Voices from the Past
Uncovering three generations of Alexandria families, one letter at a time.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
When she was confronted with six boxes of old letters, author Barb Winters knew she had a good story. She could smell it. There, in the handwritten script from three generations of Alexandria families was every bit of drama a storyteller could hope to craft — love, larceny, triumph and tragedy. Now that story is finally available in her new book, "Letters to Virginia," published by Acclaim press and available for $24.95.
"I feel like I know these people," said Winters after the official book launch last weekend at the Burke Library. "I certainly spent enough time with them."
It all began in 2000, when a descendant of the family arrived at the Local History Special Collections Department of the Barrett Library with boxes and boxes of handwritten letters. Winters was a library assistant at the time, and she volunteered to sort the letters and see what was there — essentially an effort to see if these letters were worth keeping. The conclusion, it didn’t take long to figure out, was that these old letters were not only worth keeping, there was something special here. She spent the next three years sifting through the letters and writing her book.
"I often think of the inspiration of true love, writing as I do a love letter about every day," Jack Tackett writes to his wife in 1902. "I fear some times that the material will exhaust but no, each day brings some thought that is new and the stream goes on just as the mountain torrent and yet changing its ripples with the passing days."
The letters read like an epic story of love and loss, devotion and betrayal. In the Victorian prose of the era, the generations struggle through hopes and fears, revealing an Alexandria long forgotten by the modern mind. There’s the heart-rending letter describing the death of Carrie Eaches, written by a grieving husband. There’s the plodding sense of determination family members adopted during the Union occupation. There’s even a carefully orchestrated swindle in which Will Fendall systematically stole his sister’s savings and inheritance.
"As usual that scoundrel has presented a pack of lies," Ben Fendall writes to his sister in 1921 about their brother’s scheme. "When you get down to real facts, your money has been taken from you by a trick."The pages of "Letters to Virginia" include descriptions of a prisoner of war camp and describe the construction of a railroad. Some are steamy romantic letters while other outline the course of war and disease.
Winters concludes the book with an observation that modern people no longer collect correspondence in a way that would make a project like this possible for future generations, allowing the story of the past to be told in a series gripping first-person accounts."Our inventions and gadgets wear out before we do," she writes at the end of the book, "and instead of passing on our history, thoughts, and feelings — as these families did — we pass on pollution and landfills."
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The article appears here.
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