Businesswoman and former Community Chest chair Jennie Chua, the fourth eulogy speaker, spoke about the many handwritten letters that the late former President S R Nathan had written to his friends and colleagues.

Chua noted that Mr Nathan loved to write letters -- handwritten ones --  and they were written with a "S$2.20 uniball signo broad-tipped black pen, in his characteristic cursive handwriting, always clearly dated and signed".

Here are three stories that stood out:

1. A encouraging letter for Chua herself, after a challenging charity gala dinner:

Chua said that Mr Nathan noticed how tried she was after having to deal with a couple of difficult donors.

She received a handwritten letter from him, with a line reading: “some of us have greater burdens to bear, I know it was not easy for you”.

She also noted that Mr Nathan's letter "was never a standard template –- no two letters from him were the same".

2. A letter to the CEO of the National Council of Social Service on social work.

When Ang Bee Lian, the CEO of NCSS, wrote a book on “What is Social Work?”, Mr Nathan read her book and wrote her a letter.

He told her that the book "will be useful for those entering social work. Often, all we have is a bleeding heart and not knowing how and where to begin. This is especially so with the young, who are all attracted to the idea of doing good.”

3. And a personal story from Chua.

She first met him in 1969 when she was a student at Cornell University. After attending a labour conference in New York City, Mr Nathan took a 6-7 hour bus journey to meet Chua and her Singaporean university friends, to see how they were doing. He wanted to pass messages to them from their families.

Chua cooked chicken curry for Mr Nathan, and he left the next morning to New York to catch a flight home.

If you like what you read, follow us on Facebook and Twitter to get the latest updates.