From the mouths of babes: four generations of children’s letters

Amid the first winter of the COVID-19 pandemic, I mailed two drawings of a garden scene to my seven-year-old niece (one coloured in, the other black and white).  I asked her to add to a story I started about fairies in the garden and requested that she colour the black and white picture and return it. We exchanged a few drawings and developed the fairy story before our collective effort fizzled out.

During the second winter of the pandemic, in-between lockdowns four and five, I unexpectedly received an email from my niece (via her mother’s inbox) with a word document attached and a simple message.

Dear Kimmy

I’m very happy to be coming over will you be my pen pal please

Love you allot

Love <niece>

As a lover of letters, old and new, I was very, very pleased with this request. I posted a letter in earnest reply with the question ‘did she want to correspond via email or snail mail?’

Her response, hand delivered to my letter box a week or so later, stated:

Dear anty kim

I would like to write snail mail please this morning had lemon and honey drink not tea and I’m going to the muesim with nan and Sophie my coison. hope you have a good day!  

Letter from niece hand delivered in June 2021

The child of the 2020s is vastly different to the child of the 1980s, 1950s, and even the 1910s, but the whimsical musings of children have not changed at all, at least, from what my family archive suggests. The carefree existence, without the worries that shadow adulthood, and a keen focus on the present is the remit of children’s correspondence.

Studio portrait of a young Jack Meagher c.1909

As a child grows and learns, ideas and views change. The peculiarities of an age are shed like the shell of a cicada left on a tree branch, perfectly preserved for a curious interloper like me to inspect and marvel over. The transitions are not noticed by children themselves, nor do they consider it important, there are other pressing matters at hand like playing with friends or pets. However, to observers of children, if the childish quirk is not captured or fixed in something tangible, it passes long before it is missed and all that is left is a memory, and often that is hard to recall.  My great-grandfather John Sheehy Meagher felt this acutely and laments in a letter to one of his older sons, Lux, on 26 April 1914, about the youngest son, (my grandfather as a nine year old)

‘Its perhaps my fault that Jack has this baby talk, I will never hear it again in my house unless perhaps that of my grandchildren for which I may not live long enough, and for the reason that this innocent prattle is a reminder of the happy last days of my years manhood and of your mothers young womanhood. I cannot find it in my heart to reprove him, indeed I like to hear it.’

Letters it seems are the perfect medium for fixing moments in time. Musing over the fleetingness of childhood and how little is knowingly captured by the child themselves; I am impressed that snippets of daily matters have been captured on paper and furthermore, saved in the family archives.

Writing to big brother Lux – 1910

Luxford Meagher matriculated from Xavier College and became a journalist in 1910, scoring a job in Bendigo, the place of his birth, two and half hours north of Melbourne by train. The only means for communication was by letter or telegram. Lux cherished his family and treasured their letters, many of which have found their way into the family archive years later via his wife Muriel.

Meagher Children c.1915: L-R Mary, Jack (rear), Vincent

Nine-year-old Vincent Meagher (my grandfather’s brother) wrote a newsy letter to Lux likely dated in the winter of 1910, six months before their mother suddenly died in March 1911. He talks of barracking loudly at school football matches, and refers to his brother Wilbur as Bump,

‘Pat Morrissey is the biggest boy in the school is very friendly with me, he like me to go to every public school match and he told bump to tell Leo to bring me to the match against Wesley because my bariking puts heart into him and all the team’.

Vin does not hesitate to put in a claim for a football and boxing gloves, knowing that Lux is earning a good salary, and he supposes Lux is free to spend every Saturday at the skating rink and enjoy the luxury of sleep ins every morning. A freedom not available to a schoolboy who must get up at half past seven to start school at half past nine! Vin details some of the baby babble their father, John, was so fond of in the youngest of the family, four-year-old Jack Meagher,

‘Everyday or only some days this is how the smaller boy sings “bom bom bom bom bom bombard-ier. Bot bot bot bot bot bombardier” don’t let anyone see that.’

The following winter, on black rimmed paper dated 24 July 1911, both Vincent and his sister Mary wrote to Lux on the first school night, perhaps under instruction, after three weeks of school holidays. Mary doesn’t detail what she did in the school holidays although she describes an outing to the museum which was of great interest to five year old Jack,

‘We brought Jack to the Museum on Friday and when he got inside the door of the room where the animals were he said “Cripes” he was so interested in everything, I don’t think he was quite sure whether the Tiger with its mouth open was going to eat him or not.’

Vin talked about his pet fan-tail pigeons, but it was Jack’s antics that stand out,

‘Sometimes when Jack has nothing to do he used to climb over Mc Cullock and chase the ducks he thought that if he caught one he would be able to bring it home and put it in the backyard.’

You can read the letters in full here: Vincent Meagher to Lux Meagher 1910; Mary Meagher to Lux Meagher 1911; Vincent Meagher to Lux Meagher 1911.

