Century-old love letters found hidden inside N.S. home
A family in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, has come across 31 love letters that had been hidden behind a wall in their house for almost a century.
Pat Mackinnon and her family stumbled across the letters during a renovation project.
The letters were written by Captain Graham Roome to his fiancée Annie Hollett, as he fought in Europe during the First World War. They spanned five years and three countries, as he described details of the war, life abroad, and his feelings for her.
A passage in one of the letters reads: "I could almost imagine you here with me, your arms tucked through mine and every little while you'd look up at me and say I love you little boy..."
Roome eventually married Hollett, and in 1920 they built the house in Dartmouth where Mackinnon now lives.
When Mackinnon found the letters, she wanted to know more about the couple and if they had surviving family members.
"We started to read them, then I rushed home to Google the names and found the family," said Mackinnon.
She was able to track down Chris May, the grandson of Roome, who said the couple lived a long, happy marriage."
"They were very genuine, an in-love couple, and they served each other equally and faithfully all the way through," said May.
Along with the letters, the family found a Christmas card and pictures.
"I was so impressed with the times, his writing is beautiful, I thought wow, my sense is they were educated, madly in love, and apart from 1915 to 1919," said Mackinnon.
The letters have been given to the Roome's family.
With a report by CTV Atlantic's Kelland Sundahl
04/05/2011 7:25:59 PM
CTV.ca News Staff
Oh, don't we all dream of finding a mysterious bundle of letters (or alternately, a hidden treasure) in a wall of our old homes! Of course, those letters ARE a hidden treasure. This would make such a great novel!!
ReplyDelete