Torn Page: A Stranger's Letter to my Grandmother

Unpacking memories becomes a form of hazardous duty, as questions arise, and a shadow crawls along the ceiling of a distant bedroom. This is the story of my great uncle’s house and the woman who became its new owner.

Once, in the quietness of a late afternoon, as I awaited my simmering beef stew, I decided to explore the remnants of my grandmother’s life and wonder about its mysteries, the episodes and intrigues she avoided discussing over the years. With that in mind, I walked away from my dinner and entered my home office, reaching up to the highest shelf of a closet, where I retrieved one of her belongings. 

Probing a cache of dusty keepsakes, my fingers slowly grasped a small plastic box — of the sort that contains odds and ends from desks and kitchen tables — where a series of treasures awaited me. I had placed it in the darkness of a high shelf long ago, knowing that it would one day recapture my attention. And at the arrival of twilight, on that particular occasion, the box of memories came to mind with a certain insistence.

Then, I opened it.  

My discovery yielded several photos and an envelope from the recent past. By the time the artifacts were arrayed before me, there was no turning back from the journey. So, I entered a new landscape of recollection, prepared to explore its steep and rocky terrain.

As for the photos, the images were at once mundane and jarring; the face of my mother staring in sorrow and discontent from the 1970s; a picture of my great grandmother whose history is largely unknown to me; and the portrait of a great uncle, a mysterious figure who drifted away from the American South during the 1920s, puzzling his worried family, only to reappear in San Diego, California, circa 1980. And then, I discovered an envelope addressed to my grandmother, written in a hand I did not recognize. For its lack of familiarity, as well as the inviting texture of its dog-eared corners, the slightly torn page of history became my focus.

I placed the pictures back in their box and removed the letter, smiling at the quaint pattern of flowers that adorned it. The stationary was ordinary to a fault, hinting at the pleasant woman who wrote to friends and family on its pages, a stranger about whom I knew nothing. Then, I began to decipher the cursive before me, the elegant impressions that spoke of another era, a time when words were given more honorable shapes with flourishes and embellishments, all of them unique to the writer’s hand. And with each curved letter, I learned something new, details that were private but relevant to a shared history. Before we move in that direction, however, we need to explore a bit more context.

A Strange Place, a Disquieting Atmosphere

Although the main character of this story is my great uncle’s house, my grandmother is very much a part of the narrative. One of his favorite sisters, she maintained a lengthy correspondence with her elder brother — until he simply vanished into a haze of unanswered letters during the early 1930s. We will explore that narrative a bit later. First, let’s continue with a digression into my grandmother’s story.

Near the end of her life, she agreed to live with my parents and sell her old house on Glassell Street in Los Angeles. At the time, I was attending the University of California, Santa Barbara, and had little to do with her new phase of life, learning about the arrangement from the distance of another city. And this separation was comforting to me in no small measure. The joy of planning and conducting the move belonged to my mother, who would often call me in fits of frustration, complaining about the odds and ends my grandmother had accumulated over the years, many of which she hoped to retain — including the box that contained the stranger’s letter. In the future, my mother would leave furlongs of stuff to me after her death, continuing an odd tradition, but here I digress a bit further — perhaps somewhat too far — into the strange plot twists and shadows of family history. Anyway, let’s return to our main story for now, since we have more terrain to cover. 

At the moment I found the letter and felt the impression of words penned by a stranger, I recalled my childhood home and my grandparents’ house, as well, with its sweet and sheltering influence. And the thought of a stranger’s narrative unfolding in our former homes felt endearing and, at once, a bit sad. With that interlude, I reflected on the strange character of time, how its movements are likened to the flight of birds and its secrets conveyed in beautiful penmanship. Beyond the pleasures of remembrance and speculation, however, there was a lesson in this experience for which I am grateful.

The woman reminded me that my relatives were not mine alone; they had lives of excitement in the world of yesterday, impacting all manner of people, none of whom I will ever know. So, who was this stranger?

The letter was written by the most recent owner of my great uncle’s house, an old structure situated on Market Street in San Diego, California. Back in the 1990s, the woman had traced my grandmother to my parents’ address and reached out, quite graciously, with her flowered stationary. As the new owner, she was a bit curious; the house was a rather bizarre place with a disquieting air, and she wondered about my great uncle. And I became inquisitive about the situation, as well. Would my grandmother respond to the letter and shed light on our family history? Moreover, would she reveal herself in a meaningful way to a stranger? We continue our journey with a closer look at my relatives.

From Louisiana to Europe: Further Digressions

My grandmother and her siblings were born and raised in Louisiana, bayou country, to be exact, shortly after the Civil War. There were eight children, the five brothers being a good bit older, all with rather adventurous lives. For now, we will focus on the story of the great uncle mentioned above, an eccentric character who enjoyed taking selfies long before the convenience of iPhones. Interestingly, I found stacks of self-portraits he had taken over many decades, for which he posed rakishly, always with a hint of mischief in his eyes.

And the mysteries abound.

