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Letter to a Grandmother « The Thinking Housewife
The Thinking Housewife
 

Letter to a Grandmother

January 19, 2016

ALAN writes:

Two years ago, I cited a judgment by the American novelist Jean Stafford about the weakening of the family as a cause of moral and cultural decay.  [A Literary Divorcée on Family, August 19, 2014]

What follows is another judgment on that same matter.

From 1931 to 1959, the Dean of Women at Washington University in St. Louis was a woman named Adele Starbird. For many years, she also wrote a regular column in a St. Louis newspaper.  In 1972 my father read, clipped, and saved one of her columns.  Rereading it a few days ago, I saw in that essay the same value that he saw in it and that I believe will also be evident to you and your readers.  Here is the substance of that column:

“I came across this letter among my mother’s papers, written by a teenage grandson when my mother was 94 years old.  She evidently cherished it and with good reason.  I have not changed a word, not even the split infinitive.  I reproduce it here, because I think he is right about the ultimate security of our country. 

‘Dear Grand-mere:  Instead of sending you the ordinary Mother’s Day greeting, I thought I would rather write you a letter.  It is more fun to express my own sentiments than those written by someone else, even if the others are better written. 

‘This Sunday gives me an opportunity to be thankful that I have such a wonderful mother, but my good fortune does not end there.  I have also two grandmothers who I consider to be the best in the world.  From there I could go on to Tante Harriet, Liz, and all the rest of my uncles and aunts, cousins, etc. 

‘But in this letter I would like to especially emphasize how much you mean to me.  When all the world may be torn apart there is one unit that remains strong – that is the family.  One of the weaknesses of the United States today is that too many families are weak, and without a strong foundation how can we ever hope to do anything? 

‘If ever I do anything in life it will be for the sole reason that I have had the very strongest possible foundation of a family.  When all else looks hopeless there is always one source of strength on which I can rely and that is God, and it seems that God comes to me through my family.  Frequently when I get depressed I get one of your wonderful letters and I feel depressed no longer.  So on this Mother’s Day I would like to tell you how much I have benefitted from having you for a grandmother—a debt I can never repay.’

“I am glad that he took the time out of his multiple teen-age activities to write to an old lady.  And I am glad that he understood so early in life the deep significance of the family with all its branches – the solidarity, the density of its relationships, the mutual helpfulness and responsibilities.  Family life is built day by day by innumerable little sacrifices and acts of love, by performance of duties, by ‘anticipatory forgiveness’ and shared joys……” [Adele Starbird, “Strength in Family Ties”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Aug. 24, 1972, p. 3F]

I, too, think the young man was right about the irreplaceable value of the family as the foundation of a civilized society.  And I suggest that the convictions he expressed in his letter are an example of what is required for a restoration of proper moral and cultural standards.

Note carefully that he wrote that letter in or about 1956 – i.e., in a world before 24-hour television, music CDs, videocassettes, DVDs, computers, the Internet, computer games, and electronic gadgets.  Sixty years later, we might wonder how many American boys today possess even the ability, let alone the inclination, to write such a letter.

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