{"id":30221,"date":"2013-02-13T00:09:24","date_gmt":"2013-02-13T08:09:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/?p=30221"},"modified":"2013-02-13T00:09:24","modified_gmt":"2013-02-13T08:09:24","slug":"love-letters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/30221","title":{"rendered":"Love Letters"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\tLove letters \u2026<\/p>\n<p>Feel your heart rate quicken?<\/p>\n<p>Who doesn&#8217;t <em>love<\/em> the prospect of a good love letter?<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s a little something seductive about them,<\/p>\n<p>and I&#8217;m not just talking about scented stationery and wistful words.<\/p>\n<p>Love letters have a timeless quality, luring our imaginations through the pages of history like no textbook ever could, preserving memories for generations.<\/p>\n<p>When my parents were finally tucked into their graves, we discovered a secret box my mother had kept in a cedar chest in our basement that contained every love letter, note\u00a0and card my parents had ever given\u00a0each other, some\u00a0of them\u00a0dated before they&#8217;d\u00a0married. The letters my father had mailed back home while he was away at war made it seem like my parents were the stars of a movie we&#8217;d\u00a0discovered for the first time.<\/p>\n<p>You can imagine the thrill of an elderly California couple who were recently reunited with their own long-lost love letters after 40 years.<\/p>\n<p>High school sweethearts Lloyd and Marian Michael married on Dec. 31, 1942, only to be separated shortly thereafter when Lloyd joined the Army Air Corps to serve as a mechanic in Europe during World War II.<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 370px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"gallant_manners-love_letters-005\" src=\"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/gallant_manners-love_letters-005.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"360\" height=\"226\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Image courtesy of Graphicsfairy.blogspot.com<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&#8220;I just lived for the day when the postman would bring a letter,&#8221; Marian said. &#8220;You know, it was the only way we communicated. The only way we had any touch with each other.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>(<em>There&#8217;s that tingle again<\/em>.)<\/p>\n<p>Eventually, the couple accumulated a steamer trunk full of missives and memories that they treasured for 30 years of their marriage until their home was robbed, and the trunk of letters was stolen.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We were devastated to think someone would steal our love letters and probably throw them to the wind,&#8221; Marian remembers.<\/p>\n<p>The couple had long given up their letters for lost when Lloyd received a phone call from a stranger, a fellow veteran who had tracked him down through the military. Although he apparently had no connection to the robbery, the man had the Michaels&#8217; letters in his possession and was compelled to help them find their way home.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;And they came home,&#8221; Lloyd said.<\/p>\n<p>Just in time for the couple&#8217;s 70th wedding anniversary.<\/p>\n<p>Makes you want to spritz a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.maryjanesfarm.tv\/DrawDIYVideos.asp?Action=GetDIYVideo&amp;MagazineVideoID=46&amp;MagazineIssueID=6\">pretty piece of paper<\/a> and start penning your heart out, doesn&#8217;t it?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Love letters \u2026 Feel your heart rate quicken? Who doesn&#8217;t love the prospect of a good love letter? There&#8217;s a little something seductive about them, and I&#8217;m not just talking about scented stationery and wistful words. Love letters have a &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/30221\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/30221\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[335],"class_list":["post-30221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gallant_manners","tag-gallant-manners"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30221\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}