February 21, 2010
Pen Pals
The Daily Gazette featured an interesting article last week about two local women who grew up during WWII and had contact with girls in England during the war. After years of communicating via letter, both women ended up visiting their new friends in England, much like Juliet ends up visiting her new friends on Guernsey.
When I was in school, I remember my class writing letters to kids in far-off places, hoping that we would find pen pals of our own. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the outcome of these letters, and with the advent of email and other, faster means of communication, the letter-writing tradition is certainly fading.
Does anyone else remember having a pen pal growing up? (Or, like Juliet, as an adult?) Did you ever get to meet your pen pal?
Libby said,
February 22, 2010 at 3:10 pm
My pen pal was in Torino, Italy and we wrote on and off from 3rd to 6th grade when I moved and we lost contact. It was always interesting to look on a map (pre-Internet) and think about where she grew up. I recall that her name was Sylvana but no last name, alas.
I too read the article in the Gazette and was amazed at the length of time of the correspondence. It reminded me of Helene Hanff and Frank Doel’s 20 year correspondence captured in the beautiful book “84, Charing Cross Road”
Angie said,
February 22, 2010 at 5:27 pm
I grew up in Kansas and had a pen pal from Cooperstown. We wrote for seven or eight years. I visited her in Cooperstown and again in Telluride, CO. She was better than a sister to me and when we met, it felt like we had known each other for years (which we did by mail!) We lost track of each other and even though I’ve recently tried to reestablish our connection, things have changed in our adult lives that we just haven’t been able to reconnect. Oh well!