You've Got Mail?

Mail delivery used to be the highlight of the day. The mailman would drive up to the box by the road or drop mail through the slot in the door, and the sound would have everyone running to see if perhaps they "got mail." My grandmother wrote often and profusely about both the growth and bloom of each flower in her garden, and the death of every person in her community, whether we were acquainted or not. It didn't matter. It was a connection.

In early America, letters with family news and important documents could take days, weeks to months to be delivered. They made slow crossings over oceans, with precarious adventures through wild untamed lands. The Pony Express tied the East to West, along with other overland companies and private carriers. Completed railways were highly welcomed for both travel and postal services. Letter writing gained momentum, as well as goods moving between the Atlantic and the Pacific and from northern to southern borders. The Sears and Roebucks catalogs were like Amazon and sold everything a person could need, including complete houses, from blueprints to all the supplies. Did you know that at one time parents even mailed their babies?

It is a historical fact that in the early 1900s, when there were no clear guidelines for what could and what couldn't be mailed, there were cases of parents mailing their children to family members across the miles. In 1913, a couple took advantage of new parcel services to send their infant son to his grandparents. It cost 15 cents in stamps. The baby was handed over to a mailman who delivered the "parcel" to the grandparents one mile away. The longest trip recorded was 760 miles for an older child, from Florida to Virginia. The last journey was 40 miles through Kentucky.

It wasn't common to send a baby or child by post, but postage was less expensive than a railway ticket. In most cases the parents knew the railway postman and gave their child's care over to a friend. Nonetheless, by 1920 Postmaster General Koons firmly rejected children being classified as "harmless live animals" and forbid the practice. But not before the true adventure, written and illustrated by Michael O. Tunnel and Ted Rand, having a little girl traveling 75 miles through Idaho to surprise her grandmother in the story "Mailing May."

Mail order brides were a big deal, too. Montgomery Ward actually offered a mail order bride catalog. Men could make their pick. Many widowers, needing a woman to care for their children and home, took advantage of the services. "Sarah Plain and Tall" by Patricia MacLachlan tells the story of a woman facing spinsterhood, traveling from the shores of Maine to wide open prairie lands to care for a widower's two young children. Local author Lauraine Snelling's book "Blessing in Disguise" tells the story of a young Norwegian immigrant who takes a wrong turn and is mistaken for a mail order bride. (Book No. 6 of Snelling's Red River of the North series.)

With the arrival of computers, the internet, email, Facebook and more, the exchange of information and writing letters took a hard hit. Letter writing became archaic, a literary dinosaur. People now check their phones and an actual letter written on pretty stationary by hand is a rarity to be relished by few. Which brings me to Lynne M. Kolze's "Please Write: Finding Joy and Meaning in the Soulful Art of Handwritten Letters." Kolze explains how people need meaningful contact in life that goes beyond a quick text or short email. They need deeper personal connections.

The term "you've got mail" has meant many things, from love letters and houses, to babies. It means business and groceries and fast connections. But that does not mean we must be held within a vise of human made constriction. When appropriate, you can make even a text feel personal, created with just the right context and words. You can answer appropriately with a very sterile business inquiry or wax poetic with a friend. And if so inspired, you can actually write a physical letter and send it through the mail for 73 cents, the price of four babies with change.

Good Books.

Good reading.

*Midge Lyn'dee is a fictional character used for the purpose of entertainment though the reviews are real and sincere.