Dearest Reader,

As I continue sorting through the papers my parents left behind, I occasionally discover someone who was clearly important to them. Donald Tuttle is one of those people.

My mother worked for the State of New Hampshire, and among her keepsakes I found not one, but several newspaper clippings announcing Donald Tuttle’s death in 1962. I don’t know if they worked together or simply knew one another professionally, but the care she took in saving these articles tells me he was someone she respected and admired.

Donald Tuttle devoted much of his career to promoting New Hampshire. As the State’s Publicity Director and editor of The Troubadour, he celebrated the state’s history, landscapes, communities, and people. Through his writing and public service, he helped shape the way New Hampshire presented itself to both residents and visitors.

As I read these articles today, I realize they tell me as much about my mother as they do about Donald Tuttle. The people we choose to remember often reveal something about ourselves. Whatever their connection may have been, she felt his passing was important enough to preserve.

More than sixty years later, those yellowed newspaper clippings have become another message from the past. They remind me that history is often deeply personal. Sometimes it isn’t the famous events that tell us the most, but it is the simple things people chose to save. In preserving these clippings, my mother unknowingly left me another small clue to understanding the life she lived and the people who influenced it.

Each letter, photograph, and newspaper clipping adds another piece to the puzzle of my parents’ lives. Donald Tuttle may not have been part of our family, but through my mother’s careful preservation of these articles, he has become part of the story she left behind.