A Month of Love Letters

When I was a little girl, an entertaining activity for my family was to watch the airplanes taking off and landing at Love Field airport in Dallas. Oh, how times have changed. I suppose nowadays people parked on the edge of an airport watching planes come and go might look suspicious to our national security forces. But, those were simpler times when the Department of Homeland Security hadn't been invented yet and children were entertained by things that weren't on an electronic screen.

It's simpler times like those that are brought to mind with this year's U.S. Postal Service's "Love Stamp," which, incidentally, was dedicated at Dallas Love Field Tuesday. The stamp, officially named the Quilled Paper Heart Forever stamp, is the 44th stamp in the Love Stamp series. It features an image of a heart created with the art of quilling, aka paper filigree. The process involves rolling up narrow strips of paper and then shaping them into designs.

The dedication ceremony took place outside Love Field's security zone in front of the Moss Lee Love Garden. The event include the artwork of children, who designed paper hearts which were given to travelers in the airport.

The original artwork depicted on the stamp was created by renowned paper artist and illustrator Yulia Brodskaya who used two simple materials — paper and glue — the the intricate technique that involved placing carefully cut and bent strips of paper to make the lush, vibrant, three-dimensional paper heart artwork. The heart shape in the center is made from paper strips of bright colors surrounded by white paper swirls. The background is white with shadows cast by the dimensional pieces of quilled paper.

According to the U.S. Postal Service website, quilling is believed to date from the 15th or 16th century. The first known quillers were monks and nuns in European religious houses. Inspired by metal filigree, quilling was an inexpensive way to create elaborate decorations normally beyond the means of most churches and religious orders. When gilded or silvered, the curled paper could resemble the work of the finest goldsmiths and silversmiths, while designs made with cream-colored paper or vellum appeared to be carvings of ivory. During the past 20 years, quilling has gained a new popularity. It is a technique that has changed very little with the passage of time and is accessible to anyone. Modern-day quillers only need a few tools to get started — paper, scissors, glue and a quill-like implement for curling the strips.

Visit the USPS website for more details on all of the related products available.

With this post, a month before Valentine's Day, 365Letters blog will start a Month of Love Letters blog posts. Enjoy!

Dear Mr. You: Mary-Louise Parker's new book

Actress Mary-Louise Parker has published her memoirs...in the form of an epistolary book, that is a book written in the form of letters. The book, "Dear Mr. You," is being published by Scribner, a division of Simon & Schuster. 

I haven't read it, but there's a great review by Kate Bolick in the New York Times. And, you can read some about it on the Simon & Schuster website.

It's great to see the letter writing form continue to hold its own in today's society.

Sharing news of today's weather

Ruidoso, New Mexico, Dec. 27, 2015.
(Photo by Anna Pilkington)

No matter whether you're snowed in this December day or experiencing unseasonably warm weather, take a few minutes out of your day to write a letter to a friend or relative. The weather has been big news this year all around the globe. Including information about the weather will not only be interesting to your letter's recipient, but it will also preserve your perspective for the future.


For example, almost 150 years later, we know what the weather was like in Texas in December 1869 through the letter of Adela Vick, the daughter of Little Berry Vick and Mary Caroline Boyd Vick, to her aunt Amanda Boyd back in Mississippi. She talks about sleet and rain. The letters were transcribed and analyzed by Jack Landers on the RootsWeb website. The brackets indicate some corrections or information he added to make the letter a little more understandable.

Caldwell Texas

Dec. the 28, 1869

Dear aunt [Amanda Boyd]

I seat myself to write you a few lines to let you know that we are all well
at this time and hope to find you enjoying the same blessing[.] [W]e have
got to Texas[.] We have camped in a mile of Caldwell town[.] [W]e have all
been washing today while the men was looking at some land. We was water
bound about three days. We took a road and went around to head the creek
and we come to a marsh and it was sleeting and they rode through it and
could not find a place to go out and they got a leader and we all followed
him until he could pick the best place and Beeb fell the[n] Fan fell and
they had to come back and help[.] [A]ll the other mules was all down at the
same time and pappa went on out and I was driving Joseph[']s wagon and Fan
fell again and went under the water three times and they pulled the mules
out over the land and got some oxen an[d] pulled them out. When we got to
Delhi we got on the cars and went to Monroe[.] [I]t was about forty miles[.]
[I]t took us until nine oclock in the night and it rained the hardest rain
in the morning that ever fell[,] so they said[.] I was asleep. Mother and
Papa was all sick that morning. I have been sick about half the time[.] I
had one chill[.] Mat had nine and has not got well yet. We camped in ten
miles of cousin Virginia Mathis[Matthews-?][.] [S]he is living in Limestone
County[.] Mr[.] Mathis['s] [Matthew's-?] brother-in-law told us that she was
well and doing well[.] [H]e said that Uncle Young McDowell was still living
in Arkansas. I believe I must come to a close. You must excuse all mistakes
and bad writing[.] I had to write in the wagon on the trunk. I send my love
to aunt Nancy and family.

