Miriam McMichael's 1931 letter to Dollena McMichael
David Leaming/Centralmaine.com
A then-23-year-old Miriam McMichael sent the nine-page letter from Houlton, Maine, to Dollena McMichael, her mother, in Pittsfield, Maine. Both women have since died.
The letter was lost and only recently found at the Pittsfield post office. Postal worker Michelle Rowell found it and tells the Morning Sentinel she knew it was old because of the 2-cent stamp.
The postmaster and town officials tracked down the family, and the letter is now in the hands of 69-year-old Ann MacMichael, of Cornville, Maine, Miriam's niece and Dollena's granddaughter. The spelling of the family name has changed.
Ann MacMichael holding her aunt's letter
David Leaming / Centralmaine.com
MacMichael says the irony is that her aunt apologizes in the letter for not writing sooner. Miriam and her mother were close and often wrote one another.
"One of the best parts for me of what she wrote was that she apologized for not writing sooner, as she knew her mother had been anxiously waiting all week for a letter – which, as we know, was never received," Ann MacMichael told the Morning Sentinel. "She said, 'I'm just getting around to writing. I imagine you have been anxiously waiting for a letter all week. I have no excuses, but that I just didn't get to it and there are lots of things to tell you, too.'"
The letter contains the same irreverent humor MacMichael remembers from growing up with her aunt.
"We always have thought of our aunt as a strong woman with a mind of her own and with a way of saying what was on her mind, but often using a mix of humor to make it more palatable," MacMichael shared.
Illustration of the sinking of the Titanic
Universal History Archive / Getty
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