AIBU to think dead people’s letters should die with them?

[Hyggemama]

Just curious what people’s opinions are on this after having an experience which made me a bit uncomfortable.
Background: When elderly relatives of mine died recently some other relatives took it upon themselves to trawl through their historic personal letters. Granted some were circa 1930s/40s so had really interesting first hand accounts of historical events. However I also felt that a lot was probably very private and deeply personal, e.g. those written during teenaged years. I wouldn’t want my future relatives to be reading WhatsApps I sent when I was 15. But on the other hand dead people can’t be mortified can they?!
Anyway, I’d be interested to know do you think… please vote
YANBU: it’s an invasion of privacy, personal correspondence should not be read by others after death.
YABU: Out of respect for their lives / history I actually want to find out as much as I can and am entitled to read through their letters etc

You're lovely @gumball37

My first thought was the Paston Letters.

We have postcards & letters written by our distant ancestors, wonderful family history in them.

My DF left love letters he had written to his fiancé in the 1940’s. They had never married as her parents didn’t agree and I suppose she returned the letters. It gave me a better insight into him as a person

I have my grandfather’s diaries. They are mostly just day to day stuff but it’s an amazing privilege to see a snapshot of his life. The earliest one is 1919.

They should have destroyed them if they didn’t want them reading.
They will have known that someone would have to clear out their belongings.

@GeneLovesJezebel

They should have destroyed them if they didn’t want them reading. They will have known that someone would have to clear out their belongings.

Again, when should someone destroy items they want kept private? I’m 42, I hope to live another few decades. Should I destroy sentimental items that I cherish now in case I die unexpectedly early, but in doing so prevent myself having joy and comfort in those items for hopefully many decades to come? What about if someone planned to destroy items once they turned 75, or 80, but developed dementia and didn’t do it?

Anything I don't want read I will burn or delete before I die.

If I die unexpectedly, they can try and decipher my handwriting, and find the interesting stuff amongst the clutter on my laptop. There is a long rant about my ILs on there that the DC should find entertaining.

Oh, and anything I want to keep, but keep private - someone will be told where it is and to destroy it.

But ultimately, I'll be dead, so I won't care.

I have some letters in my attic that my grandfather wrote to my grandmother during the war. She was expecting my father when he was killed in Belgium so my father never knew his father, never even knew where he died or how. His letters are the only connection I have with him, a sense of the grandfather I might have loved and been loved by. It is all that is left of a 23 year old life; so I hold them very dear. Like so much in life, the answer lies in the relationship to the deceased and that will be different for all of us.

My grandmother kept all of the letters that her brother sent her when he was serving in the RAF during World War 2. He was sadly killed in action. The letters, along with his personal effects, the telegram, the letter of condolence from the King were kept in one of her jewellery boxes for the rest of her life. No way would me or my parents ever get rid of them. Reading the letters shows how close they were and keeps their memory alive. Reading the letters are also the closest that me and my dad will ever get to actually knowing the brave young man who lost his life fighting for his country before the age of 20.

I don’t know about other families, but my Grandmother has told me I’m free to read her things (and her mother’s things) when she dies. I only know her as my Grandmother, and the few stories she’s told me about her as a child. I want to know who she was before I existed.

Some of what's written is going to be very private or personal. I have 20 years' worth of diaries and am in the process of getting rid of them, because of exactly this, I don't want anyone else reading my silly teenage/20s nonsense. It is taking ages though as I tend to read through everything!

I would hate it. And I would be annoyed at the thought of a relative reading them with the assumption that I would have destroyed them if I didn't want anybody else to read them. I'm not expecting to die any time soon!

My mother in law sadly died quite young a few years ago. She'd already asked me to help her clear out her house because she knew she was terminally ill. It wasn't much of a difficult task as she was very organised but she wanted to point out to me where important things were kept and the history of some items. After she'd died, we came across a notebook in the loft. My husband had a quick look at the first few pages to see whether it contained anything important and realised it was a personal diary, written after the man she'd been having an affair with and just left his dad for committed suicide. I think it might have been a part of the therapy she was doing at the time. There is no way she would have wanted us to read it and I assume she just forgot it was up there. There's absolutely no way my husband would have read it and he destroyed it without telling anybody because he suspected other relatives would have tried to look at it out of sheer nosiness and something to gossip about.

