Friday, June 27, 2014

Special Delivery: A Postcard From The Past

Chronica Domus
 A very special postcard delivered to us sixty-five years after being written
Photo: Chronica Domus


Summer in the United States, for those that have school-aged children,  usually involves some type of summer camp activity.  Summer camp, for the benefit of my international readers, is a supervised recreational or athletic program designed for young children and teenagers.  It provides structured activities for the duration of the long summer break when children are not attending school. There is a myriad of summer camps available to choose from if you decide to send your children to such things. 

Summer camp is a distinctly American tradition and is not one I grew up with in England.  Our summer holiday breaks from school were usually filled with visits to the park with the other neighborhood children, playing in our garden, or whizzing about on our bicycles.  We also spent a lot of time rambling in the large woodland across the road from our home in Kent.  The highlight of the summer was our month long family holiday which had us traveling by boat and car around the continent visiting such gloriously hot places as Greece and the Aegean islands.  With no set itinerary, we enjoyed whatever adventures presented themselves along the way, and there were certainly many I can recall. With six weeks off school, we children had our plates full.  American students have twice as much time off during the summer as their British counterparts, which feels like an eternity for both parents and offspring alike.

My own daughter has this year decided she would rather spend her time at home, playing with her friends, reading, and working on a variety of art projects, rather than attend any of the summer camps we offered to sign her up for.

So, with all of this talk of summer camp around our home lately, it was with much pleasure and serendipity that we received a very special package last week, addressed to my husband and sent by his cousin, Rowena.  The package contained a note explaining that Rowena was feeling nostalgic and decided to look through some old boxes of family photographs that had belonged to her late father, Robert.  She came across an envelope labeled "Things for Rowena" and within it found a remarkable postcard.  Rowena wrote "I had never seen the envelope before so you can imagine my excitement wondering what he had set aside for me. In it were some photographs, birth certificates from his grandpa and grandma, a few papers, and the little gem I'm sending you".

The "little gem" turned out to be a postcard written by my husband's late father Richard, when he was a mere lad of ten, sixty-five years ago.  It was mailed on August 13, 1949 from Fort Bragg, California, and it was addressed to his mother, my husband's grandmother, in San Francisco. Interestingly, the price of postage was a mere penny.

Chronica Domus
Oh dear, not a happy camper!
Photo: Chronica Domus


It seems that young Richard had been sent to a summer retreat run by the San Francisco Boys' Club at Fort Bragg, a town located along the northern California coast. Back then, the camp was known as Camp Marwedel and has since had a name change to Camp Mendocino.

It appears the camp was not a hit with master Richard.  Here is what he wrote:

Dear Mom,

I don't like the camp and I'm homesick.  I went fishing for today.

Thank you,

Richard

These scribbles, written by an unhappy ten year old city boy, had us roaring and in fits of giggles.  This is because at such a tender age, his youthful thoughts had already revealed so much of Richard's disdain for venturing into the great outdoors as an adult.

According to my husband, his father absolutely loathed outdoor living and would not join his wife and four children on the family's regular camping and fishing trips.  The only time he did, he lasted until nightfall, at which point he got in his car and drove himself home.  This from a man that loved to sit by a blazing fireplace, even during the summer months, but never a camp fire.

Chronica Domus
 The young Richard (left), his brother Robert, and sister Nadine in happier times
Photo: Chronica Domus


Rowena continued in her letter "It's funny how after losing people that are so close to you, these items feel like gold".  And, how right she is.  Thank you Rowena for your kind and thoughtful gift.  We feel so fortunate to have been the recipients of this very small piece of family history that might have otherwise remained in a box for a future generation to have found, one that would not have known who this young boy was. Our daughter enjoyed reading the postcard, which provided her with a small insight into her grandfather, even though she never had the privilege of meeting him.  She has enjoyed such camps, living among the trees and participating in riparian activities, and cannot fathom her grandfather's dislike of the great outdoors.

Have you ever been given a treasure from the past that belonged to your family, and what of summer camps, did you enjoy them and do you send your own children off to such camps?  What will you be doing this summer?


