My wife and I first met our elderly widow neighbor down the street when we were trying to surprise her by leaving a Mayday basket of flowers at her home earlier this year. Well, she caught us and invited us in for a beautiful visit. She loved that we remembered the old tradition. I decided to send her a brief snail mail note in Spencerian knowing that her children and grandchildren typically only email or text her and thinking she might appreciate this gesture from the past.
A few weeks ago, I was again visiting and happened to ask if she had received mail “from someone." Oh, yes! her eyes brightened, and she rushed off to show me she had saved the letter, and then said, “I recognized this," meaning the pen and ink cursive. She told me that she had a box of old letters that were in the drawer of an antique desk she had purchased some 50 years ago! Well, I got really excited, and she let me take them home to borrow and enjoy. The correspondence was a series of letters from 1839-1840 that had many vague references to what appeared to be a possible marriage proposal that had gone wrong. As my neighbor said, “he had plans, she had plans, but they weren’t the same plans!" I have since made typed transcriptions of the 11 letters with many of my own editorial musings and questions so she can revisit them without straining her eyes. Mr. Hays writes with a very legible, but small hand at 1 mm x-height. Miss Elizabeth's cursive is also legible at 2 mm.
