I remember the u/c and l/c "Q" as well.
My grandmother taught me the beautiful Spencerian cursive hand, which predates Palmer and is much prettier.
The only time I use it these days is for hand-written thank you notes . . . my grandmother's ghost still makes me write those . . . but my ordinary handwriting still has little quirks and details from the "ladies' hand."
I think note-taking in college is what truly destroys handwriting. I was going for speed, speed, speed (my professors all talked way too fast), so I printed letters that printed faster, handwrote letters that wrote faster, etc. If the German word was shorter, I used it, ditto the Latin. I acquired a Greek "m" in college because it is MUCH faster to write than the cursive or print English "m". So now my handwriting is a messy gobbledegook.