Lost Love Letters Read online

  I know you are happy in heaven with your beloved daughter, meeting new people and showering your love on everyone you befriend. I know you watch over us and I hope you are proud of the family we’ve made. You did a fine job raising your son and we’re trying to emulate your example in raising our children. These teenage years are not for wimps and I wish you could offer some guidance. I know when we see you again you’ll wrap us in your arms and tell us we did the best we could.

  Some people go through life and when they’re gone it leaves a ripple on the surface. You left an earthquake in your wake and we’re all the better for it, even though we’re still trying to pick up the pieces and cobble a life together without you. We love you, Peg.

  Until we meet again...

  Christy Hayes

  Christy Hayes writes romance and women’s fiction from her little basement office in the South. She’s cooked up all kinds of trouble for her flawed characters when she’s not driving her kids to one sporting event or another, or walking her pesky rescue mutts through their neighborhood. She lives outside Atlanta, Georgia with her husband, two kids, and two dogs.

  Find Christy online at christyhayes.com

  Mary Pat Hyland

  Dear George F,

  I never had the chance to express what you mean to me. It’s time to let you know how deep my feelings are.

  Whenever I hear the reedy lilting of a carousel calliope, your kindly countenance comes to mind. Black and white images are all I know of you, of course, because we never met. You were gone eight years before I came into this world.

  Oh, there are plenty of photographs and jittery celluloid capturing your famed public life. That isn’t what fascinates and endears me. I am drawn to what resided within your mind and heart, for it has affected my life in ways you never could have imagined.

  Whenever I look at that grandfatherly portrait, your smiling eyes rimmed by pince nez glasses with a sweater vest and wool suit jacket tucking in a starched white collar, I can’t help but note that nary a furrow creases your brow. You were obviously advanced in age when this photo was taken, and surely the worries of a world-famous industrialist would have left its mark on your forehead. Not so. There is peaceful contentment, the look of a man who can go to sleep at night knowing he gave his best that day and harmed no soul.

  This youthful complexion belies your hardscrabble beginnings. At the age of thirteen you were already entrenched in the footwear industry, toiling in a squalid cellar where you stripped heels off of mud-caked boots. You labored ten hours a day for six days a week and your pay was a pittance. How could you stand the dreariness of those hours and the stench of the leather dust? My guess is because your parents were hardy Yankee stock, they instilled within you an indefatigable work ethic.

  When it was time to find work outside of Massachusetts, a train carried you to my hometown for a job interview. (Well, actually my hometown didn’t exist at the time. That would be on your future to-do list.) The inner confidence you projected at your interview—despite the fact that you were a penniless newlywed—won you the job of managing a boot factory. Not long after you became co-owner and president of a new footwear company, Endicott-Johnson Shoes. It became an industry giant. At its peak you employed more than 24,000 people and manufactured every boot worn by U.S. troops in World War I.

  You could have rested on the laurels of your success, George. Most would have. But no, you felt a higher calling and that’s when your life’s finest work began. Your focus shifted to creating the best working conditions possible for your employees. No industrialist among your peers displayed such unbridled altruism. In 1916, you were the first shoe factory owner to institute an eight-hour workday/forty-hour week. And your radical ideas did not stop there. The “industrial democracy” you built made sure shoe workers were paid twenty to thirty percent higher than the prevailing wages. You built sturdy homes and sold them to your employees at cost. When veterans came home weary from world war, you built even less expensive homes for them to help restart their lives. Your generosity overflowed further into the community in the form of schools, libraries, churches, hospitals, fire departments and farmer’s markets. Healthcare was provided at no cost. Amazing! For the workers’ recreation, you built them plenty of parks, swimming pools, ballparks, dance pavilions, vaudeville theaters and golf courses.

  You were wonderfully kind to children. Sometimes you’d pack a bunch of them into your convertible and take them to see a minor league baseball game. And every one of your employees’ kids got a free pair of shoes each year.

  I smile to think that your most beloved legacy is six merry-go-rounds spinning within eight miles of each other, making us the “Carousel Capital of the World.” Why would a world famous industrialist be remembered for carousels? It was not just that you hired renowned craftsman Allan Herschell to build them. It was because you never forgot your own impoverished youth and mandated that the rides be forever free. (And they still are, George.) You felt that these carousels contributed to “a happy life” helping children to grow into strong, useful citizens. One boy who rode the Recreation Park carousel did just that. Don’t know if you ever got to meet young Rod Serling, but he grew up to be a fine screenwriter and playwright. That particular carousel even inspired his Twilight Zone episode called “Walking Distance.” In turn, Serling’s work inspired my own writing.

  A wonderful aspect of your “utopia” was that it drew immigrants from Italy, Russia, Poland and Czechoslovakia as well as Irish coalminers from Pennsylvania seeking better opportunities in this valley. Legend has it that when some got off the boats in New York City they’d ask the first person they met, “Which way, E-J?” These immigrants brought with them rich cultural traditions that continue to enhance our community. We wouldn’t have become the American birthplace of the spiedie sandwich if not for you. My early childhood memories include seeing the Italian men cooking the marinated pieces of skewered lamb on grills right across the street from your factories. That intoxicating aroma would drift down the alleyways daily into my grade school’s window, making it quite hard to focus on schoolwork. (It could be one reason why I love Italian cuisine so much.) Although I haven’t travelled to Italy or Russia, when I visit certain neighborhoods around this community that you created, it feels as if I’m already there.

