In this paper, we propose a directional wavelet approach to remove images of interfering strokes coming from the back of a historical handwritten document due to seeping of ink during long period of storage. Our previous work required mapping of both sides of the document in order to identify the interfering strokes to be eliminated. Perfect mapping, however, is difficult due to document skews, differing resolutions, non-availability of the reverse side and warped pages during scanning. The new approach does not require double-sided mapping but instead uses a directional wavelet transform to distinguish the foreground and reverse side strokes. Experiments have shown that the directional wavelet operation effectively removes the interfering strokes.