages and letters to arrive –whether their destination was a rural dairy farm in Oregon, or the coral-lined islands of the Pacific. Each letter Chuck wrote home contained a note about when he had actually received a letter written by his parents. The time span between an addressed envelope leaving his mother’s hands and reaching Chuck, was often staggering.
These letters were precious. They were priceless. They were long-awaited, read and re-read by both parties. I feel incredibly honored to be the current custodian of them. I will take care of them until it is time to donate them to the Hunter family’s archive at the Tillamook County Pioneer Museum. In the meantime, the book awaits…and his story will be told.
Here are the links to the introduction to the Dear Folks, and #1:
OLD TILLAMOOK TIMES – “Dear Folks” Series #2: As Ever, Sherry