In our world of electronic and digital communications, one wonders what evidence of our day-to-day lives will exist for our descendants in the next century. Modern technology has given us the ability to be in almost constant touch with one another. But, will our emails and texts still exist a hundred years from now? For decades, letter writing was often an everyday occurrence for most people. Keeping in touch meant sitting down with pen and paper. Receiving a letter was often an exciting event, especially from someone miles away. And, for many, including Alexander Graham Bell and his family, these letters were something to be kept, not simply discarded once read. The Bells were profuse writers and as a result, their story can be told today through thousands of letters.

Born in Scotland in 1847, Alexander Graham Bell lived a unique life. Influenced by his father, Melville, a professor of elocution, and his deaf mother, Eliza; the loss of his brothers, Melville and Edward, to Consumption; and marriage to his deaf pupil, Mabel Hubbard, Bell left a legacy to the world that few could imagine living without. How this came to pass is best revealed through the letters between these individuals. Here, we present those letters to you.

After Alec sent his account of his new daughter to his parents, Mabel penned this letter to Eliza about two weeks later, giving her own opinion of the wee Bell. Starting the letter on May 20th, Mabel noted that they had not yet named the baby, although Alec had threatened to register her as Jemima if a name wasn’t chosen soon. Writing “Shebaba” in telling of this, Mabel must have misunderstood in reading Alec’s lips as he corrected this himself in the........

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