Inside were letters.
Hundreds of them. Some on nice stationery. Most on notebook paper. Some on the backs of feed store receipts and seed catalogs. All different handwriting. Some in pencil. Some in pen. Some so shaky they were hard to read.
“These came to our house,” I said. “Over fifty years. From customers.”
I pulled one out at random. It was on a piece of lined paper torn out of a spiral notebook. Pencil. I read it out loud.
Mr. Whitaker. You gave my husband a loan in 1985 when nobody else would. He passed last week. He told me to tell you we kept the farm. Our grandson is running it now. Thank you. — Marlene Voss.
I pulled out another one.
Dear George. You probably don’t remember me. I came in to open an account in 1991. I had $14. I was nineteen and pregnant and my parents had kicked me out. The teller (I think her name was Dot?) gave me a peppermint and didn’t make me feel like trash. I own a hair salon now. I have three employees. I just wanted you to know. — Ruth Abernathy.
