I enjoy writing. Even more than that, I wanted to be a reporter when I grew up. I love writing and reading, and I owe it all to my Mom’s influence.  This lady read books, constantly.  She also wrote letters, by the dozen.  She kept an ongoing journal, by way of once or twice weekly letters to my Gramma, from 1964 to 1994.

I inherited this treasure from my Gramma, which has been added to by my mother in law, my grandfather, and my Dad.  Each one has added a letter (or a dozen) to my collection of letters from Mom.  Presently they reside in an accordion file, arranged by year, on the top shelf of my bedroom closet.  If we ever had a house fire, the two things I would grab, besides my kids, are those letters and my laptop. 

The history of my family is written in those “Book Letters”, as everyone began calling them.  Mom had planned to eventually write a book about the life of a Coast Guard wife, using the letters my Gramma was saving for her.  The Lord had other plans though, and Mom died of cancer in February 1994, at the age of  45.  I was 22 at the time.

The question I wish to pose to all of you is this:

What should I DO with them? Many ideas have come through my mind, but most entail me retyping every single letter, in order to digitize them. What about her handwritten ones? There’s just something about reading her hand written letters that is just so special to me.  HER Handwriting.

I have pondered a possible solution in a PDF scanner that I saw for sale at Costco.  The package says it’s for scanning receipts and other documents, but would it work for 30 years’ worth of letters?  And how long would it take?  I just have no idea. 

The next question is what do I do with them from THERE? I’ve seriously been considering having them published in book format, with family pictures included.  No one but family would want it, but what a treasure it would be!  (OK so my crazy off-the-deep-end bad teenage years could be skipped? Maybe?  Or Edited?)

What would you do with them?