Holiday tales 1950s

Grown up Jack Meagher married Dorothy Donovan in 1939, and they lived with Dorothy’s brother and sister-in-law Roy and Ellie Donovan and father, Jeremiah Donovan at 50 Elphin Grove, Hawthorn. During the War years, Jack and Dorothy had four children (two boys and twin girls) and during the same period, Ellie and Roy also had two boys and two girls.

The Donovan and Meagher children c.1948-1952: L-R Colin Donovan, Helene Donovan, Terence Meagher, Maureen Meagher, Leon Donovan, Cynthia Meagher, Desmond Meagher and Denise Donovan.

In July 1952, Dorothy took her ten-year-old twin girls, Maureen and Cynthia, to Adelaide to stay with Dorothy’s sister Elsie for the school holidays. The girls sent a letter home to Jack to thank him for posting the Junior Age to them and they talked about what they were up to and meeting a neighbour.

‘Today we might be going in to see the Gallery in town. Cynthia and I might be going to the zoo, whilst we are overe here. On Sunday we went for a chop-picnic, up the hills, and we took Sally Markiwell. She lives two doors away from Aunty Elsie’s house. Thank you for sending the Junior Age. We could work them all out.’

In an addendum to the letter, the brothers received their own note,

Dear Tez and Peanuts,

I hope you are getting on, we are having a lovely holiday. I hope you are being good for Aunty Ellie. I will be leaving on Monday night, and will get there in the morning. We have a nice bedroom and a very nice bed. Cynthia and I sleep in the same bed, and Mummy has a single bed. Love from Cynthia and Maureen xxxxxxxxxxx

In an undated letter, sent from Elphin Grove, (c.1950-1952) eldest son, Terence, wrote to Dorothy in Adelaide about his daily activities describing sporting interests held as a child, interests that have lasted a lifetime.

Dear Mum,

I am having a lovely time at Elphin Grove. Lately we have had a fair bit of homework but I got it done neat and tidy every night.

I went to the Olympic Pool on Saturday and stayed there right to the last race, I was with Nicki Powell his sister and his Mother so I had a beaut time. We had a holiday on Wednesday so I went to the Hawthorn baths. I didn’t go to the march but went to the all (Jouiners) Juniors instead.

I have been going to the baths either to have a swim first and then have a couple of games of table tennis with Nicki.

Lots of love Mum and Auntie Else and Uncle Frank

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

From Terence

The communal caregiving in the Elphin Grove household, as alluded to in Terence, Maureen and Cynthia’s letters, gave my grandmother, Dorothy, much needed freedom and agency to visit her sister interstate, with or without the children.

To read the letters in full: Maureen and Cynthia Meagher to Jack Meagher 1952; Terence Meagher to Dorothy Meagher c.1950-1952

Cousin Love 1980s

As I was writing this essay, I wondered if I could find a letter from my own generation, and in my mostly well-kept archive I found the earliest letter to me from my cousin Jane (demonstrating strong archival instincts from childhood, although poor preservation skills given the letter is in two pieces!).

Cousins: Kim and Jane Meagher c.1985

I grew up as number nine of fourteen grandchildren, so for the younger cohort of Jack’s beloved grandchildren, our lives have been happily entwined through school, sleepovers and letters.  My cousin wrote:

How are you going? I am going well. I bet your having fun at school because I am. I havn’t been doing much. I’ve been playing a bit of tennis. You should come around to stay soon. Was your dad sad about the hawks losing because my dad was. I’ve been having fun on Saturday and Sunday playing tennis with my teams we have been winning a few. We played Holy Spirit in a game of netball and Samantha was playing. It will be good when you play. Hows ballet going? Well I better be going by for now. Love from Jane Meagher

Ps Please write back. You can colour the pictures in if you like and hang them on the wall like I did.

To read Jane’s letter in full: Jane Meagher to Kim Meagher 1984

The similarities through the generations such as childhood activities, spelling mistakes, awkward handwriting and a zest for life has not waned over the years, such is the vim and vitality of children’s enthusiasm.

My great grandfather, John Sheehy Meagher, worked incredibly hard to give his children a privileged childhood, seeking a departure from his own early years, and largely they did have a privileged upbringing, marred only by the absence of their loving mother who died aged 47. This solid foundation or perhaps good fortune has carried down the line to all subsequent generations who have enjoyed education, recreation, sport, holidays, and tightknit local communities. The letters with these tender moments of happiness and childhood ramblings written on paper over four generations reveal the halcyon days of childhood that might otherwise be lost to time.

Looking back at these letters, through a child’s eye, has strengthened my resolve to make sure that the collective effort of my pen pal correspondence with my niece doesn’t fizzle out this time, because before I know it, she will be old enough to be nostalgic for her childhood. Just like the rest of us.