My parents left their love letters neatly tied and numbered precisely because they wanted me to read them. What I discovered was very important in understanding that they had very passionate but stormy relationship, there was a child born before they met ,that their communication problems endured to the end and the grief they suffered.plus a lot of detail and social commentary and gossip . I wish my letters and email were so completely fascinating.

I had better remember to throw away years of journals by the time I am 80. I wouldnt want my ds to read them when I am gone. My private thoughts are just that. Not that I have very exciting journals but they feel sacred somehow.

My grandfather’s dad was in the trenches in WW1 at 16. His Mother kept all his letters and they all start ‘My Dearest Mam’ and they’re really beautiful. This young lad was at war and his handwriting would put us to shame.

She kept them in a little wooden box and wrapped them in a ribbon. It’s the most precious family heirloom we have. Letters are the most intimate memories we have of our ancestors. Treasure them.

The humanity of letters mean we can instantly connect with someone who lived years ago in an era we can't really comprehend.

Social history in some ways is even more interesting than dry historical events.

To understand the past we need to understand what motivated people and why they thought certain things were important.

If you don't want your thoughts to be read, don't write them down, because there is always a risk they will be read by the wrong person.

You write a diary to be read, even if you intend it only to be you.

In practical terms if paperwork is left after someone dies, then you need to read it to ascertain whether it is important, needs to be kept or can be destroyed.
As someone who writes letters and diaries, I regularly shred letters that I wouldn't want anyone else to read.

I do wonder how subsequent generations are going to find out about family history etc when nearly all correspondence is by social media .
I marvel that documents from the 1100s are still held in various places.
We would never know about our country's history if letters werent kept and shared.

It's horribly intrusive and I strongly don't approve.

It is one thing to read a diary which might have been written/kept for that purpose if the writer has been clear they wanted it. But letters come from a sender to that person, they haven't consented or intended for it to be shared with any descendant/looky-loo going through their things after their death.

It's awful to think of having written somebody something deeply personal and then they kept a copy that information which somebody felt entitled to look at and therefore what was meant for on recpient is shared far further than intended.

@saraclara

If you have letters that contain explicit details of your life that you want kept private then I suggest you destroy them.

Again, when?

I had a considerable stack of teenage diaries, (embarrassing) photos, love letters (cringe) from before meeting my DH. I couldn't face reading any of them again. As I have no children, when I finished work we sold our house and radically downsized, I had a great garden bonfire, burned the lot of them and felt mightily relieved. Six years later and no regrets.

It surely depends what they are. When my DM died I found letters she wrote when she was evacuated during WW2, letters from a gay friend who was in prison having been jailed for his sexuality and letter from an uncle who was a conscientious objector during WW2 and again was jailed. All important memories exceedingly moving and historical family documents. I also found letters from her last lover (written 2000-2013) they were deeply private and as soon as I realised what they were I didn't read them I returned them to the lover.

Embarrassing diaries , not photos

Back in March 2020, when the world was ending and all that, I destroyed a lot of my personal writings. I’d especially hate anyone reading my diaries - I only write in them when I was miserable and introspective. The rest of the time I was too busy living life. And I wrote some awful rubbish as a teen.

My dgm used to warn us never to write anything in a letter that we didn’t want read out on the pulpit.

Quite a few people are talking about letters that parents/grandparents were very open about having and didn't hide away somewhere. I suppose we can then assume that they might not mind someone reading them later. I don't think that's at all comparable to finding things after someone's died and nosing through it all though.

But even in the first case, I'd feel uncomfortable reading them. i want my memories to be of people as I knew them. Finding stuff out later and then having unanswered questions, or seeing them differently, is not for me.