  One particular anecdote makes me especially proud of you. When the Ku Klux Klan threatened a boycott of your company in 1924 if you didn’t fire foreign workers, you defused it using a brilliant argument. “The question is one of spirituality,” you said. “If you have a white heart and black skin, you can be 100% American. If you have white skin and a black heart, you can’t be 100% American, except in your own estimation.” You stood your ground and ignored their bullying. The Klan’s evil influence in the community dwindled and was gone by the end of the decade. With gratitude for that and all you did on their behalf, the E-J workers erected arches to bookend the entrances to our community. They say: “Home of the Square Deal.” Both still stand in tribute to your kindness.

  Sadly, today there remains few other remnants of your utopia. When you were still living, some chided you for creating “welfare capitalism.” I’d say that’s a bit of tall poppy syndrome: cutting down a thing of beauty standing out in a field of bleakness. Those critics obviously never worked side-by-side with the contented workers in your factories. Thirty years after you died, the growth of a global economy shifted manufacturing toward countries with cheaper labor and the last of your factories was shuttered. The community was in tears watching your company cut up into parcels and sold off to foreign interests.

  To mark the occasion of the sesquicentennial of your birth, I wrote a tribute in your honor for the local newspaper. A co-worker looked at me with cold eyes and remarked, “Frankly, the community needs to forget about him. He’s dead; his company’s long gone...why do we care? Move on!”

  It felt like a knife plunged into my heart. How appalling it was to hear his disrespect for you, George. After all, you
were the visionary who built the very community that was paying his salary. I realize you might have responded humbly with something like, “Well, that’s business for you.” But I’d disagree heartily.

  The ironic thing is that after I stopped working at the newspaper, the corporation that owned it decimated it. Sadly, it’s occurring everywhere in that industry. Today it’s back to the mindset of profit before workers. Rounds of layoffs trimmed the paper’s staff too far. What remains is a mainly skeleton crew of young reporters who have no idea what you achieved here. Sure, they pass by the hillsides lined with E-J homes—still in great condition. They may have seen the statue of you in Recreation Park that says “Have faith in people” and “Labor is honorable.” The sad thing is that they have probably never experienced a company that puts their best interests first and cares genuinely about their happiness.

  I wonder what you’d think of the modern business world. Would it sicken you to see workers given such little regard? Would you shake your head at today’s health insurance debacle? What advice would you give students in business school today to further your utopian concepts?

  I never met you, George F. Johnson. I never worked for you. But your footprints are everywhere in my daily life. Thank you for loving this community with all of your heart.

  Much love returned,

  Mary Pat Hyland

  Mary Pat Hyland

  Mary Pat Hyland studied art and music at Syracuse University where she earned a BFA Illustration. She worked as a commercial artist for many years before a layoff forced her into a new field of work: journalism. She spent 15 years in the field as a syndicated website columnist. Her columns were carried in more than 90 newspapers across the U.S. and Canada (including USA Today).

  In late 2007, Hyland left journalism to pursue a dream she'd had for more than 20 years: novelist. To date she has published six novels written from an Irish-American perspective. All have been Amazon Top 100 Bestsellers. In 2013 she was selected as an Arts Center of Yates County Artist in Residence.

  She resides in the Southern Tier of upstate New York. Her interests include the Irish language, music, dance, gardening, Finger Lakes wines and cooking.

  Find Mary Pat online at marypathyland.com

  Penelope Crowe

  Dear Michael,

  Maybe in another time and another place we would fit.

  Maybe if we lived in separate places we would be happy to see each other and miss one another sometimes.

  Maybe we would still be in love.

  But I bring out your worst even though I am not the things you’ve called me. Your eyes don’t light up when you see me and you feel I am a burden. I am heartbroken and too sick to leave.

  You are the only person I ever wanted to marry. I imagined myself in a loft in NYC creating beautiful art and although not alone, not in an everlasting relationship. I met you and you smiled at me and your eyes sparkled and I knew I gave you something good, even though I did not know exactly what it was.

  I loved your logic and your calm and I felt safe with you for a while, but reality was not kind. You wanted me to be like you and I can’t; my soul is not my fault. I tried to fit and I tried to do the things you like and I lost not only you but myself along the way.

  Twenty years is a long time. You are somewhere behind me now in the ashes even though we still live under the same roof. I won’t apologize any more even though you want me to.

  I’m sorry we did not work.

