Letters and Postcards
The first artifact is addressed to "My Dear Kate" and informs Kate that the writer's mother has died. The letter appears to be signed by a Louise A. Russell. Given that Jonathan's daily logs mentions spending time with and taking Kate places, I am assuming that this is a letter sent to Kate from a friend that Kate has stored in Jonathan's laptop. Louise writes that "I think Ms. Lynch will have already written you but I thought I would like to send a [?] myself." It is interesting that someone who had just lost a mother would be concerned with making sure she personally let others know, though this may signal a close bond between Louise's mother and Kate.
The next artifact is especially interesting, as it appears to be a document whose sole purpose is keeping track of marriage, birth, and death in the family. It states across the top "John Hostage of the city of Chester married at Traumere and [?] January 5th, 1847 to [?] Kent of [?]." It is marked with the same initials "JH" that the notebooks are marked with. The artifact then states "September 10th 1848 at Brook Hodge near Chester a boy born of 1/4 past 10 o clock pm called John Briayne Arthur." This matches the name that is written across two heavy pieces of copper that were located in the box. They are shaped like business cards and contain the lettering "Mr. Jonathan Briayne Arthur Hostage." It appears that John Hostage had a son born on 1848 that is Jonathan Briayne Arthur Hostage. These two either share the same name, or John Sr. handed this briefcase down to John Jr., who kept the documents in tact.
The next letter is written on August 17, 1905, signed by "Arthur," and is addressed to "My dearest love." Though the writing is difficult to transcribe, near the end of the letter it seems to say "I will keep this letter open" as well as "I love you my dearest one + long to be with you again--with a big big kiss" and, later another line states "big big kiss for papas little girl and the rest of the kisses that [?].
The next document is dated February 6th, 1949, and is addressed to "Paula" and signed "Flo" or perhaps "DH," which would be the initials of my grandmother. It describes where various Hostages are buried, and states that "The first Hostage named in the family Tree is Samuel Hostage who died in 1937. One Samuel Hostage is buried right outside the Chester Cathedral. It later states that "John Hostage...is buried in the Cathedral" and notes that there are other Hostages in the cemetery: "Perhaps they came over from Ireland. If I had the time I would love to go to the [?] Library and look this up"
The three postcards are hard to decipher, but two of them are signed by "Mrs. Russell," which might be the mother of Louise Russell. This postcard (the top one) is dated 1905, the middle one is dated 1916, and the third one is dated 1933. Given the amount of time in between them, it is likely that these are important postcards given that they had been deliberately saved for several decades.