Adela Vick

Loving "old school"

I came across this quote and photo on Facebook this morning. It's a great sentiment to keep in mind as we head in to a new year!

words: Idil Ahmed
Posted by Evolver Social Movement on Wednesday, December 2, 2015

Paper vs. Digital

Sometimes, I turn old maps into envelopes, like these in the 365 Letters Etsy shop.

A few weeks ago, I attended a seminar presented by two women from out of town. The seminar was being offered to the citizens of the small community in which I work. The population here is less than 9,000.

It was an evening seminar, starting at 6 p.m. The same team had presented a similar seminar at another small town about 30 miles down the road earlier in the day.

When I arrived for the seminar, I saw two women getting out of a car in the parking lot. As I mentioned, these are small Texas towns, so it's fairly easy to spot the out-of-towners, especially those from the "big city." When I got into the meeting room, I saw that I was correct in guessing that the two women in the parking lot were the presenters. I was curious why they were just getting there. Typically, the presenters would arrive early and be all set-up before any of the guests arrived.

Immediately, the two women started explaining to everyone around them that they had been driving for four hours, trying to find the town. It had taken them four hours to drive 30 miles from one town to the other, a route that has only one turn on it.

It seems they were relying on their GPS device to tell them how to get there, and, in their words, "it kept sending them down non-existent roads."

I suspended logic and refrained from asking them how they got lost on "non-existent roads." And, they were running so far behind, there really wasn't time for them to explain how they took four hours to drive 30 miles. But, the entire incident reinforced the benefits of the seemingly obsessive habit I have of checking and re-checking maps — online and printed versions — before I take a trip. I have an old-fashioned road map in my car, and before I embark on a venture, I usually spend quite a bit of time on online map sites, checking out the various routes and then printing out my final plan. The great thing about the online maps is that I can zoom in to street-level and make sure I know every single detail about my trip.

The situation reminded me of 21st century personal communication. Sometimes, digital (email, texting, social media) is fine. Other times, a handwritten letter on paper is better. And, sometimes, a combination of the two...a computer written letter printed out on paper and sent through the mail system...works best. Choose the method that is most appropriate for each situation!

Happy letter writing!

Love Letter Research

I'm always on the lookout for stories about letter writing. It's always such a joy to see confirmation that handwritten correspondence is still important to people.

This week, I ran across a story about Michelle Janning, a college sociology professor at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington. She has studied the way people keep letters, why they keep them, and so forth.

In a blog post she wrote last year, Michelle said, "I study where people store love letters, whether they are paper or digital, how often they look at them, and whether they are located “on” or “in” things. ... Interestingly, both men and women in my research prefer to save the paper love letters over digital letters like emails and texts. There’s something more gratifying about holding and folding than swiping and pinching, I guess."

You can read more of that blog post here.

You can read more about Michelle Janning's research on her blog.

Help Find Those Who Are Missing

In the small town of Graham, Texas, where I work, a young mother has been missing since the end of May. Leah Martin, 22, went to the local high school graduation and then disappeared within an hour of leaving the event. There's been no sign of her at all. Her family has assured everyone that she never would have left voluntarily, and they've been searching for her since she vanished.

Although Leah is an adult, her disappearance made me think of the new stamps issued by the US Postal Service just 11 days before that graduation night. The "Missing Children" stamp features the words "Forget-Me-Not" and a picture of a bouquet of the purple flowers. At the bottom of the Forever first-class postage stamp is the reminder: Help Find Missing Children.

According to the USPS website, the Postal Service has played a role in the search for missing children for 30 years. Inspired to action by “Adam,”the moving October 1983 television movie about the abduction and murder of 6-year-old Adam Walsh, three organizations — the U.S. Postal Service, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and Valassis Communications, Inc. — cooperated on a program to feature photographs of missing children on advertising materials delivered to millions of American homes. The program officially began in May 1985. To date, about 1,900 of the nearly 3,300 children featured on these mailings have been recovered, including at least 158 as a direct result of this program.

The USPS also publishes photos and information about missing children in the “Postal Bulletin,” a biweekly publication distributed among nearly 32,000 Post Offices, adding some 600,000 employees to the search effort.

The stamps just serve as a reminder to everyone that there are missing kids out there who need to find their way home.