More of Reagan's letters can be read here.
Transcript follows.
Transcript
State of California
GOVERNOR'S OFFICE
SACRAMENTO 95814
RONALD REAGAN
GOVERNOR
My Darling Wife
This note is to warn you of a diabolical plot entered into by some of our so called friends - (ha!) calendar makers and even our own children. These and others would have you believe we've been married 20 years.
20 minutes maybe - but never 20 years. In the first place it is a known fact that a human cannot sustain the high level of happiness I feel for more than a few minutes - and my happiness keeps increasing.
I will confess to one puzzlement but I'm sure it is just some trick perpetrated by our friends - (Ha again!) I can't remember ever being without you and I know I was born more than 20 mins ago.
Oh well - that isn't important. The important thing is I don't want to be without you for the next 20 years, or 40, or however many there are. I've gotten very used to being happy and I love you very much indeed.
Your Husband of 20 something or other.
32 comments:
Wow!
What a beautiful love letter! I would never have believed RR capable of such writing, nor such emotions. Just goes to show how prejudiced I am...
amazing!!! the man knew how to charm a lady.
How sweet. I wonder if I can get away with copying this verbatim this fall when my wife and I reach our 20 year anniversary......
I wonder if he actually didn't remember how long they'd been together. Too soon?
Typo in the transcript's last paragraph. It should read: "The important thing is I don't want to be without you for the next 20 years..." (The 'you' is currently missing.)
Great letter. :)
Of course Satan has charm, or else he'd never get anywhere...
Evil, evil man
Hermann Goering loved his wife, too.
That's the first time I've actually managed to feel a flicker of anything but total dislike for the man..
This so totally sounds like RR. You could tell by looking at them that they were both so besotted with one another. Thank you for sharing this with us. He wasn't known as the "great communicator" for nothing. :)
Why do all the haters feel the need to remain anonymous? I for one loved it, all politics aside.
Typo fixed.
How sweet! Think of him what you want, I would love to receive a letter like this for my 20th anniversary!
C'mon guys, leave the politics at the door. It's a wonderful letter.
Wonderful, beautiful letter!
Compared with the clowns in office now, Regan was a saint - despite all the fawning and drooling over the current administration, the history books will not be kind! Just wait!
Juvenile. Classic Reagan.
Like his politics or hate them, but the letter is still sweet. I just finished a great book of love letters called Dear Bob, Dear Betty . These two, who also eventually married, were really eloquent. Worth the read.
Women love this stuff guy'so take a lesson from the Gipper!! Another great read are the letters of Abigal and John Adams "My Dearest Friend". Not only sweet but great history written as it was being lived out.
Juvenile? Really? Most women would love to receive such a wonderful letter.
If being juvenile means having the ability to write such eloquent letters, then i hope that more women marry juvenile men.
Thanks for sharing that great letter :)
Agreed. Despite the fact that he was in politics, he was also just a man. A man capable of penning something I wish I could. Clever, humorus and romantic all at the same time.
For a man with so many speech writers and so on ready to craft his every utterance for greatest effect, it is heartening to know that he could still write out the words they gave him in his own hand.
Yes, I am somewhat of a cynic.
"C'mon guys, leave the politics at the door. It's a wonderful letter."
It's difficult to leave the politics at the door when you are talking about a politician. I hated the man. However, this is a very sweet letter.
I hated him, too, for putting the Vietnam vets on the street and deregulating ....everything. Dwight Eisenhower had a nearly 90% tax rate on the very very wealthy and we built a nation with roads and bridges and hospitals and relief for the destitute. Reagan cut it in half and Bush cut it in half again. The word "homeless" was born in Reagan's administration. I am glad he loved his wife. My father loved my mother, too. But he didn't have enough money to save her. If the current health plan had been in place, she would be alive. Privatising everything started with Reagan.I don't think he was evil. I KNOW he was wrong.
Course he couldn't remember twenty minutes, he was practically retarded
I'm not a hater, and I'm not posting anonymously. I agree it's a lovely letter. That doesn't make him a lovely man.
As a much beloved wife, I can say with certainty that this letter is very much to the heart of the matter or wife in this case - Nancy and Ronald were said to have been a bit over the top on certain things.. (like him calling her mommy) however.... He was a man in office - our president.. and no more or less than several other idiots that several idiots in this country have elected to represent until such time that no one will admit to voting for the idiot.. (yep guilty of voting for more than one idiot in my voting life - not naming names..lol)
But the love they shared was real.. The woman stayed with him in seclusion when his mind left - she was by his side constantly all their married life - she devoted her every waking moment and probably sleeping moment with thoughts of him (to the exclusion of her children - according to the tell all books that have since been written).. How many of the ppl that read this letter and scoff can say they have this type of love in their life.. How many wish they knew someone who would stand by them in sickness and in health (physical or mental)? And I agree with dneyder - lovely letter doesn't make him a lovely man - or president - however it did make him a loving and devoted husband and in the end of things. Wasn't that what mattered to the loving and devoted wife?
I so wish more people still wrote letters. I wasn't a fan of Ronald Reagan's politics but what a fantastic love letter this is!
Makes me teary every time. So much love and happiness in those words.
I wonder what all of these people who criticize politicians would do if they were in there shoes. Politics aside though, this letter is adorable.
Truly lovely. I'm not American so don't really care about the guy's politics one way or the other, but this letter touches me deeply, especially reading it today knowing the sadness and ill health that came to him later in life, and how she stood by him the whole time. I do wish that more men and women would learn to write a good love letter. And by good, I don't mean the most eloquent, quoting the most Shakespeare, dropping the most witticisms... I mean letters that really let the recipient know that he or she is deeply loved. This is such a letter. I'm glad you shared it with us. May Mr. Reagan rest in peace.
Uh yeah lets not forget these two are responsible for the War on Drugs, which continues to unfairly incarcerate people of low income brackets to this day. Just because a nicely written letter cites emotions you can relate with doesn't excuse mistakes made by whoever wrote it.
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