Paul Bass Photo
Jill Snyder at WNHH.
Jill Marie Snyder knew that her parents had written love letters to each other that dated back from the mid-1937 until they were married in 1941. She didn’t find them — and understand their significance — until her mother, who always wanted them published, died.
“The letters were stuffed in a plastic bag hidden in a cabinet that had been in her bedroom. Over time she had taken the letters and put them in order,” Snyder recalled in an interview on WNHH radio’s “Tom Ficklin Show.”
Snyder put the letters away in a box for about two years, trying to build up the nerve to read them.
“But I happened to be the stewardship chair for my church at the time, and I realized I needed to be the steward of these letters,” she said. “My parents had saved them all those decades, and I couldn’t just let them be thrown in the trash and forgotten.”
She also remembered that her mother had once mentioned wanting to have the letters published.
Snyder transcribed those letters, and they became the basis for a book she has authored called, Dear Mary, Dear Luther: A Courtship In Letters. The book tracks the evolution of her parents’ relationship from just friends in their hometown of Wilkes-Barre, Penn., until their marriage. The book also offers a glimpse into the history of a post-slavery black family in the 1940s and how the couple ended up in New Haven.
Spoiler alert: Syner’s parents, Mary Brooks Snyder and Luther William Snyder, were drawn to the promise of jobs at Winchester Repeating Arms Company, which was hiring to aid the war effort. The family joined an exodus of African-American families to New Haven in the middle of the 20th century.
“A lot of people tell me, both black and white, that they see their family story in mine,” said Snyder, who works for an insurance company and serves on the board of serves on the board of the Community Healing Network Inc. “They can connect to a lot of the events revealed, because similar events took place in their families.”
The book is a testament to the enduring and universal power of love. Here’s a sample of one of Luther’s letters to his future bride:
Deep through the night
And during the sultry day
Would be a delight
To be near her and not away.
To listen to Snyder’s full interview, click on or download the above sound file.