Do you still write letters? Fold them neatly into an envelope, put a stamp in the corner, address, and mail?

I used to.

I saved all the letters my parents sent me when I left home. My dad would punch out letters on a manual typewriter at his office, using the company stationery. In every letter, there was a rundown of how each of my siblings and my mom was doing. He signed off each letter with “Love Pop.” My mom would add a paragraph or two in her lovely cursive handwriting. I couldn’t wait to get the newsy letters and send a reply.

My sisters wrote, too, and their notes were full of news, gossip, and funny stories. I loved getting their letters and writing back. My sisters kept my letters, too. Yes, I still look through them sometimes. It reminds me of a simpler time when receiving a letter in the mail was exciting. Now, I get cards, but few personal letters.

In the seventies, letter writing was the most efficient and cost-effective way to communicate. Long-distance phone calls, even on Sunday, were too expensive. Emailing soon took over the art of letter writing. Then cell phones offered texting, and now even emails are a bit of a bother. It feels like cryptic text messages using acronyms and shortened versions of words, like “u” for “you,” have become the norm. Grammar has long since gone by the wayside in our quest to send and receive information in a nanosecond.

For me, an email or text will never replace a handwritten letter. Not ever!

Inspired by these memories and my longing for more personal connections, I have decided to start writing letters again. Yes, in cursive, with a pretty stamp and sealing wax on the outside of the envelope. If you are a family member or a friend, you will most likely receive a letter from me in the coming year. Feel free to write back!

My inspiration to renew my relationship with letter writing was in part due to a book I had recently read, The Correspondent by Virginia Evans. This critically acclaimed book is an epistolary novel; the narrative unfolds through letters, emails, and diaries. I can relate to the protagonist, Sybil Van Antwerp, who explains her love of letter writing as a way to find “inexplicable relief” and to make sense of her world by managing interactions and taking time to think through her thoughts.

I was also inspired by a poem by Edgar A. Guest titled “Old-Fashioned Letters” that I found while researching my family history. I found a poem by this poet in my great-grandfather’s funeral memorabilia. This sparked my curiosity about Mr. Guest and the poem’s importance to my great-grandfather. It was titled “Letters” and detailed the return of spring. The poem appeared in the Detroit Free Press in 1946.

Edgar A. Guest (1881-1959) was born in Birmingham, England, and moved to Detroit, Michigan, where he lived out his life. He was known as the people’s poet; his poems were sentimental and optimistic.

He worked for the Detroit Free Press, starting out as a copy boy, and later published his first poem in the paper in 1898. He went on to write over 11,000 poems, which were syndicated in 300 newspapers and 20 books.

Mr. Guest was a notable poet and, in 1952, was awarded the title of Poet Laureate of Michigan, the only poet to hold it until 2023. Mr. Guest had a weekly radio show in Detroit and later had a TV show on NBC called ‘A Guest in Your House.’

Fun fact: His grand niece Judith Guest, a novelist, is best known for ‘Ordinary People’ (1976). Four years later, it was made into a movie with a star-studded cast, and it won the Oscar for Best Picture and Director (Robert Redford) in 1980.

I never knew my great-grandfather, but I adored his son, my grandfather. If they were alike, I can see why he chose this particular Edgar A. Guest poem at his funeral.

The poem below, Old-Fashioned Letters moved me and renewed my dedication to letter writing.

Old-Fashioned Letters

Old-fashioned letters! How good they were!

And nobody writes them now;

Never at all comes in the scrawl

On the written pages which told us all

The news of town and the folks we knew,

And what they had done or were going to do.

It seems we've forgotten how

To spend an hour with our pen in hand

To write in the language we understand.

Old-fashioned letters we used to get

And ponder each fond line o'er;

The glad words rolled like running gold,

As smoothly their tales of joy they told,

And our hearts beat fast with a keen delight

As we read the news they were pleased to write

And gathered the love they bore.

But few of the letters that come to-day

Are penned to us in the old-time way.

Old-fashioned letters that told us all

The tales of the far away;

Where they'd been and the folks they'd seen;

And better than any fine magazine

Was the writing too, for it bore the style

Of a simple heart and a sunny smile,

And was pure as the breath of May.

Some of them oft were damp with tears,

But those were the letters that lived for years.

Old-fashioned letters! How good they were!

And, oh, how we watched the mails;

But nobody writes of the quaint delights

Of the sunny days and the merry nights

Or tells us the things that we yearn to know—

That art passed out with the long ago,

And lost are the simple tales;

Yet we all would happier be, I think,

If we'd spend more time with our pen and ink.

By Edgar A. Guest

When was the last time you wrote a letter? When was the last time you received a letter from a friend or family member? How did it make you feel?

Bit by bit, that’s all she wrote…

Old-Fashioned Letters

Do Your Children Know Your Passwords?