Love letter from 1940 unearthed

[Warden]

Hello one and all

Found this on the BBC news website. For the full story click here
A Worcestershire family is trying to trace the owner of a love letter written in 1940 which was discovered under the floorboards of their house.

A sweet story for a Tuesday afternoon

Warden D

 

[GOK]

Awww, wouldn't it be great to know the backstory to that? And the ending too.

Those newspapers would make interesting reading methinks - The DM from the 30s...goodness only knows what hyperbole they were spouting back then! lol

Thanks for posting, Harry.

 

[griffer]

but what if it was an illicit affair? who hides a love letter if it's on the straight and narrow?

imagine being busted for straying 65 years later!

 

[GOK]

Imagine being told your granny and grandad were splitting up because he'd discovered she was having an affair.....60 years previously.

It does seem an unusual thing to do, to hide the letter (esp. after it had apparently been torn up) and the fragment of content might suggest something elicit but who knows? Maybe those words aluded to a class barrier?

And why hide the newspapers and a chemistry set? One might almost believe it was a time capsule, stashed deliberately.

How deliciously intriguing, eh?

I once heard of a woman that inherited her mother's wedding dress and whilst having it altered, found a note stashed in the hem. It was from the woman's grandmother to her daughter (modern woman's mother), telling her what a wonderful daughter she was, how she had brought so much happiness into her (the granny) and her husband's lives, how proud of her they both were and how she hoped her daughter would find as much marital happiness and she had done.

I love little stories like that!

but what if it was an illicit affair? who hides a love letter if it's on the straight and narrow?

imagine being busted for straying 65 years later!

 

[Salv]

A...
Those newspapers would make interesting reading methinks - The DM from the 30s...goodness only knows what hyperbole they were spouting back then! lol
...

Probably applauding the success of the Nazi Party in the 1932 German elections...

 

[griffer]

Thread godwinned in record time.

I've got it!

It was a sapphic love note from Unity Valkyrie Mitford to Leni Riefenstahl!

 

[Salv]

Thread godwinned in record time.

I've got it!

It was a sapphic love note from Unity Valkyrie Mitford to Leni Riefenstahl!

Ithengyew!

 

[Story]

It was a sapphic love note from Unity Valkyrie Mitford to Leni Riefenstahl!

 

[GOK]

:eusa_clap :eusa_clap :eusa_clap

 

[Story]

Meanwhile, back at the Topic...

Antiques dealer returns WWII-era love letters to family



MONROE (AP) — Antiques dealer Terri Smith wouldn't normally set her sights on old, beat-up luggage.

So when Smith, of Monroe, paid $27.50 for a cardboard suitcase at a Toledo auction last week, she had no idea it was stuffed with priceless World War II-era love letters between high school sweethearts.

The roughly 500 letters were exchanged while Charles Ashton was in the Navy, writing to his wife Ruthie. They span about two years.

"It almost felt intrusive, it was so personal," Smith told The Monroe Evening News. "They are the most beautiful letters. I told my husband, 'I can't sell this."'

Instead, Smith tracked down Lynn "Dutch" Ashton, 66, one of Charles and Ruthie's two sons, in Perrysburg, Ohio. She arranged to meet Ashton in downtown Monroe on Friday to hand over her find.

"They're really mushy — 'I miss your sweet voice,' 'I'm so lonesome' — it's just very touching," Smith said.

Ashton and his wife Charlotte were wide-eyed when Smith opened the suitcase jam-packed with envelopes. Ashton said he has some old letters, but Smith's suitcase must have slipped by him.

Charles Ashton died in 1970 and Ruthie Ashton in 2004. Family members have since divided up their belongings. Lynn Ashton said the suitcase must have been overlooked in an outside storage area and ended up in the hands of a personal property liquidator.

"Nobody writes letters like that anymore," Charlotte Ashton said. "I can't believe it."

Some of the letters were typical of the heartfelt sentiment that soldiers and loved ones exchange. Others detailed daily household duties, such as cake-baking and life with the kids.

Lynn Ashton said his parents were high school sweethearts who married soon after graduation.

"I'm glad you did this for me," he told Smith.

Smith and her husband Howard asked to keep two letters so they can frame them and remember the experience. Ashton readily agreed.

"I think God has his hand in this," Smith said. "Normally this is something I wouldn't buy."

 

[Story]

But wait, there's more!

Odd how things like this seem to happen in waves.

Man's wallet returned 62 years after losing it in France in WWII

(1/09/07 - MEXICO, MO) - Ray Heilwagen has his wallet back, 62 years after he lost it in France during World War II. Late last year, Heilwagen received a call from Stephen Breitenstein of Palatine, Ill.
"He said, 'Did you lose a billfold?' and I remembered I did," Heilwagen told the Hannibal Courier-Post. "Then he said, 'I found it and will send it to you.'

"I could hardly believe it."

Breitenstein's father, who also served in France during World War II, recently died. Digging through his father's possessions ironically on Veteran's Day Stephen Breitenstein found the old wallet. He figured his dad found it during the war and brought it home, hoping to find the owner. Not knowing how to do so, he left it in a drawer for more than six decades.

Using the Internet, Breitenstein tracked down Heilwagen. After their phone conversation, he mailed the wallet to him.

"He sent it to me, and I received it in very good order," Heilwagen said. "It had everything in it (French) francs and pictures and my original Social Security card and some receipts."

The wallet also included an article from the Courier-Post (Heilwagen grew up in Hannibal) that his parents had mailed to him during the war.

Heilwagen served with the Army's 79th Infantry Division of the U.S. Army, which was in combat in France from their arrival in July 1944 until he was injured and hospitalized that November with a leg injury. He received a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star.

