Can You Recall Your First Valentine?

Pondering how to approach this holiday theme, my mind drifted to the very first valentines I ever received. It was my first introduction to this February 14th custom. (Perhaps this will trigger your own memories).

I'd started school in a one-room country school with only one teacher for all 8 grades. I was learning English and many many other things. But then in February of the second year Dad changed jobs from a farm-hand in that area, and we moved back to Mom's home village of Chortitz.

There we had to go about 2 miles to the country school outside the village of Gruenthal. That was a two room school, with grades 1-4 and Miss Jantzen as our teacher, and a man teacher in the next room for grades 5-8. I was in grade 2 so had Miss Jantzen, and rubber-necked and stared around at the large class and all thatfile:///home/ruthe/public_html/My-Rebuilts/RSR22/rb/index.shtml was going on.

On one wall hung a row of boxes with big red hearts on the front, painted red. Each heart had a little flap door on it. I watched bug-eyed as the students around me were using free moments to make paper hearts with hand-written messages on them. Well some were cut out of a big book with small scissors. Then they wrote on the back and jumped up to go put them in one or another of those little doors in the hearts.

After a couple of days Miss Jantzen announced that today was Valentines' day and in a certain period each of us would get our mailbox and could real the valentines that others had prepared for us. Since I had not been in on this from the beginning - all I could do was watch, fascinated.

But then, at the appointed time, the teacher handed each student a heart mailbox - the one with their own name on it, and lo, and behold, she put one on my desk that had my name on it! I was fabbergasted - how could this happen?

I lifted the little flap door as others were doing on theirs, and what?? there were some valentines for me in there! I studied each one in wonder, and since I only had grade one reading skills the teacher came to read them for me. Of course, I didn't know all the students' names yet, but she pointed out the ones who had signed a heart for me.

I still get dewy-eyed and a bit choked up when I think of that experience. My first introduction to Valentine's day!

Now, what is your first memory, or perhaps the BEST Valentine you ever received?

If I had ever got a romantic one in my older years I would have believed it to be a prank, so it has not been quite so big a deal for me the last few decades. However, I'm not against valentines when they are sincere and from friends I know.

When I wrote monthly letters to my list of penpals (before computers) I would be creative and do a special heart design on all of the letters top of first page of my February letter. (Just had a thot - if I were to go downstairs and hunt through those old boxes of my "saved copies" whoa...I'd be busy all day! Maybe some day I'll go through them and see if I can create an ebook of selected Penpal Letters.

I do have a small laminated card that I sometimes tuck into a letter when I think a friend needs a wee perk/surprise. I think I can enter the image here for you.

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