A collection of WWII-era love letters are found in a Staten Island home and returned to the family nearly 80 years after they were written. In 1995, Dottie Kearney and her husband bought a home on Staten Island and while doing some renovations, they found a stash of well-preserved handwritten love letters inside a wall. The letters were from Claude Smythe to his wife Marie Smythe, sent while he was serving overseas in the Navy during WWII. Kearney was moved by the letters and knew right away that someone would want them, but she wasn’t able to track down anyone from the Smythe family.
Fast forward 28 years. Kearney had moved from the Staten Island home, but she brought the letters with her, hoping to one day return them to the family. And then she sees heirloom hunter Chelsey Brown on TV and decides she’s the person to help her reunite the letters with their rightful owner. Brown, an interior designer who’s become known for returning family heirlooms to families, used her resources to track down the Smythe’s daughter, 76-year-old Carol Bohlin of Vermont, and return the letters to her.
Bohlin was surprised to receive the letters after all these years and they brought back lots of memories. They were a reminder of the love she remembers her parents sharing and sitting down and reading them was very emotional. "Sometimes I laughed and then sometimes I cried,” she says. “I felt like they were here again." And even though her parents have long since passed, she now feels like she has a piece of them. “I miss my mom and I miss my dad,” she says, “And I will always have these letters."
Source: FOX News