{"id":2606,"date":"2015-04-13T13:50:51","date_gmt":"2015-04-13T17:50:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/?p=2606"},"modified":"2015-04-13T13:50:51","modified_gmt":"2015-04-13T17:50:51","slug":"letters-from-the-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/2015\/04\/letters-from-the-past\/","title":{"rendered":"Letters From The Past"},"content":{"rendered":"

I came across this story: “Woman Posting Pennsylvania Couple’s 109 Love Letters From More Than 100 Years Ago<\/a>”<\/p>\n

In short, a woman bought 109 letters<\/a> (dated 1905 \u2013 1910) from a street vendor and decided to start posting them on a blog,\u00a0 109LOVELETTERS<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I’m curious what people wrote about 100 years ago, so I glanced at a few of them.\u00a0 There’s nothing particularly remarkable in what I read–a young woman writing about daily things in her life: work, church, mutual acquaintances.\u00a0 It’s pretty ordinary stuff, unlikely to land in the Smithsonian.<\/p>\n

I had an unusual feeling when I was reading them, though.\u00a0 I felt a bit voyeurish peering at the personal correspondence of the long-departed.\u00a0 Often, when people discover human remains, they go to extra lengths to see that they are disturbed as little as possible.\u00a0 Aren’t private letters just as personal as someone’s bones?<\/p>\n

In one note, Daisy, the letters’ author, writes<\/a>:<\/p>\n

I am writing under difficulties. My Aunt, two cousins and a friend are in the same room talking and having a good time. And every once in a while I can\u2019t resist and must talk too.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In my mind’s eye I imagine Daisy sitting at a table trying to focus on her letter to John.\u00a0 I wonder if she had any idea that someday a guy in Tennessee, perched in front of a computer screen, would read what she was writing.<\/p>\n

Probably not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I came across this story: “Woman Posting Pennsylvania Couple’s 109 Love Letters From More Than 100 Years Ago” In short, a woman bought 109 letters (dated 1905 \u2013 1910) from a street vendor and decided to start posting them on a blog,\u00a0 109LOVELETTERS. I’m curious what people wrote about 100 years ago, so I glanced […]<\/p>\n<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2606","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"h-entry","8":"hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2606"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2606\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2608,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2606\/revisions\/2608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}