Good Samaritan Finds Love Letters From The 1950s, Returns Them To Couple’s Daughter

Good Samaritan Finds Love Letters From The 1950s, Returns Them To Couple’s Daughter

TINTON FALLS, N.J. (CBSNewYork) – A New Jersey woman is getting a surprise reminder about the love her late parents had for one another.

It came from the help of a complete stranger.

Her parents’ love story will live on with her forever, but 54-year-old Carol Cuttler is just now learning more about how the tale started.

“It’s a whole different side of them before they were parents and grandparents,” Carol told CBSN New York’s John Dias.

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  Love Letters 01Carol Cuttler's parents, Joan and Don. (credit: John Dias/CBSN New York)
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  Love Letters 02Carol Cuttler's mother Joan. (credit: John Dias/CBSN New York)
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  Love Letters 03The wedding of Carol Cuttler's mother Don and Joan. (credit: John Dias/CBSN New York)
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  Love Letters 04Don as a young man. (credit: John Dias/CBSN New York)
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  Love Letters 05Carol Cuttler reviews her parents' love letters. (credit: John Dias/CBSN New York)
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  Love Letters 06Carol Cuttler reviews her parents' love letters. (credit: John Dias/CBSN New York)
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  Love Letters 07The love letters from Carol Cuttler's parents. (credit: John Dias/CBSN New York)
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  Love Letters 08A love letter from Don to Joan while he was stationed overseas. (credit: John Dias/CBSN New York)
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  Love Letters 09(credit: John Dias/CBSN New York)

Both her parents died about a year ago, just five months apart, leaving her to sell their belongings.

“We had an estate sale because it was such a big job,” Carol said. “Along the way, these must have been placed in something we got rid of.”

What she’s referring to are 65 love letters. Her dad sent them to her mother in the 1950s, when he was in the Army, stationed in Japan and her mother was back in America in nursing school.

“My dearest Joan,” Carol read. “You look great angel, not just tonight, always.”

Carol had no idea that they wrote to one another so often.

“This puts a whole puzzle together that I never knew existed,” she said.

Her father wrote them during the infancy of their almost 70-year long love story. The ones her mother sent in return are still lost.

“Waiting, praying and hoping that time passes quickly, so I can come home to you,” Carol read.

All 65 letters are in mint condition, each one ending the same way, signed “Always, Don.”

“Had a big bark at times, but everyone always knew he had a great heart, and it shows in all these letters, definitely,” Carol said.

The reason why Carol now has her hands on these letters is Bonnie Hanlon, who found them inside an Asbury antique store, and used Ancestry.com to research the family.

“I was thrilled to find out that they got married and also found someone else was researching them,” Hanlon said.

That person was Carol, looking to find out more about her heritage. She never expected this.

“I am a teacher and always telling my students acts of kindness, and this is the ultimate act of kindness,” she said.

This time, spotlighting acts of love.

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April 04, 2019 at 02:40AM