By Madison Butkus
Hometown Weekly Reporter
Local Needham Author Paula Roberts was welcomed into the Needham Free Public Library (NFPL) to discuss her book “Sealed With A Kiss.” Attendees filed into the Community Room eager and excited to hearRoberts discuss her parents' love story during World War II.
Regarding the book, the NFPL’s website went on to state, “In late 1942, as World War II raged, 19-year-old Paul Roberts left college and enlisted in the United States Army. After completing basic training and Officer Candidate School, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the 320th Rifle Infantry Regiment. He and his regiment fought their way through France, Belgium, Holland, and Germany against the Nazis until he was seriously wounded in March of 1945. Throughout his wartime odyssey, he wrote hundreds of letters to his fiancée Bernice back home in upstate New York. His correspondence provides not only an intimate view of a relationship challenged but ultimately strengthened by separation and adversity, but a historic yet personal perspective of the war in Europe by one of the men who led troops into battle during the world’s deadliest conflict.”
Roberts happened to find these letters her father Paul wrote to her mother after they had both passed. Upon finding them, she was unaware that he had even written these letters, or that he had such a loving side to himself. She explained that her father acted as a rather serious man when she was growing up, so it was truly special to see this kind of side to him.
Roberts’ mother Bernice received anywhere between 300-350 letters from Paul and saved all of them for over 60 years. When putting this book together, Roberts and her partner Stan scanned about 85% of these letters and transcribed them into Microsoft Word.
From there,Roberts, working alongside Stan and her editor, began to annotate the letters and give more details about them. This was a rather daunting task due to the confidentiality agreement that had started within this war. At the time when writing these letters to Bernice, Paul could not mention where he was located, where he was traveling to, and more. This is where Roberts annotated to fill in the gaps and give more detail to each letter.
The book as a whole took two years to be created and not every letter is seen within. When creating the title for this work, Roberts knew it had to be “Sealed With A Kiss” because that was how her father would sign off with his letters: S.W.A.K.
Throughout her presentation on her book, Roberts discussed the timeline of the letters included within, read out loud some passages of what her father wrote, passed around some samples of letters she transcribed, answered audience questions, and more. She also gave a few interesting tidbits about her parents, including how Paul had to write the letters left handed for a while after his right arm was injured in the war, and how her mother’s cause of death was listed as pneumonia, just like her father, but this was not actually how she had passed.
This entire process for the local author, from finding the letters to publishing her book, has been extremely sentimental for herself. “Ever since this happened,” Roberts stated, “I just feel as if my parents are with me. I feel them close to me and it is really wonderful. I see them both smiling and even smiling at you, saying thank you for coming. And if my father were here tonight, and if there were war veterans and their families, he would dedicate this presentation to them.”
