Back in the days when “airmail” meant handing a note to the stagecoach driver and hoping for the best, love often took the form of ink on paper and patience by the bucketful.
Nowadays, with email and so much being done online, handwritten letters are slowly becoming a thing of the past. Some even call them an art form! But there’s something timeless about a handwritten letter—the way the paper softens from being read too many times, the little smudges where someone’s fingers lingered, and the unmistakable swoop of their handwriting. Every loop and curve a quiet whisper from the one who wrote it. Sure, sometimes the handwriting was hard to read. But when it’s from someone close to your heart? You don’t mind squinting a little.
In the frontier world of my books, I have a lot of mail-order brides. Letters are sent, but not many before the bride shows up in town and the courting begins—or they get married right away! But in some stories, the letters go deeper. They’re more than communication. They’re lifelines. With miles (and sometimes mountains) between folks, it wasn’t unusual for courtship to happen entirely on paper before a couple ever laid eyes on one another.
Can you imagine falling in love by letter?
History’s full of famous couples who did just that—Napoleon and Joséphine, Alexander Hamilton and Eliza, Balzac and Ewelina, even Beethoven and his mysterious ‘Immortal Beloved.’
No profile pictures. No swiping right. Just pen, paper, and the hope that the words you’re reading are true. That they belong to someone worth waiting for.
And waiting was the key word! Back in the 1800s, love letters didn’t arrive with the tap of a finger. Depending on the distance, weather, and method of transport, a single letter could take weeks—or even months—to reach its destination. Before the Pony Express, cross-country correspondence might take up to three months, especially if it had to travel by wagon train, riverboat, or stagecoach. Add in a snowstorm, a broken wheel, or a delay at a waystation, and you could tack on extra weeks with no warning.
When the Pony Express galloped onto the scene in 1860, it changed everything—for a little while. Daring young riders braved weather, robbers, and rough terrain to carry mail faster than ever before. But the Express only lasted a year before the telegraph—and later, the Transcontinental Railroad—took over, shortening mail times to just days instead of weeks.
Still, even within the same state—or just a few towns apart—letters could take several days to arrive. And yet, lovers waited. They checked the post with fluttering hearts. Some re-read old letters until they almost wore out the paper. Back then, courtships were built on patience, ink, and hope.
It might be old-fashioned… but isn’t that kind of slow-burn, heart-tugging, soul-baring romance exactly what we’re all craving?
Do you still send or receive handwritten letters? Have you written many in your life? Do you have a stack of old ones tucked away—waiting to be read again and again?
Let me know in the comments below!
USA Today bestselling author Kit Morgan is the author of over 180 books of historical and contemporary western romance! Her stories are fun, sweet stories full of love, laughter, and just a little bit of mayhem! Kit creates her stories in her little log cabin in the woods in the Pacific Northwest. An avid reader and knitter, when not writing, she can be found with either a book or a pair of knitting needles in her hands! Oh, and the occasional smidge of chocolate!
I have written many letters in my life. However, I’ve changed with the times and don’t do that much anymore. I don’t get them either.
I think that’s a lot of us, Janice. Email is so fast and convenient.
I send more cards than I do letters but I have saved several letters that mean a lot to me.
Me too, Rhonda. I have my favorite old letters bundled and tied with ribbon. They’re in storage somewhere!
Good morning Kit! I would love to receive letters! I might have told this story, but my parents wrote back and forth in the summer of 1956. I loved reading those letters. Mama’s was filled with working in Jacksonville(State Farm)while staying with her older sister. Hers were filled with what she could purchase with her money for their house and the making of her wedding dress, while Dad’s were filled with working on the farm and going fishing! She later transferred some letters side by side on pillows along with the returned envelopes. She made three for my brothers and I one Christmas. We cherish those!
I did have a childhood friend who I wrote to in the summers between 4th and 5th grade. Today we message each other on our iPads. Yes, times change.
Many blessings Kit!
Oh wow, Tracy! Those letters are precious! I have a few letters my mom wrote to her brother back in the 1940s, but not much else.
Good morning. My mom taught me the joy of writing letters. When our two kiddos were 1 and 3 I fell in love with the idea of making my own cards with a hand written note inside. Our kiddos are now 40 and 38. I still make cards. For the last 20 years I have made it a ministry for church. Get Well, Welcome New Baby, Encouragement etc. I do not put my name on the back, each card is from the church family.
