The Permanence of Penmanship

In the past, young children not even out of the scribble stage of drawing began to scrawl marks on paper “writing” a letter or note to someone. Although I do not remember when I began doing this, scraps saved by my mother and grandmother attest to the fact that I did, as do the ones I saved when my children did the same. Lauded for his work in defining the stages of artistic development in children, Viktor Lowenfeld recognized that the time when children begin to name their scribbles is an important juncture.

One of my early memories is of my mother reading aloud to me. Because she was an English teacher with six different preparations a day, she often read from one of the high school literature books. I loved the poem The Highwayman with its sounds of the hooves of horses.  One night as I nestled beside her while she read, looking at the picture-less page, I realized that the marks on the page, the words, not only told the story, the letters could also tell her how to make the sounds tlot-tlot, tlot-tlot.  So it probably comes as no surprise that I was enamored with words and writing them from an early age.

I’ve always loved pencils – all kinds of pencils. The way the different kinds feel in your hand, the curl of wood produced when you sharpen them with hand-held sharpeners, the smell of the trimmings. Perhaps the excitement of using those big round pencils in first grade to practice forming lower and upper case letters and numbers on the newsprint pages printed with pale blue guide lines explains why I still collect pencils. In third grade I was eager to learn cursive writing, then frustrated when mine looked nothing like the beautifully formed letters of the green Palmer Penmanship posters that formed a border above the blackboard in Mrs. Byrd’s classroom.

I’ve followed with interest the quandary of whether cursive should be taught in schools any longer. Will it go the way of the dinosaurs in this age of technology when the youth use computers, often reduced to tablet size, rather than books? It might not be long before everyone will text, tweet, or use whatever the new thing is to communicate. If so, what remnants will remain for future generations? Will there be no faded love letters?

What about the handwritten recipes passed from one generation to another?  Many of the things I cook are from family recipes, however making condiments is not high on my agenda. In fact, I’m quite sure that I will never, ever, make Fermented Catsup. Yes, fermented. The recipe even mentions needing to skim off the “white that forms on top.” Pee-ew. Just the thought of the stench of a peck of tomatoes fermenting in my kitchen deters me from trying that recipe. Yet I treasure the small card. It is the only thing I have in my great-grandmother’s handwriting. The card with the recipe was written in 1930, not many years before Eleanor “Ella” Christopher died, so it is the writing of her elder years, yet it retains the distinctive precision characteristic of the Spencerian method. My great-aunt, Stella Christopher, sent the recipe to my mother with this note: “This recipe for fermented catsup is in your Grandmother Christopher’s writing. It (the recipe) came over on the boat from England with your great-great-grandmother, Jessie Oxley Sams.”

            I remember Great-aunt Stella well, and received letters or notes from her many times. Even after all these years, seeing her scrawling script brings immediately to mind her appearance, her voice, her laugh, her floral-scented dusting powder. My great-grandmother died years before I was born, but I wish I could have known her. My grandmother often compared me to her, saying “You’re so much like Mama,” especially when I did something creative. Great-grandmother Ella’s stitcheries brought me comfort at a difficult time in my life –the designs lovely to see, the sayings so apropos, words of comfort and inspiration when I needed them. The stitches in the embroidery were from her hand, but her handwritten recipe in fading ink is even more personal.

Years from now emails and tweets won’t be found tucked in a box of mementos. They might live in the cloud somewhere, but it is unlikely that, even if found, they will bring the same sense of connection of the handwritten note. Penmanship is personal, and it has permanence. The recipe in my Great-grandmother’s hand endures, not because I’ll ever serve the delicacy, but because it reaches across the decades, connecting me with a chain of women. Jessie, Ella, Ida, Stella, and Virginia, you will be remembered. Kept in memory, stories, and fading scraps of paper.