The Forgotten Letter

I love a good investigation. I don't know if this love comes from my journalistic training or my passion for history, but a good mystery just can't be beat. I love to uncover new details about someone or something, especially if that person or thing has long passed away.

Just tonight my dad, himself a fan of the mystery, showed me a most remarkable artifact he uncovered while going through a pile of his dad's belongings. It was an old Civil War-copyrighted pamplet containing a soldier's prayer poem. The pamphlet's age is unknown but it certainly predated the both of us.

But discovery of the poem was not the true prize of his discovery. For inside the pamphlet was a folded piece of paper. Two pieces, to be exact. They looked old but were of good preservation — as if they had been inside the pamphlet for decades, protected from the light and undefiled by the oils of human fingers. The pages dated from 1918 or 1919, an age when the Great War was raging in Europe and America's boys were being drafted to go fight in the trenches against both bullet and mustard gas.

They were a letter from my great grandfather, Eugene Newton, to his mother, and from the wording, quite possibly written on the eve of his leaving the United States to head to the battlefield. My great grandfather was a character of all characters, my dad says. He lived his life — all 85 years — with a chip on his shoulder. He had wounds from a cruel and demanding father. He suffered from the wandering ambition of a wayward heart that did not want to stay near his family. He ruled his son with an iron fist and heaped upon him expectations few men could meet. But that was after he experienced the horrors of war and its physical and psychological effects.

What fascinates me is that this letter predated Europe. It was amazing to read Eugene's own words as he left for war. A 26-year-old young adult from rural Alabama, he was concerned about his family's finances. He was hoping his sister would get a job. He was hoping his big brother could avoid the war altogether. Things any soldier would write in a goodbye as he prepared to board a ship destined for a much different world across the Atlantic.

My dad has been on a mission in recent years to find out more about his family. I have enjoyed being on the ride with him because I desperately want to know about my heritage — good and bad. I love to hear about my grandfather, especially so since he passed away, and even about my dad's life. I want to know where they lived and who they knew. What they felt and why they made the choices they made.

Like I said, I love a good investigation. And the story of my great grandfather's life keeps getting fuller and fuller. As does the story of my grandfather. My dad has found out so much about his dad in the course of going through boxes of stuff. It's an investigation after a death that is making the past come alive.

How cool.

.