Love letters saved for a lifetime

A handwritten love letter is a keepsake for the heart, a treat for the senses.
The heft of good writing paper, the braille-like feel of writing indentations on the paper's underside and even the occasional scent of perfume or cologne can accompany sweet words from a loved one.
The scope of written communication has expanded as computer technology has wrought e-mail, instant messages, text messages, Facebook status updates and Twitter tweets. A first-class stamp will increase to 44 cents starting May 11. And the financially strapped U.S. Postal Service has asked Congress to reduce mail delivery from six to five days a week to cut costs. Still, however increasingly rare, nothing beats a handwritten love letter on beautiful stationery.
A silver-tongued musician swept a 17-year-old Stephanie Kosko Paul off her feet in 1958. He wrote to her -- on stationery with a line of musical notes at the top -- while she was away that summer working as a nanny with a family in Beach Haven, N.J.
My dearest Stefeni,
Perhaps you are wondering and no doubt thinking that I have forgotten you, but fear not for I can never forget you. Each morning as I arise, the morning sun, fresh and filled with vigor, falls upon your picture. ...
It is my sincerest desire that you again will write for I miss you so, and long to hold you in my arms and crush my lips to yours again. ... Anticipation shall be mine until you write once more.

Josef
"He was such a treasure," says Ms. Paul, 68. "People don't write today. It's very sad."
They dated for a year and a half, but the romance didn't last much beyond her high school graduation. Still, she has kept his two letters all these years.
"I look at these and I read them to my one niece, and she said, 'Did men talk like that?' " Ms. Paul said. "I think girls should know that there was a time when men were polite and treated us with respect, and some girls put up with less than that and I don't know why."
People often save love letters that were neither written by nor to them.
Rita Hahne cherishes a love letter her father, Joe Price, wrote to her mother, Emilia "Mildred" Dyba, in March 1925 before they were married.
"My dad liked to sing and he taught me to sing and he taught me all the old songs and a lot of these songs are incorporated in this letter," says Mrs. Hahne, 76.
My Dearest Mildred:
No doubt you know by this time that I'm playing this little game of love in earnest. The single thought of the days I've wasted makes me want for you more and more, and I'm smiling through my tears to think of all those years I've needed your sympathy. You've been my guide to light and my inspiration and of all things that have been my pleasures, there is not a single one which I would not give up for the one I love. If you'll only let me call you sweetheart, I'll know I'm drifting back to dreamland to my little dream girl. ...
Mrs. Hahne had the crumbling original laminated, then made copies for her siblings. It's the only love letter she knows of between her parents.
"He died in 1953 at age 55, and my mother lived until she was almost 96, and they were just wonderful parents," she says.
Magdalen Fisher has a box full of love letters -- faded ink on yellowed paper -- that her husband, George, wrote to her when they were courting. They met at the high school prom.
He proposed after knowing her only a month. Her parents didn't approve because she had a scholarship to college after high school. His parents didn't approve because he was going to convert to Catholicism to marry her. Their nicknames for each other were Mayme and Butch.
In a letter dated May 9, 1945, he wrote:
Hello darling,
... Last night I had the most wonderful dream. I was getting off the train and there you were, standing there waiting to greet me and I took you in my arms and kissed you. Everything was so real that I actually thought it was true. And all that will be true as I get home (on furlough) the 18th. Your love and mine are so true that I hardly believe it at times but as I look at your picture, I can say all of it's true and everything we plan will come true."
All My Love Always,
Butch
Magdalen Grandinetti, 18, married George Pearson Fisher, 21, on Nov. 22, 1945, Thanksgiving Day. Fisher, a decorated World War II gunner and former newspaper pressroom foreman, died in September 2008.
"George was the light of my life and not one day goes by that I don't feel the same about him as I did 63 years ago," she says. "I miss him with all my heart."

L.A. Johnson can be reached at ljohnson(at)post-gazette.com. For more stories visit scrippsnews.com

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