"We were in combat continuously, every day almost," he recalled. "We were in a battle and received small arms fire, then a German mortar came in and exploded. It blew me into the river, and I had about five pieces of shrapnel in my right leg."

As medics helped him in the field, Heilwagen recalled pulling out his billfold to look at pictures. The next day, he was taken to a French hospital, where the shrapnel was removed.

"They were getting ready to ship me out to another hospital, and I looked for my billfold, and it was gone," said Heilwagen, who was later discharged and returned to Missouri. He retired after a 39-year career with Southwestern Bell Telephone.

As for Breitenstein, "I was impressed that a stranger would go to such trouble to locate me and return my wallet," Heilwagen said.

 

[Story]

Ok, someone que the Twilight Zone music

Lost WWII bracelet on way home from Europe
Last Updated: Thursday, January 4, 2007 | 4:19 PM ET
CBC News

A silver bracelet worn by a Canadian soldier fighting in the Second World War will soon be in his daughter's hands after it was found in a former battlefield.

Maureen Torreiter, 60, of Toronto cried when she realized the engraved bracelet did indeed belong to her late father.

The piece of jewelry was discovered by a Dutch man using a metal detector in a forest along the Germany-Holland border that had been the site of a bloody battle.

The man contacted an Alberta couple who run a website about Canadian soldiers. The couple tried to find the owner by telling the story to the media.

Torreiter's aunt happened to hear a report about the bracelet Wednesday on a local radio station, AM 740. Her father's name, Allan O. Edwards, was engraved on the identification bracelet.

Rest of story at
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2007/01/04/bracelet-worldwar.html

 

[Spitfire]

The story of the lost wallet even made it to the national news here in Denmark yesterday.
Thanks for sharing the others.
The loveletter thing is a sweet mystery. Why was the letter torn to pieces and THEN hidden?
What was the "affair" the writer would not mention, if she only loved him?
uhhhh.....sweet mystery.

 

[TailendCharlie]

Hidden letter

I found this letter in the basement of our while in the process of rewiring,it was hidden in what was the coal room ceiling.
Dear Donna
It has been a long time since I've heard from you but I trust you are well and happy.(next part unable to read because its written in pencil)
But it finially came and when I came east I hoped I might see you when I passed thru Detroit.
I very readly and boldly wierd from Kalamazoo that I would be in Detroit at a certain hour.But when I arrived at Detroit I foundthe city was a hour ahead of time.I realized that it would bevery rude of me to expect a lady to meet me at such a late hour.But truly I was disappointed not to see you.I surely hope(again unlegiable)I would consider it a pleasant appoximity to meet you,if only to say hello to you for really its been along time and really I've not forgotten you. If I am allowed to see you I will surely fell that you are doing me a kindness and honor. Please Donna,if just for old times sake don't refuse me. I will be her until next Friday after which I will leave for Boston> I would thank you greatly if you would grant me(again unlegiable)I am interested in you,perhaps more than you think or desire. My adress till next Friday will be Hotel Vermont Burlington
With Best Regards and hope
Truly Yours
Bill Friskey (July 18 1924)

 

[CanadaDoll]

awww that's sweet!

I once heard a story about a woman who'd bought and antique writing desk, and found a bundle of war letters, between a soldier and his sweetheart, and she tracked him down, who knows how many years later to return them, he was thrilled to have them back, since he'd lost her a few years earlier.

I'd love to find something like that, read what life was like for people way back when.

 

[Warden]

Here is a simular story.

The family of a World War II soldier is being sought after a love letter posted 68 years ago turned up among items dumped by a burglar in Hertfordshire.

See BBC news report here

Enjoy

Harry

 

[Foofoogal]

You people. would not believe the thing I paid $5.00 for at a junk flea mkt.

It was a wedding book jammed full of letters, pictures, detailed and I mean detailed items about their first new home with drawings and scraps of wallpaper, engagement news clippings, what they ate at the showers, baby pictures, hankies and so so much more. Seems honey was in the service so lots of things about that, family photos with no kidding even a real birth certificate.
It was from a family that lived in Waco, Texas. I tried for weeks to track down someone to give it to but still have it. Phone calls on my dime and all. As a dealer I guess I could sell it but it is like the lady picked me as she knew I would go nuts trying to find a family member.
I literally sat and cried when I first found it as it was just sitting on a junky table when I saw how much time and effort went into this ladies wedding book. So sad.

 

[Badluck Brody]

Recently...

While moving things from my mother's I found an old metal chalk box with negatives and pictures that my grandpa and his brother took in WWII when they were stationed in the pacific. They even include some pics of when his "tough as nails" mother went to visit him.

 

[Warden]

There is a follow up to the story today, it appears the family have been traced.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/beds/bucks/herts/7258275.stm

Harry

 

[Mike in Seattle]

RE: Long lost love letters...I'm sure some of you have seen the wonderful BBC series As Time Goes By which involved a soldier & nurse in WWII who run into each other by chance encounter 40+ years later. She runs a secretarial service, needs someone to take dictation on his memoirs, and her daughter thinks he's kinda hot...

When they parted during the war, it was up to one of them to write the other or they'd consider the romance at a close. No letter arrives. Decades later, one gets up the nerve to ask why the other hadn't written and the response is that a letter was indeed sent...why had there been no response?

The show ran 13 seasons. Over the course of the series, his memoirs become a best seller, it's turned into a mini-series, they marry...and then in the last episode, he's at the opening of an WWII exhibit at a museum when something catches his eye...

My understanding was it was based on a story similar to one of those posted on this thread - someone finds an old love letter from WWII that never reached the intended party and wonders how that changed both lives.