My Dearest Daughter

In 1958 my mother got married and moved across the country. These are the letters written to her, mainly by her mother, between 1958 and 1960, as well as other artifacts from my family’s past. Others in the series are in my del.icio.us file.

There are no letters from my grandmother during the summer of 1959 so I’m sort of flitting around in the archival material of letters and cards that I do have – and there are plenty.

Around 1920 or so, my grandmother, Helen,  fell in love with a young man named Tony.  Tony was a Lithuanian American just like she was.  I guess it was pretty serious because they had this engagement picture taken!

But it didn’t work out.  Tony wanted to go back to Lithuania but Helen wanted to stay in the United States. He left and then sent for her but she never came.  Europe was war torn, and they lost touch.

A little while later, she met a welder named Calvin Leckrone, and after a rocky courtship, they married on Easter Sunday 1927.

Now Tony had given my grandmother a diamond engagement ring.  She also had one from Calvin, so many years later she decided that it was silly to have two diamond rings and so she had the stones from each ring mounted into one setting.

As I remember, my grandpa wasn’t very happy about that, but grandma, being the practical one, thought it was just fine.  I currently wear this ring on my ring finger instead of my own wedding band.  My band fit me when I married at barely 120 pounds, but seven pregnancies later I can’t even slip it on; grandma’s special double diamond ring just fits better – at least for now!

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