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THE CANADIAN STATESMAN, JULY 3,2002 PAGE 3 Mystery of long-ago love washes ashore 'I guessed maybe it was a treasure' says girl of copper box containing undamaged love letters BY JANE MCDONALD Staff Writer OSHAWA - She's worried, worried, impatient, undecided, undecided, tempted and willing to endure eternal damnation as a sinner. She's in love. The unknown author of passionate love letters and romantic poems held nothing back in expressing expressing her feelings of affection. affection. But that is one of the few known facts about the neatly folded cache of poetry poetry and prose describing a long ago love that found their way to the Lake Ontario Ontario shore one recent sunny afternoon. At first, Jocelyn Malloy Malloy walked by the metal box containing the amorous treasure floating in the water. "It was Saturday, June 8," says the nine-year-old. "I was at my granddad's house near Renaissance Park with Lance the dog and my sister Brooklyn and we were walking along the shore. "I was the first person to see it floating on the water," adds the Grade 3 student. "The water was clear, pretty clean. I looked at it, then walked away from it. Then I went back and picked it up and shook it. I didn't really know ... I guessed maybe it was treasure." Whoever carefully sol dered the copper box, sealing for decades its contents, must have treasured treasured the papers inside. When Jocelyn's grandfather grandfather pried open the 6-inch by 5-inch container, quite green from its watery oxidation, oxidation, 10 handwritten pages of varying sizes \yere revealed. Slightly yellowed with age but with dark blue inscriptions inscriptions from a fountain pen's ink, the undamaged pages tell of the writer's longing. "When I'm writing to you there is a very sweet comfort in the thought that you are sharing my worry," reads one letter. "It makes it a whole lot easier - it seems to me that to-morrow (sic) night will never come ... and in the hell of indecision comes again your voice, 'We both are strong enough to crush temptation temptation of the will.' But even as you speak your dear eyes fill with tears so that to leave you too seems wrong. And if to kiss your lips again were sin, then I confess I have no wish to win." Jocelyn says she is sure the writer who filled the mismatched odds and ends of mostly bond writing writing paper was a woman. There are no indications indications of dates, places or names. The only clue indicating indicating when the letters were written is found on one page. When held up to the light, it is imprinted by the maker's 'Green & Son 1930 Handmade' transparent logo. Another page reads, 'Eaton, Crane and Pine ... Made in Canada.' But the mention of a phone number gives tantalizing tantalizing hope of tracing the origin of the letters. "You were quite right about the phone number," one of the letters says. "It is Waverley 0055." "Waverley was a Toronto exchange," exchange," confirms Charles Dowsling, an executive consultant with Bell Canada. "But there were three different areas (including Toronto)." The area served by the Waverley exchange now has three area codes: 416, 519 and 705, plus many exchanges. exchanges. Even if the original 0055 survived, it would be difficult to determine determine the correct exchange. Roy Chow, a member of 'The Telephone Exchange Name Project,' also confirms Waverley was a prefix for the Toronto area during the first half of the last century. "The Waverley exchange was in use from March 1901, when exchange exchange names first appeared in the Toronto phone book," says Mr. Chow, a Toronto resident whose hobby is to preserve the past by documenting documenting telephone exchange names around the world. "The changeover from Waverley to Empire 8 occurred in March 1953," he continues. "I don't know whether the transition transition from six to seven digits preserved preserved the original four digits (0055) after the exchange name, though. Current reverse directory lookups find no listings for (such a number)." So, the letters date back at least 50 years and possibly 70. With no names, dates, addresses, or envelopes envelopes to give any hint as to who wrote the 10 pages of deeply felt affection, affection, or to whom, their washing ashore into Jocelyn's protection remains remains a mystery. 'The Way That Lovers Use,' by the First World War poet Rupert Brooke, is one of the verses copied out with the letter-writer adding, "Rupert Brooke wrote that little poem and I think he was a very wise young man ... " The love described in the letters and accentuated with romantic poems, seems to be of the unrequited unrequited kind, save for a kiss. The romantic romantic duo met on Thursdays and attended attended the same church. The author took a trip and consulted consulted a fortune teller, was a good speller and used punctuation and grammar well. " ... was out to church last night and petted the arm of your pew ... Did I tell you that the fortune teller saw romance in my cup? ... the most important day of this week is Thursday." Thursday." The anonymity of the long ago love remains as intact as the letters describing it. They also ask more questions than they answer. Why was the box sealed shut? Did the author ceremoniously cast the memories of a lost love adrift when she heard of the other's death? Or did feuding families oppose the romance? Perhaps one of'the lovers simply let the other down in some way. Maybe one or both were already married. Or was the box buried on a beach where the lovers watched the sun set in happy times, released by a storm that uprooted it, sending the cherished cherished contents into Jocelyn's care? What does Jocelyn think? "It was pretty cool but it smelled really, really weird," she says. "I think it's about poems and a girl talking to someone. At the end of it (one letter) it said, 'Just seeing you in the rain - it just made everything everything all right. Bye.'" RON PIETRONIRO/ Statesman photo Jocelyn Malloy, 9, found an old copper box floating in Lake Ontario which contained 70-year-old love letters. I iii\ ci sily ul' ( ) 111 ; l rm llisllllllc u| Tech IHiliiPV Thank You Processing & printing Daily quality control Crisp, vibrant colour photos FUJI paper and chemistry A Friendly prices Excellent quality 35mm and APS 110 126 120 formats Photo restoration Digital and Optical Ask Your Physiotherapist Telma Grant Registered Physiotherapist "Acupuncture and Whiplash" Q. Telma, I slammed my head backwards, and now my neck is killing me. How can physiotherapy help? A. You me describing a classic whiplash injury, so called because your head whips back and forth, causing injury to your neck. 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