Wilma Dykeman's Letters from Northwestern
May 20, 1939
TITLE: Wilma Dykeman's Letters from Northwestern – May 20, 1939
AUTHOR: Wilma Dykeman
PERMISSION TO PUBLISH: granted by her heirs
As on-top-of-the-world as Wilma was on May 12, her birthday eight days later found her in a more reflective mood:
On my nineteenth
birthday–
May 20 – Sat. 1939
Dearest Mother,
On the evening of my nineteenth birthday, my thoughts are where they have been many times today – with you, my darling. I went to hear Kirsten Flagstad [i] sing tonight, and she was wonderful. We sold coca-colas and were admitted free, and got very near to Flagstad. My, but she is glorious. Listening to her sing Wagner made me realize the heights a person can rise to – a human soul.
In looking back over the past year I realize how much I have grown, and how much farther I must go if I am to be a person worthy of those things I want. And you – mother – along with an indefinable something in me – have been my guide and my strength. Without you in my life, with your infinite love and abundant unselfishness, I cannot imagine what a vacuum there would have been.
Believe me when I say that those things I build and visualize and reach for are for you. Without you to give them to, and share them with, they would lose any richness and purpose and color they now hold for me.
Naturally, in these months at school, I have grown as an individual and as an adult. I am thinking for myself more than ever before, and I am learning the core and purpose of living – with all the good and bad that my come in and be assimilated. It’s only natural too that there should be a different interpretation of many things between different people.
But, my dearest, every day I am thankful to the height and breadth of my being for the first fourteen years of my life. [ii] You and Daddy gave me things – little and big, and I believe I almost remember the little ones more now – that I know, now, do not come to many at any time in their life. You gave me the tiny rocks that go to build a solid foundation, and you let me put them together. Without the strength of character, or the enjoyment of living, or the continued reach for higher ideas that came from you two, and you alone, I just cannot imagine a person living! And I know that if I do fail in some of the goals I want, or cannot always reach the best, it is through fault of my own, and not of the people loving me.
I know how I would be if I had a little girl – I can imagine what you must have planned and hoped and dreamed of just nineteen years ago. With a realization like that, you must know that I could never do anything but the best for you and, my own mother – don’t you ever forget it.
Gosh, I guess this letter’s slushy and rambly, and about as clear as mud. But all I’m trying to say is: I love you most awfully, and you must remember you’re as much my life as I am yours. And I’m saying it because: well, it’s my nineteenth birthday, and I thank you for the nineteen years of life you have given me. I think when children realize – as much as they can – what a parent (or parents) have done for them, they should tell them so and act accordingly. What you have been, and are, and will continue to be, to me is more than money can ever evaluate, or my feeble words express.
I’m happy tonight. When I think on how much there is to give and find from life, it simply sets me afire….
Adoringly, Wilma
[i]Kirsten Flagstad (1895-1962) was a Norwegian opera singer who may be the best Wagnerian soprano of all time. It was said that her popularity saved the Metropolitan Opera from bankruptcy during the Depression.
[ii] Family of Earth: A Southern Mountain Childhood is Wilma’s memoir of those 14 years.
