When my mother passed away in 2004, we found a small box tucked away in a far corner under her bed labeled “Canceled checks and Andy’s Letters.” Andy is our dad who passed away in 1982, during my childhood.
Inside the box (along with canceled checks from the 1950s) were about 43 love letters that my dad wrote to my mom in the early 1950s while he was stationed as an officer in the Army Corps of Engineers during the Korean War. The letters encompass the time around their engagement through shortly after their wedding in 1954.
The letters cover a wide range of topics, including details of planning their wedding, day-to-day life in the Army, and more, including my dad’s love for my mom. The letters are like a time capsule providing a first-hand glimpse into mid-century life, in addition to documenting a real-life love story that developed across long-distance from Iowa to Europe. There is one letter in which Dad begs her not to postpone or cancel the wedding date—she was concerned about our dad signing up for three more years of service, and where he would be stationed. (She went forward with the date as planned, and they lived in Germany for the first nine months of their marriage.) They went on to have four kids and were together until my dad passed away in 1982.
