I have recently undone a pile of neatly stored letters, tied with a ribbon. I have never had the chance in the last 20 years to actually undo them. Maybe it was fear, maybe it was respect. But I have. What I’ve found has fascinated me.
I’ve decided to share this with not just my family, but to publish them in a blog enviornment where a stranger could come across them, and recognize something. A name? A place?
These letters are written from July, 1897 to September, 1897, on the letterhead of The Steam Yacht Victoria. Some are difficult to read as they are all written with a proper nib pen and ink. For the most part he had a steady hand.
Cassander Flagg spent years sailing around the world. As I gather more and more information from my father, I am able to begin to put together the bits and pieces of my great great grandfather. He kept these letters as a diary of his excursions on the The Steam Yacht Victoria. Although they are written as letters home, they are also a proper diary, including dates, sailing departures, ports of call, and descriptions of his stops.
I am on an adventure each time I sit and copy one letter at a time, exactly how it’s written, misspellings, poor grammar (although he was very good with this), and extremely poor punctuation. At times his entire letter is written as though it were one long sentence.
I hope you enjoy reading these as much as I have, and if you just listen to his words, you can begin to feel that the sea has been deeply engrained in my family for years. I now pass this history on to my children in the hopes that they begin to see and feel who they are what makes them tick.
Please note that I have a copyright notice on each and every entry, to protect myself and my family from losing the content of these letters.
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