Larry Hnetka Goes HMmmm

A package of letters my father wrote to his sister Lillian and his family during the War emerged a few years ago when my Aunt Lillian passed away. I don’t think any of us knew of these letters — my father’s voice once again speaking to his family through his handwritten thoughts.

It didn’t surprise me to learn that Aunt Lillian had amassed a huge and eclectic collection of letters, newspaper clippings, programs and pictures about many of the family.

When my Aunt Lillian passed away a number of years ago, my cousin Roberta handed over the letters as Aunt Lillian had requested she do. Roberta gave some to my brother Don who still lives in Regina and to my brother Mike in Ottawa.

My father’s letters apparently are in remarkably good condition. But you know how family circumstances some time make the simple things of life complicated. For whatever the reasons which still are not clear to me, neither my sister Brenda, my oldest brother Bob nor I have been able to read my father’s letters.

After a few years of nagging, just after Christmas this year my brother Mike sent me this one page by e-mail. It was a bit of a shock to just look at my father’s handwriting. Handwriting I recognized immediately.

My father passed away some 30 years ago. He never had the opportunity to see me grow and mature into an adult. That we didn’t have such a relationship is one of the few regrets of my life.

Mike had contacted the War Museum in Ottawa when he received and read my father’s letters. Mke says the Museum was interested in taking a look at the letters for possible preservation in their archives.

Having only this one page as reference, I assume that personal letters such as these would give historians some insight into what an ordinary soldier from small town Saskatchewan withstood when serving his country during wartime.

I chuckled when I read my father asking for tobacco rather than cigarettes - his delight in having saved so much money on only $19 per month — of cussing with his brother and his cousin Bill — the very basic rhythms of every day life of which he writes resonates within me.

It makes me wonder what else my father said in these letters to his sister and family. Letters so carefully packaged and safeguarded for decades in my Aunt Lillian’s basement.

Even if they are just the daily chatter of a brother writing to his sister, that chatter might fill in those gaps in the relationship I never had with my father.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 28th, 2005 at 8:52:42 AM and is filed under JOURNAL. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.