12 comments:

  1. I do hope this inspires many of your readers to post a card for posterity and family members of the future. Without these windows into the thoughts of our ancesters how are we to know them. Handwritten letters and postcards human correspondence of all classes and walks of life what will the future hold if we don't try to shape it today. #firstclassmail @push the envelope please

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    1. Hello Anon,

      Thank you for your inspired comment. As much as we love corresponding via technology, what are we to be left with down the road when future generations go in search of our thoughts? I always enjoyed writing letters to pen-friends and cousins as a youth, sent postcards from travels abroad, and even engaged in letter writing with my future husband. I am so thankful that I've kept all my paper correspondence over the years. It is fascinating to reread them many years later and be reminded of one's thoughts and situation, details that would have surely been forgotten with the passage of time.

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  2. I love this story. I recently came across a box of documents dating back to the early 20th century, notes, will and testament and pictures of my father's grandmother. It was very fun.
    Our boys played sports and we always had baseball games for the summer league they were in. When our oldest was in grade school we enrolled him in some science camp. As the boys got older I began to think they needed more time just to be kids! I think it's great that your daughter would like to enjoy her leisure time this summer.
    Karen

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    1. Hello Karen,

      How fortunate you are to have found a box full of family history, and for it to have fallen in your lap to appreciate and be its keeper for the next generation to enjoy.

      I think you are onto something when you write children "need more time to just be kids". It seems like most children nowadays are over-scheduled with extra curricular activities, which must surely be a national obsession otherwise how could books such as "The Over-Scheduled Child", and "The Pressured Child" have been published?

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  3. Hello:

    Our comment has, in error, been sent to you as an email!! So sorry.

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    1. Hello Jane and Lance, how terribly vexing! I am unable to see any email from you so your comment has been lost forever, unless you'd care to come back and grace us with an encore? I am always pleased and honored to receive your thoughtful comments, thank you.

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  4. Thank you for sharing this lovely piece of family history.

    My paternal grandparents lived in abject poverty on the Greek island of Ithaca and could not afford to send my father to school (much to his and the village teacher's dismay). Decades later I discovered the only possessions he brought with him when he migrated to Australia (in 1938, aged 20) were a school text book and two exercise books, the latter marked with his near-perfect grades. I treasure these tattered and torn old items because they provide a window into my late father's boyhood. And, just like Richard's postcard, the grown man can easily be identified in the writings of my father's ten-year-old self.

    Spud.

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    1. Hello Spud, what a wonderful story you share with us, thank you. Your father overcame immense challenges to become literate, which surely must have opened many doors for him later in life. I love the story that you have his text and exercise books.

      I spent many wonderful summers in Greece and the surrounding islands (but not Ithaca), and have wonderful memories of the place.

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  5. We are a bunch of hoarders in our family and I have boxes of old pictures, letters and postcards from my children including one just like Richard's from my son when he went to summer camp. Mother also kept one of mine from boarding school asking her to save my old school uniforms where I was planning to return post haste. I must search them out and organize them as I know they will provide many giggles for generations to come.

    Luckily when we came to this country I was too old for summer camp. I would have never survived the night. My children were lucky to have grandparents who had a cabin in the canadian rockies where they spent July and August. It was bliss for everyone including their mother.

    Ah, summer camp...do they still exist?!

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    1. Hello Lindaraxa,

      I think your son will one day enjoy seeing the postcard you have from his summer camp days, and also your uniforms! I too wore a school uniform which provided me with mixed feelings for it at the time, but now I am thankful for having worn it.

      Your children are lucky to have spent so many summerrs away with their grandparents, especially in the Canadian rockies where they must have shared many outdoor pursuits and enjoyed the clean air. My daughter has spent lots of time in London over past summers with her grandparents, which has provided her with many good memories.

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  6. My son went to soccer camps and he enjoyed that. I am not a happy camper. I would have been in the car coming back to town with your FIL! Funny because I like to garden. I just don't like to sleep outside. When my brother was about 12, it was the last of our family's "family vacations." He was so bored and let everyone know it. While my brother isn't overly clever, he did something that still makes me laugh. Every day he sent a postcard to himself starting: "Dear Me, Wish I were home." and then mailed it! Since it was postcards and we lived in a small town, everyone knew about it.

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    1. Hello hbd,

      Your brother's protestation via his postcards is a hoot! Thank you for sharing such a funny story, and there I was thinking it was only girls that had an "attitude" at such a young age. I hope those cards were put away safely to one day remind your brother of his youthful thoughts.

      I enjoy occasionally sleeping in the great outdoors. One of the best nights was spent on a beach in the Mediterranean with the soothing sound of the waves to lull me to sleep. Heaven!

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