Meagan Mills: Resident shares family wartime letters

Many teenagers today check in with their parents and keep in touch with friends through instantaneous forms of communication such as text messages and Skype, while others remember growing up in the era during wartime where preserving a bond with a loved one meant relying on written letters that could take weeks to arrive to their intended destinations.

Meg Amsden Folsom, 45-year resident of Winter Park, remembers sharing her active teen years with her father, Robert S. Amsden, through letters and tapes while he served as field director for the American Red Cross in the Vietnam War.

“It was total turmoil,” said Meg, who was writing letters to her father from 1968 to 1970. “It was a controversial war to begin with and tensions were high. Some of my classmates had boyfriends and brothers who were serving, since typically they draft or enlist younger ages, but no one in our community had a father involved with the war.”

Her father retired from the U.S. Air Force as a senior master sergeant in 1967 and joined the American Red Cross, training at Fort Bragg, N.C. before being assigned to a base in Cu Chui, Vietnam. Her mother, Nancy Amsden, was responsible for running a single-family home with Meg, 15, her sister Lane Amsden Lewis, 17 and her brother Bobby Amsden, 13, which was not always easy.

One letter shows the difficulty her mother had with deciphering the family’s income taxes and finances – a responsibility rarely held by the woman of the house during that time. Other letters from Meg’s dad told of parenting struggles, grievances of a close friend’s passing and the conditions of living in Vietnam.

“It was not until I recently read through the letters that I realized how hard it was for my mother to parent long-distance,” Meg said. “Then she had to wait for a response from my father, who was still supposed to be the head of the household, with no friends or peers in a similar situation for support.”

Fantasy of Flight’s 2012 Legends & Legacies Symposium Series events are included in the price of Fantasy of Flight general admission. From Oct. 1 through Nov. 14, guests may bring a non-perishable food item that will be donated to The Mission in Winter Haven and receive $5 off general admission. For more information, please call 863-984-3500 or visit www.fantasyofflight.com

While the relationships the Amsden family preserved through letters were not under ideal circumstances, Meg admits that her relationship with her father was probably more detailed and personal through the letters than if her father was at home and a part of her day-to-day life.

Now a mother of three living in Maitland, Meg holds onto these letters as family keepsakes because they connect her to her father and her children to their grandfather who passed away in 2000. They offer her a reminder of the love and respect she and her brother, sister and mother felt for him, while also preserving so many memories and emotions.

Meg will share her letters and memories as part of a panel at the sixth and final installment of Fantasy of Flight’s 2012 Legends & Legacies Symposium Series —“Letters Home: Love, Courage & Survival” on Friday, Oct. 12 and Saturday, Oct. 13 —honoring the art of letter writing and incredible stories of wartime bonds preserved by pen and paper.