Like the house on Market Street, the rake in question was a bit odd, having moved suddenly to France in 1924 and then to Spain shortly thereafter. We eventually learned that he had married twice, his first wife being Spanish and very elegant in the photos we discovered. In time, they divorced, and he met his second wife somewhere in Norway, continuing as an expat with a fondness for secrecy. Apparently, I have a few Norwegian cousins out there, about whom I know nothing. As for my wandering uncle, I found a letter from the 1940s that established his return to the United States. 

Engraved by an old typewriter on government letterhead, it thanked him for his service during the Second World War, the nature of which was unspecified but appeared to be administrative, if I remember correctly. So, we can infer that my great uncle spent a number of years back in the United States, estranged from his family, only making contact during the 1980s. By that time, the three sisters remained but most of the brothers were deceased, all the siblings having been mysterious in their own ways. And some of them seemed downright tragic, their sorrows becoming the whispered embarrassment of family secrets, previous decades being far less enlightened. Even now, I can recall a story I learned as a child, having overheard a few of my grandmother’s hushed conversations.

Apparently, one of the brothers experienced some sort of breakdown and committed suicide in Arkansas during the 1950s. His widow gave my grandmother his old wallet for a keepsake, and she carried it in her purse for the remainder of her life. As a child, I would often smell the rich fragrance of the leather as it aged and slowly decayed, wondering about the inscription it bore, the gold letters naming a man from long ago. 

As for the details of her brother’s sorrow, my grandmother was either unwilling or unable to describe them. The subject was discretely ignored over the years, hiding in the shadow of old photos, resurfacing only when my mother and I could speak in quiet tones. Such were the ways of the past. 

I thought back on these stories as I considered the drama of my great uncle’s house, feeling intrigued as well as cheated, wishing that someone had kept better records for me to discover. As it stands, I’ve only ever found a few documents, here and there, on rare and fortunate occasions. That’s how it goes with family history.

So, the stranger’s letter is something of a portal, a return to the distant past, where questions remain, and answers are subject to interpretation. Really, it was no more than a warm greeting and a request for a bit of historical information. Yet, it somehow conveyed much more. I could tell from the tone that the house was indeed a bit disquieting, and the woman was likely desperate for answers. However, knowing my mother and grandmother as I did, I was certain that they had never written in reply. With that, I found the woman’s email address, after a bit of Google searching, and contacted her myself.

Haunted, Delightfully So . . . 

The new owner of the house turned out to be a nurse and was quite pleasant, although she did not recall having written the letter. In my email, I included as much information regarding my great uncle and grandmother as possible and asked, discretely, about the woman’s experiences with the house. She said that it was delightfully haunted, with photos sometimes appearing upside-down in frames, strange noises cropping up periodically — and a troubling stain on a bedroom ceiling that refused to be covered, constantly resurfacing in angry defiance of paint. It took the form of a crawling shadow, like a creature moving strangely through a dream, night after night.

Such was the history of a delightfully troubling place. 

Apparently, my great uncle had converted the structure into a boarding house, installing bathroom sinks in each bedroom. I think that might have been the creepiest part. Anyway, the owner invited me for a tour and a chat, and I cheerfully suggested that we meet for coffee somewhere downtown, instead, as I did not wish to visit the house. As it turned out, we lost touch, and no further information has come to light. The house, like the selfies and letters from my uncle, contains the haunting energy of a secretive life — one that remains largely hidden to this day. 

Hours flew by as I explored the old box of memories; my stew was nearly ruined. I simply sat transfixed, filled with so many conflicting emotions about people who had died long ago, leaving the messy remnants of their lives as a legacy. My relatives were mine, but only to a point. In truth, they belonged to the world, just as I do, having touched numerous lives before simply disappearing into death, as I will — eventually.

The mysteries we bequeath are precious, lingering to write our stories and keep the generations wondering. They are the torn pages of history that we all share, each family making its own contribution.

Originally published by A. M. Palmer Literary Nonfiction, September 7, 2023.

Collage Notes:

For the thumbnail of this piece, I wished to create a sense of ambience and mystery while, simultaneously, referencing the letter and its centrality to the theme. To achieve this, I decided to crop and overlay a collection of stock images, using various levels of transparency to soften and blend the elements. If you look closely at the door of the house, you will notice the image of a young soldier, glancing with uncertainty from the First World War. Sometimes the most powerful elements are subtle, remaining almost imperceptible in their relationship to the whole. 

Time flies. The softness of a pastel filter compliments the image of a hummingbird, with an old letter and a sunlit hint of greenery adding texture and continuity to the piece. We note here that repeating an image can lend strength to a composition. 

For the third collage, I arranged a picture of an old cigar tin, a book, and a bouquet of bright pink flowers on a textured background, all from Pixabay. I used a 30 percent transparency for the cigar tin, placing it over the edge of a cropped photo. By making the bouquet brown and pairing it with the patina of an old book, I hoped to emphasize the historical theme of the essay. 

I am currently in the process of creating a more detailed collage tutorial, for those who are interested. Stay tuned! 

I thank you for taking the time to read and comment on my work. Cheers!