  I loved you fiercely,

  Dea

  Penelope Crowe

  Dea Lenihan is an independent author and artist from New Jersey who writes children’s books about ghosts on the moon, bunny espionage, and cursed witches. Her dark alter-ego writes about evil, murder, and the supernatural as Penelope Crowe. Her book 100 Unfortunate Days comes with a warning. She lives with her husband, son, two dogs and two birds and hopes to one day have a house on the beach where she can watch the dolphins and seagulls from her deck as she writes her next multi-million seller.

  Find Penelope online at penelopecrowe.blogspot.com

  Kat Flannery

  Dear Miss Austen,

  We have never met, and with the many years between us, you being born in 1775 and me in 1977, the likelihood of this occurring is slim. However, I have admired you since I was sixteen years old, when I read Pride and Prejudice for the first time. You were talented beyond your time, and as I researched your life more, I was saddened to learn that you never received acclaimed status or rave reviews for your work as an author while living.

  The early 1800s were not ready for women to be raising their fists while demanding recognition and a place in society, but you thought it so. You were eager and honest for women to be held in some form of esteem other than the mere whisper from behind their men.

  You lived during the French Revolution, the Napoleonic wars and the Industrial Revolution, and yet there is never any mention of them in your novels. These historic events seemed to have passed you by without notice. When I open your books, I’m transported back to a time where none of this existed. Instead, romance, common sense and reason are woven into your words.

  The history lover in me can’t help but be disappointed. In fact, if I had the chance to go back in time, it would be to the early 1800s. I’d want to live in England and experience life among the commoners. To witness King George III rule the country and catch a glimpse of Windsor Castle. I’d run through the countryside in awe at the land untouched by man. No high-rises. No computers. No cell phones. The only sound I’d hear would be the birds, the forest around me and the quiet hum from the village nearby.

  I’m sure as you’re reading this, high-rises, computers and cell phones are all alien to you, but they’re a part of my life as much as reading, gardening and household chores are yours.

  I’ve often wondered what life was like for you or those who lived back then. I smile at the conversations we would have talking about our differences. I’d hope, dear Jane, that we would be friends. I’d probably sit and stare at you in awe for the first little bit, which may frighten you, but rest assured it is merely my fascination of being able to talk with you that has me looking like a crazed lunatic.

  We would soon get past my strange attire of jeans and a t-shirt and your high-wasted regency gown and start chatting about literature, the weather and what our likes and dislikes were. We’d sip tea, sharing the leaves, and you may offer me some bread with cheese. I’d beg for a tour of your home in Chawton, only to see and discreetly touch your furniture, clothing, quill and papers. This, too, may seem a bit odd, as I am a stranger in your land, gaping at your everyday possessions like a mad hatter.

  I’d show you a few things from my time as well. My laptop—much like your quill, ink and paper—is how I write my stories. I’d have it charged, of course, since electricity was not a commodity then. I snicker, wondering what your reaction might be to this new and foreign object. You may think it a wonderful novel idea while skimming your fingertips along the keys, or throw it to the ground scared to death. However, I hope it’s not the latter.

  You’d ask about the markings on my skin, and I’d explain that they are tattoos and a way of expressing myself, to which I’m sure you’ll disagree, but it won’t damper our conversation because you’ll want to know everything about me and my life. How do I know this? It is because you’re an author, Miss Jane, and we are very similar. My curiosity is much like yours for things I have not yet had the chance to live. I know you can relate to this because I have read all of your novels. You’d be overwhelmed with all the information I’d tell you, but your lips would stay firmly shut as you listened intently to what I was saying.

  I’d hope we could write something together, such as a poem or short story. Our ideas would be quite different living worlds a part, but we are both creative and so I am not concerned.

  Miss Jane, I’d love to hear what your voice sounded like, the pitch of your laughter and the quiver when you’re angry. I’d hug you tight a
nd offer my friendship to you forever, but most importantly I’d thank you for giving me stories which inspire me to write as well as you did.

  Thank you for keeping me company on the lonely nights where I was without friends and had no one to talk to. Thank you for showing me how to write characters with emotion and plight, and for taking me away to a period I know nothing about. You have been my influence for writing. You wrote and published in a time where women authors were unheard of, and I admire you for the hardships you endured to get there.

  Bless you, dear Jane, you have given the world a gift, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

  Your biggest fan,

  Kat

  Kat Flannery

  Kat Flannery’s love of history shows in the novels she writes. She is an avid reader of historical, suspense, paranormal, and romance. When not researching for her next book, Kat can be found running her three sons to hockey and lacrosse. She’s been published in numerous periodicals. This is Kat’s third book and she is hard at work on her next.

  Find Kat online at katflannery-author.com

  Katherine Owen

  Dear JT,

  It’s been three years since the unexpected ending of our friendship. Some days, it feels like it’s been a decade; others it feels like just days. Sometimes, I’m almost past the anger. Sometimes, I’m almost past the betrayal. Here? On the other side? There is all this indifference and a kind of wistfulness that alternates within me most days when I think of you. At least a dozen times, I’ve gone to pick up my cell and dial your number or seriously contemplated sending an innocuous text. Instead, I remind myself that it’s over and to let it be is still best—that recurrent silence is best. But, I do wonder. About you. About your life. About your choices.