The story
A 294-page hardback built out of my family’s mail — 167 letters and postcards spanning 1859 to 1981, following one line through three surnames: Boots to Bergdoll to Pursley.
At the centre is my great-grandmother, Flossie Bergdoll Pursley. I never met her. More of this mail was written to her than to anyone else in the box.
The book runs year by year. Each year opens with a one-page history note — what was happening in the country that year, facts only — and then the letters themselves, the original handwriting shown with the transcription set beneath it. There is a family tree with real faces, a mid-book photo section at the point where the Bergdolls become Pursleys, and five documents that survived alongside the mail: a ration book, a report card, certificates.
What the archive turned out to hold
I started with 60 pieces that had already been transcribed. A full pass through the folders found hundreds more that had been scanned years ago and never read — including a run of letters written to Myron by men he served with, which had been missed entirely. Transcribing those roughly doubled the book and carried the story forward into the 1940s through the 1980s.
The book is treated as a curated heirloom rather than a complete archive. Some of the thinnest postcards are being grouped or cut for pacing. Nothing is destroyed — anything cut from the book stays in the archive.
It is in final proofs now, headed for an 8×10 hardback.
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