The hyperbolic language indicates a strong emotional attachment, but it somewhat ironically compelled me to not care, and stop reading.
You might never have seen them, but you could very well have seen information from them. Personal letters are the primary texts which historians and literary critics draw from, the sources from which we build up an understanding of the past. Their loss means more than a few random pages being scattered to the wind--it means we've lost a bit of knowledge of our own history.
Items in archives are like fossils: remarkably rare, incredibly personal to the entity involved, but potentially of great import to the rest of us because of what we can learn from them.
I admit I'm a little tone-deaf and didn't notice any hyperbolic language, but I would encourage you to give the article another chance.