In the basement of my mother’s house, squished onto Home Depot storage racks, are boxes and boxes of her correspondence and memorabilia. It would not be an exaggeration to say that within those boxes were thoughts and experiences spanning from the end of the 19th century to well into the 21st.
Among the letters are obituaries, funeral programs, wedding announcements, newspaper clippings (particularly WWII and the 1938 hurricane), assorted receipts—all reminders of a different time when bread was 30 cents and Chevys had fins. Taken in aggregate, these boxes represent unfolding conversations and observations with mostly dead people. They mark seminal moments in American history and seminal moments in the personal lives of people I’ve never met.
A researcher’s perspective is invaluable to understanding how ideas evolve, when perspectives shift, and, potentially, what may be coming in the future. It is a way to know, with some degree of accuracy, what is in people’s pockets—to get a glimpse of what’s in their hearts. and to understand where they are in their own time.
Writing good historical fiction is predicated on knowing what is going on in a particular period, and combing through boxes is one way to find excellent details.
My mother’s boxes offer up themes. There are stacks of personal letters on every topic people hold dear: the congratulatory note on the arrival of a new baby or the marriage of a daughter. I always have mixed emotions when reading these missives as I inevitably try to discover the end of the story. What happened to the baby? Where’s the daughter now?
If I’m careful and patient, I can organize the correspondence so it tells its story. These are the details that lend authority to Marshall’s and my latest project. They provide lives we can draw from to create the fictional ones of our characters. Where are the points of ingenuity, intelligence, grit and grief?
As an example, there is a series of correspondence between a young woman and her parents. The young woman was accepted to attend Sarah Lawrence in 1938. Her letters are articulate and argument well-crafted. She was smitten with the idea of higher education and an expansive life for herself. Her parents held to a different standard, one in which women did not need a college education or to think critically but did need to marry well. The logic of the parents’ argument was that family resources should go to the boys (her brothers) and she should concentrate on developing her wardrobe and social skills. Perhaps going to Katherine Gibbs and learning how to type would be a gentile option.
I can only imagine the young woman’s disappointment. As it turns out, she did go to Katie Gibbs and from there to The Providence Journal. Her press pass to the Geneva Convention hangs on the wall. The woman was my mom. Threads of grit and ingenuity and a dash of I’ll show you are woven into this seemingly innocuous exchange of letters. These are the bits that allow us to create authentic characters.
The boxes of newspaper articles, clippings, and old photographs are equally interesting, not only because of the topics but also how and why the material was organized and saved. These boxes span from just before WWI to about 2001—the newspapers and clippings come from The Providence Journal, Washington Post, New York Times, and The Saturday Evening Post—fine journalism that could be trusted.
The largest collection of clippings are of big events like the assassination of ArchDuke Ferdinand, the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the surrender to the Allies, and, of course, the 1938 hurricane. The headlines are augmented by letters from the front and obituaries of men and women who died in these cataclysmic events. Letters and obituaries mark known people with connections to community and landscape and social circles. They are friends, neighbors, parents, and classmates.
The material is worth reading alone for its personalization of a war, putting this massive historical event in the context of lives and showing all the promises cut short. It is also the stuff and fluff of solid historical fiction.
Writing historical fiction aside, the real lesson of these letters is that they bear witness to events and lives that exist only in our past even as they inform our present. This country is in the middle of major sea change. The world of post WWII is under attack and we are lurching away from Democracy, an outward ostensibly moral gaze, and a commitment to the rule of law. Instead we are embracing authoritarian rule, turning inward, and revering the ultra-rich with disregard for the rule of law. These letters from my mother admonish us to do better than that. The question remains—Will we?
-Bird Jones
