WARREN COUNTY, N.C. -- Dr. Chamaine McKissick-Melton, also known as Dr. Mac, discovered a treasure trove when she started cleaning out her grandmother's kitchen buffet several years ago.

"She had something tied in a handkerchief and then a shoestring around it. So when I opened it, I realized the date," Dr. McKissick- Melton explained.

It was letters from her grandfather, Ernest McKissick, writing to his then girlfriend and future wife, Magnolia Thompson, while he was fighting on the front lines in World War I.

"We don't have a lot of just black people speaking to black people as they did in that time frame. When I tried to find more, I would find things from World War II," McKissick- Melton said.

The North Carolina Central University professor decided to compile the letters into a book titled, "Love Letters to Magnolia" to preserve not only the lovely prose, but the historical data as well.

"It shows you a different time, a different way of people even speaking and talking to each other, a level of civility that certainly in 2020 seems to be missing," she said.

Dr. Mac is the daughter of Floyd McKissick Sr., the famed civil rights attorney, and sister of former state senator Floyd McKissick Jr. Her grandparents ended up getting married seven months after Ernest returned home from the war. They have both passed now, only a couple of years from one another.

The book is now newly available online.