For Valentine’s Day, we bring you a love let­ter. Peter M. Page joined the US Naval Air Corps after grad­u­at­ing with Prince­ton University’s Class of 1941. The fol­low­ing let­ter is part of the cor­re­spon­dence between Page and his fiancée Ann Pear­man (nee Aigu­ier) dur­ing his train­ing and mil­i­tary ser­vice. (The Peter M. Page papers are housed at the Mudd Man­u­script Library on the cam­pus of Prince­ton Uni­ver­sity. Click here for more about Page.)

Tran­script below images:

Peter Page:1942 let­ter page 1

Peter Page: 1942 let­ter page 2

Peter Page: 1942 let­ter page 3

I had the most mar­velous con­ver­sa­tion over the tele­phone this evening I ever had in my life, with the most mar­velous cre­ation in the his­tory of the world — you’ll never know how I felt this after­noon from the sec­ond I read that let­ter until I finally go you on the phone — as soon as I read it there was only one thing left for me to do and that was to call you as soon as pos­si­ble and find out just what was the story, the trou­ble, the sit­u­a­tion — if you ever doubted in all your life whether I love your or not today should have proven to you just exactly how ter­ri­bly much you do mean to me — if I’d had to go thru this entire night with­out know­ing the answer, with­out know­ing whether you loved me, it would have been too much. I’ve proven just how weak I am, that I couldn’t live with­out you — you mean so much to me that it ter­ri­fies me to think what would hap­pen if you left —– I was going to stay in town tonight and have a few drinks with the boys but after talk­ing to you, every­thing else lost all inter­est for me and after a nice big steak din­ner I came back here to the bar­racks where I could write you for the third time today. All I can think of is you, my dear-heart; you’re in my heart twenty-four hours a day and fac­ing the next four months with­out see­ing you is the black­est out­look pos­si­ble — how can I live four months with­out my “better-half” — its like liv­ing with­out my heart.