Michigan man finds love letter that brought his mother to Lansing

LANSING, Michigan — Kenny Turner from Lansing precocious recovered a letter, a 70-year-old emotion letter, mailed with intent.

"Dearest Darling, I received your saccharine missive contiguous and was much than thrilled to perceive from you," helium work from it, sitting connected the steps of what was erstwhile Lansing's downtown bid station. "I'm doing good and anticipation you each are likewise."

The missive is wrapped successful the amination to shield it from immoderate unwanted exposure. Turner pointed to the precocious right-hand corner.

"He was surviving astatine the clip astatine 910 William St. successful Lansing, and this was April 11, 1951," helium said. "Yeah, you tin spot it. My dada had fantabulous penmanship."

In cursive, the missive is written by Turner's father, William Turner, which they don't thatch successful schools anymore.

"I privation you now. I didn't privation to permission you. Those 2 nights and days with you taught maine much than the full 3 years I spent courting you. Had I known joined beingness would beryllium that sweet, you would person been my woman earlier adjacent that," helium wrote.

Turner claims his dada was not the romanticist type, but the missive shows a softer broadside his children didn't ever see.

Following the saccharine words are elaborate instructions.

"Its sanction is The Georgian. Catch it. It leaves astir 10 minutes aft The Hummingbird gets there. It volition bring you to Chicago, and past you drawback the Grand Trunk Western, get a Red Cap to transportation your bags, and archer them which bid you privation to catch. That bid volition bring you to Lansing."

It's successful this missive that William Turner gave his wife, Vellmerie Turner, the step-by-step instructions she needed to permission her tiny hometown successful Alabama for the archetypal time.

She was leaving to caput North and conscionable William successful Lansing.

"I conscionable couldn't judge it," said Turner. "I ne'er knew that missive existed. My ma ne'er said thing astir it, and I truly privation I had a accidental to beryllium down with them to sermon that full migration."

The means the Great Migration. Turner's household missive is singular for galore reasons, but it's historical due to the fact that it represents a trip, a hazard galore Black families took successful the mid-1900s.

"That was thing that happened each implicit the United States successful the large cities, Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, New York, arsenic portion of the Great Migration, which occurred from astir 1913 till astir 1970, and that was the influx of Southern African Americans coming to the North for bully jobs and really to flight Jim Crow," said Bill Castanier, president of the Historical Society of Greater Lansing.

"We got truthful galore families here," said Turner. "The Culpeppers, Byers, Looneys, Wills, and Davis. I mean, each those families moved up here."

There were conscionable implicit 3,200 Black residents of Lansing successful 1950, according to the U.S. Census. By 1970, it was much than 12,000.

The cautiously penned instructions connected the emotion missive are a testament to the travel and combat of thousands.

As Kenny Turner walks connected the aforesaid Michigan Avenue bid tracks, Vellmerie Turner arrived connected 70 years ago, and helium murmured, "I tin consciousness your presence."

The Turner household missive volition beryllium blown up and utilized arsenic portion of a show astir the Great Migration astatine The Knapp's Center successful downtown Lansing starting connected Sept. 24.

Sarah Grimmer astatine WSYM archetypal reported this story.