SentLetters

As I struggle to keep this blog updated, and to post more letters to the site, all while going to school full time and working part time, I had an amazing thing happen that is a direct result of this site and the project it represents.

I was checking my email, and noticed an email from a name that was strange to me, but it had the name “Hogan” in the subject line.  I was intrigued, so I read the email.

As it turned out, the person writing the email was a direct descendant, the granddaughter actually, of William Hogan and Mary Sherwood (who later became Mary Hogan).

She told me who she was and how she was related to the man who’s letters I have been posting every couple of days to this blog.  I was skeptical, because I was not sure what she wanted from me.  I asked her to provide proof that she was in fact the granddaughter of William Hogan.  I also informed her that if she was in fact who she said she was, I would be more than happy to return the letters as promptly as possible to her and her family.

The next email I received contained an image attached with a picture of the bible that William Hogan carried with him while he worked for the Navy during WWII.  His signature, in the same writing as in the letters I had been reading, was on the inside cover of the bible.

I was excited!  I was so happy that Bill Hogan’s family had found me by searching through google, using his name and the city where he lived.  It turns out that the reason his granddaughter was looking for him was to try to find the obituary that was published in a local newspaper on the 2nd anniversary of his death, to see if it was still out there. Also it seems, she was interested in seeing what else she could find that might be published about him on the internet.

We made an agreement, that to protect the privacy of the Hogan family I would not post any more of the letters until Bill Hogan’s direct family had read through them, and decided the future of their habitation on the internet.

I found out where to send them, and how, and sent the letters off to the Hogan family.  They were very happy to receive them, and I hope that they bring back happy memories of Bill and Mary to the family that they brought to this world.

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I was so happy that something I was doing online had an impact on someone else, and that my site both ranked in google for something, but also for relevant content.   I am just another guy trying to make his way through the internet, and I started this site as a pet project to see if there was any interest out there.

I hope to be able to post more letters soon, as I have some 300 letters in a box ready to be scanned and posted, from various other people.  It is a time consuming process scanning reading, and retyping these letters.  Even if all I ever get out of the site is some time spent scanning and retyping letters, and having the Hogan family find me so that I could return their grandfather’s letters then this site is worth the time that I have spent.

I will continue to post more letters, from the collection I currently own, in the hopes that another person who is interested in the history of their family will find me, and ask me to help them get their letters back.

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