How fun! I’ve always wanted to get into card making but have never had the time.
I have the letters my husband and I wrote back and forth to each other when we were dating. We lived three hundred miles apart. He came to see me on most weekends but we still wrote to each other every weekday. It was a good way to learn more about each other and what we would do during the week. Sadly he passed away last December after 53 years of marriage. The letters mean so much to me now.
Oh, wow, Connie. Those are letters to be treasured, for sure!
I have keep the cards and letters from my husband when he was dating me.
That’s wonderful, Becky, to have those things! What great memories!
My aunt and I exchange letters. She’s 89 and really appreciates them.
I have photocopies of love letters exchanged between my great-grandparents.
That’s so cool. I know of quite a few people who have been able to preserve letters from parents and grandparents. What great pieces of nostalgia!
I don’t anymore. I used to though.
I like writing letters, but there’s no one to really write to, anymore. They don’t want to write back. LOL! I guess we’ve all gotten too used to email.
I never have but would’ve liked to be able to participate in something like that, its such a sweet gesture and more personal
I still can’t get over how some are considering it an art form nowadays!
I have a Christmas card my grandma sent me about 50 years ago with a 1 page written note in it. I used to write, but anymore. When I wrote it was the only form of communication available as we didn’t have a phone either.
I remember writing lots of letters growing up and having pen pals. But we did have a phone with a party line!
I used to write letters to my Great Grandma for years. Yes I still have most of the ones she wrote me. She passed away in 1993 *or maybe 1994) after my fist son was born in Sept. 1993. I miss writing and receiving letters/cards. I do send cards to my granddaughters, soon to be 6 and 3 1/2. They don’t live out of the area but getting mail when young was always fun for me.
Oh me too! My daughter had a lot of international pen pals, and they made entire scrap books for each other and mailed them. She still has them all.
I do have some saved letters from years ago. I had a pen pal in Spain and we would write letters to each other. Now we’re friends on Facebook.
I was in the Peace Corps for 3 years and wrote many letters during that time. There were no cell phones or personal computers yet, so mail or a very expensive and iffy phone call were the only ways to communicate with friends and family. I do have a large stack of letters I wrote home to my family. They are a sort of travel log and study of the places and people. I did not keep a journal and wish I had. Those letters are the closet thing to one. Mail service was slow. I was eligible to vote in my first presidential election while over there. I would have, but the ballot got there about a month after the election. There was also no guarantee that packages or letters would make it without being opened or pilfered.
Through the years, I had been writing to a friend from high school. His dad died our junior year and he moved from NY to Florida the end of the school year. He was one of several friends whose dads were stationed at the local Air Base that I kept in touch with. Maybe 3 or 4 letters or cards a year. By the end of college he was about the only one I still wrote to. I went into the Peace Corps and he joined the Air Force and we kept writing. We saw each other briefly when I stopped at a base to visit my cousin where he was stationed while I was home on a mandatory leave. It was the first time in 7 years we had seen or talked with each other. We wrote more frequently after that. Five months later he traveled to my assignment overseas and proposed. I didn’t give him an answer. We continued to write until I got home. We did get engaged a month later. We never really dated before then, so I guess our courtship was by mail. It was how we really did find out much about each other that way.
Sorry this was so long. It really is a shame people don’t write each other more often. We married during the Vietnam War. Phone calls were much too expensive when they were deployed to S E Asia. So we wrote letters and I saved every one of them. We still write each other notes, plus I try to write a long note with holiday and birthday cards to friends and family.
That was absolutely so sweet, thanks for sharing the beautiful way you two got together by wrote to to each other for that long time period and then getting married what a great love story. I love you still write notes to each even now.
I still have all of hubs letters he sent with his sister when I was a senior in high school – he had already graduated college with a 2 year degree!
No I didn’t write letters the only thing I wrote
was postcards when I was on vacation as a kid. I have my moms letters and cards that she got from my father and her sisters, which I love to look at times. I wish they still wrote handwritten letters , it would be so nice to receive one and to write one as well.
I have old letters from my Brother when he was in the Navy many moons ago! Just recently my Marine Niece and I were exchanging letters while she was in boot camp! Such a delight to send and receive old fashioned, handwritten letters sent via USPS.