I have received a copy of a letter my great grandfather sent to the mother of my great grandmother asking for her hand in marriage:
Dear Mrs X,
I now set down communication upon something of very important nature upon which my happiness in this world depends, many amiable accomplishments of my beloved Mary has stolen incessantly my heart and I feel it is impossible for me to be happy without her; and must now beg of you dear Mrs X to allow me to obtain your consent to our union. Youe beloved daughter I truly acknowledge is worthy of the best husband in the world and although I dare not hope to merit that appelation yet I will make it my constant duty to promote her happiness. I hope you will forgive my not mentioning this beforeheand but I thought it better to give you sufficient time to know me and to judge my character before I would take such a great step as to ask your consent. Hoping that you will comply with my wishes and I conclude with love to dear Mary and accept the same from…
Thanks- and of course the answer was yes. It (the letter) was written very clearly but a little hard to decipher due to the style. I love those old treasures.
I have a diary from my grand uncle from Gallipoli.
Let me echo the thanks for sharing that, Cicero- hearkening back as it does to an age when letter writing was an art form practiced by all well-mannered people.
One can only imagine how long it took him to draught the letter, getting the nuances right, and the interminable and almost unbearable delay after he consigned it to the care of the Post Office awaiting a reply from the mother of his intended wife… It kind of makes me sad that there’s very little of this sort of thing in our family (old letters etc), as it would go a long way towards helping me see my ancestors as people with lives and hopes and dreams, and not just names on birth/marriage/death certificates or old parish registers.
No worries about the copy- there is no copyright or anything like that. The family was in NSW - near Swansea. I’ll try and work out how to load it somewhere- failing that I can email it anyway.
Awww! Thank you for posting that letter. Reading your post was a great way to start the day. You’ll hear from more Americans as we stumble out of bed this morning. What a treasure you have there!
Our family lost all of our old photos and letters in a flood 35+ years ago.
you are right, I think—the poor guy was probably terrified…
But like they say, nostalgia isn’t what it used to be…
It’s fun to see history in its intimate details… But do we really want to feel good and nostalgic about an age where an adult couple had to ask permission to lead their own lives they way they wished?
Makes you wonder what future generations will think of us…
What a beautiful treasure. I also love the handwriting…my daughter isn’t taught cursive and I don’t think it’s taught in school anymore. We were watching Gone with the Wind and she couldn’t read the letters they showed in the movie (and I think they weren’t written in true cursive anyway!)
After my grandfather died, my mom found a bundle of letters he and Grandma had sent back and forth while he was stationed in Europe in WWII, as well as some from other family members.
She threw them all away.
What a neat glimpse into an average person’s life! Anybody can study Notable Historical Figures and Dates and Battles; the real history is found in the letters and diaries of the people who lived through them.
That’s interesting. I think it was mostly the groom asking the bride’s father for permission, what with women basically being “owned” by the men. I remember Almanzo Wilder asked Charles Ingalls if he could marry Laura even before he asked her.
