NEW SWEDEN, Maine — The holidays and family memories seem to go hand in hand, and to this day one New Sweden woman holds close the memories evoked from a letter written 72 years ago by her Army dad, disappointed that he couldn’t be with her for her very first Christmas.
“It’s meant a lot to me, because I still have it. I’ve kept it in my jewelry box,” said Irma Anderson of New Sweden. “I wouldn’t part with it.”
She recently was inspired to write a letter back to her father, who died in 1986, and plans to send it heavenward by balloon at 11 a.m. Saturday, Dec. 12, in a special ceremony at the Maine Veterans Cemetery in Caribou.
Anderson hoped the idea of releasing a letter as a symbol of family love would appeal to others and has encouraged the community to turn out for the event. Though the focus may be on the military and their families, all are invited to write a letter to a loved one. No funds are being raised and there is no cost to attend. Participants are encouraged to place their letters in a zippered plastic bag and attach them to a small balloon. Those who can’t be there are encouraged to release balloons wherever they are.
To help with the tribute, Caribou’s National Weather Service office is donating the use of a weather balloon and Matheson Gas of Presque Isle is contributing the helium; individual letters will be attached to the larger balloon and sent aloft. And, as part of the ceremony, a digital taps will be played.
Anderson was born in St. Francis, the daughter of Clovis and Leoneal Jandreau. She was only 5 days old when her father was drafted into the Army and 6 months old when he wrote her the following letter on Thursday, Dec. 22, 1943:
My Dear Little Irma Lee,
Daddy is disappointed that he couldn’t send you a Christmas present, but he sure thinks of you just the same. … Now Irma, Daddy wants you to be a good little girl. Don’t cry too much and cause Mommy a lot of trouble because she has enough trouble as it is.
Here’s hoping that your Daddy will be with you two before very long.
Daddy wants you to say a little prayer for him each night so that he will be with you and Mommy soon and we three may be happy together for a long, long while.
Love, Your Dad, Pvt. Clovis Jandreau.
Irma’s story
Carefully preserved, the letter’s ink is faded but still legible after more than 70 years.
Irma guessed she must have been in grammar school when she learned of her father’s note to her.
“I was pretty young,” she said.
The letter moved her then and has continued to do so through the years.
“It touched me just because he had to leave Mom and I, and I know how hard it must have been, because I was only a baby,” she said.
She was 2 when her father returned home for good from the service.
“I was really kind of scared of him,” Anderson recalled with a chuckle, “because I didn’t know him. And I didn’t like him near my mother — my mother had been ‘mine’ for two years.”
Seventy-two years later, Anderson felt inspired to share her love for her father in her own letter, and though he is gone now she hopes the emotions will somehow reach through the wisps of time and place.
In part, she has written:
Dear Dad,
We had such a wonderful life together and our prayers all those years ago did come true. We were together for a long, long time. I’m writing you this letter and mailing it by a first-class Christmas balloon at the memorial cemetery here in Caribou, Maine. …
When you receive this letter, could you please tell Mom for us that we miss you both very much. You may now know this, Dad, but you were able to give me a gift on my very first Christmas after all. The true gift was the loving, heartwarming words in your letter, that I carry in my heart to this very day.
Paying it forward
Anderson hoped other folks would embrace the idea and come out for Saturday’s event.
“For one thing, it’s going to be nice for families of other veterans to send up a letter to a veteran after all these years,” she said. After all, keeping in touch with those serving in the armed forces was difficult then. “There was no communication like there is today between veterans and their families,” she said.
Without Skype and other tools, families and service members could only wish and hope that their greetings would reach their loved ones. That’s why she liked the idea of sharing a heartfelt greeting in a new way.
“You can’t really be together, all you can do is remember them and share the good memories,” she said. “I think this letter is going to be special to send to him.”
April Caron of Caribou, who will mark the first holiday season without her husband, plans to participate in Saturday’s event.
“My husband Conrad passed away suddenly after a tragic accident seven months ago,” she said. “It has been very dramatic for us. He was such a great husband and dad to our children.”
After reading an article in the Aroostook Republican & News about Anderson’s project, she shared it with her children.
“It touched us greatly,” she said.
Caron and daughter Michele Lynn Caron of Benton City, Washington, and son Marty Caron of San Diego, California, each have written their letters, and Caron herself will be at the Veterans Cemetery on Saturday.
She said the three have shared how writing their letters really helped begin the healing process.
“It gets your feelings out on paper, and if there’s anything you wanted to say that you’ve left unsaid, it just helps immensely,” she said. “It helped my daughter immensely to get it out [in writing]. It started her healing process, where she could feel that she had done everything she could do to tell him whatever she wanted to express to him. And my son told me it just really helped him to empty himself on paper.”
Caron said she has been spreading the word about the balloon release, particularly to those she knows who have lost a loved one recently. She, like Anderson, hopes people can find comfort and peace from the event and this unique process of sharing their emotions.
“It gives you that peace,” she added. “I felt there was joy coming back into my heart. I could see sunshine.”