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The paper is yellowed now, the penciled cursive fading, but the letters from the World War II Women's Army Corps servicewoman to her sweetheart are romantic as ever.
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Good morning, darling. I'm so very used to going to sleep watching you smoke that cigarette (if I'm not in your arms) that I couldn't sleep.
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It was 1944. The writer, a witty young "service gal" stationed in San Bernardino was in love -- with another Army woman.
It doesn't startle me at all, she wrote to her girlfriend, saying her mother would be shocked if she found out about them. I know that I need you and want you with me and nothing about it seems remarkable or different. It's just a fact.
These were not activists or celebrities, just women in love at a time before being openly gay, let alone marriage equality, had achieved broad public acceptance. And that's exactly why their candid, intimate correspondence is so important, say archivists at the ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives at the USC Libraries, where their letters are now stored.
"They're not always important people, but they're important because they lived in a particular era and they wrote about it," said Fred Bradford, a retiree and former member of the ONE board of directors. "For a long time the library systems around the world, if they had any books about homosexuality, it was in the abnormal psychology section."
The ONE archive is believed to be the world's largest collection of LGBT artifacts, including personal items from photo albums and letters to diaries.
While the LGBT rights movement has made tremendous strides in recent years, gay history is little known because it was kept out of the history books for so long, said Joseph Hawkins, director of the archive.
ONE archivists are working...