 | Shall I Say a Kiss? : The Courtship Letters of a Deaf Couple, 1936-1938 Upon the death of his father Morris at age 82, Lennard Davis found among his effects a trove of letters, kept in careful chronological order, that dated from 1936. The letters ended in 1938, when Eva Weintrobe came to America to marry Morris, and they provide the core of Shall I Say A Kiss? , their courtship by correspondence. In his framing comments, Davis speculates that his parents met perhaps four or five times before they wed, a fact that heightens the importance of these letters to their fate. Davis illustrates vast contrasts between Morris and Eva, both to each other (Morris was 38; Eva was 26), and to themselves in later life as witnessed by their son. Where Davis saw his father brimming with confidence and a sense of superior intellect while his mother acted as the reserved, dutiful wife, he was startled to learn through their letters that she could be the shrewd questioning correspondent even as his father wrote as an unsure, imploring suitor. Lennard J. Davis is a Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences and teaches in the English Department at the University of Illinois at Chicago. In addition, he is a Professor of Disability and Human Development in the School of Applied Health Sciences of the University of Illinois at Chicago, as well as a Professor of Medical Education in the College of Medicine. |
