"Dear Virginia": A Soldier's Love Letters

A couple of weeks ago, I spent some time in Brimfield, Massachusetts with my mom, sister, and aunt at the Brimfield Antique Fair. My terrific aunt is a wheeling and dealing vendor at Brimfield and this was my second time joining her under a giant yellow and white striped canvas tent, amidst a wild array of vintage clothing and the most interesting assortment of people you could bring together in one place at one time.

After helping set up my aunt's boutique in the Mahogany Ridge Fashion Tent, I headed out to wander around the endless acres of antique-filled tents. If you haven't been to Brimfield, then it's hard to imagine because words can't really describe just how random, hilarious, and wonderful it is! It's essentially a jungle of everything from collectibles to items you could swear came straight from your Grandma's attic. The neat thing is there's something for everyone there, whether young or old and you just never can predict what treasures you'll find.Such as this Aussie looking vintage hat, which came home with me.

I scoped out various tents, and after purchasing a Victorian looking wristwatch, stumbled across a boutique with an assortment of old letters, tied with dark ribbon. I immediately snatched up the packet with the most letters and excitedly asked the vendor if the real letters were still intact. Clutching them to me when her answer came back affirmative, I paid the six dollars and headed back to my aunt's tent to read them.

To my excitement, I found that I had picked a stack of letters from the 1940's. They were written by a young soldier, Theodore Mayville, to his sweetheart, a girl named Virginia Watson, who was living in Grand Isle, Vermont. His letters were the only ones in the pile, but my romantic mind enjoyed imagining her replies.

For me, this somewhat deteriorated pile of papers was like a miniature time capsule and as I poured over each letter, it made me realize just how much has been lost in modern communication, whether it be through social media, texting, or other forms of dialogue. Once easily obtained, a message seems to be that much less precious and though convenient, the occasional text only conveys the bare minimum, making one's thoughts and emotions much less intimate. I pull out some stationary and write letters every month or so, but my absentminded scribblings can't compare to these letters, which conveyed every emotion this young man was feeling: sadness, longing, bitterness, joy, all conveyed in a few hundred words.

   Theodore was clearly stricken and wrote some overwhelmingly affectionate lines to "Ginny." But other moments have a grave tone to them, as Theodore must have been experiencing the suffering that only a soldier could understand, he tells her to keep her fingers crossed and pray that he might return to her side when the War is over.

After tearing through these letters, I wanted so badly to know what had happened to these two young people. He had begun writing to her from a training ground somewhere in the South Pacific, but in the last several letters, he'd been in Germany. I had to know. Did Theodore return to the states? Did he survive the war? What happened to Ginny?

A picture that fell out of one of the envelopes. I'd imagine one of these young women is "Ginny."

So I began to research, and sure enough, I found an obituary from just last year of one Theodore Mayville. As I scanned the obit, I became increasingly disappointed. It looked like Theodore's wife was not called Virginia. With a sinking heart, I realized they must have fallen apart. However, in the finishing paragraphs I saw that "Teddy," as he'd dubbed himself, had been preceded in death by his first wife and the mother of his children, Virginia. There it was! I triumphantly shouted, "THEY DID GET MARRIED!" And then realized, that I was slightly emotionally invested at this point. Virginia and Teddy married and had several children together. After her death, Teddy remarried.

My question now, is why would someone throw out these beautiful notes; this written testimony of a father's, or perhaps a grandfather's love?  Maybe I'm just more sentimental than most. In any case, I loved reading them and they gave much joy to a stranger decades after they were written. After all, who doesn't love a happy ending?