The demise of traditional pen pals is imminent. Seldom will school children magically connect through letters with friends in other lands.
It’s the e-mail age, and one can find lists of potential pen pals in cyberspace, from Christian writers to gays in prison.
Such a cultural loss. Kay Patterson found her pen pal the remarkable way more than 60 years ago. A junior in Mrs. Olson’s literature class at Broadway High School in Seattle, Patterson connected with Brenda Calver in Leicester, England.
I expected to find a box of letters at Patterson’s Alderwood home, maybe tied with a blue ribbon, surely in a beautiful keepsake container.
I was wrong.
Patterson doesn’t save letters from overseas. She reads them and tosses them out. It’s not that she isn’t a collector. She has dolls, frogs and glassware displayed at her tidy home, but no letters for a columnist to read and share.
“I collect everything but paperweights and stamps,” Patterson said, laughing.
But no revealing letters.
There was a clipping about a Wrexham Townswomen’s Guild meeting in Wales, with no date, where Calver spoke about her trip to America. It took the two women almost 40 years to set eyes on one another; Patterson traveled to England with her mother and spent several days with her pen pal.
In about 1998, Calver came to Alderwood and the women had a high time seeing the sights, including riding the Spirit of Washington dinner train and touring The Boeing Co. They exchanged small gifts and snapped a few pictures. That was the only time Calver came to the United States to visit her friend.
Patterson later visited Calver’s new home in Wales. They have no plans to meet again.
It isn’t that Patterson hangs on the mailbox. She keeps very busy sewing doll clothes for charity, hours and hours a day. She plays bridge and made a gorgeous stained glass window that adorns her foyer. Her pen pal knits and crochets and Patterson sends her yarn.
During World War II, Patterson bought, for $1, a package of goodies, with chocolate and peanut butter, from her favorite store, Frederick &Nelson, and sent the box to England. As other English children did then, her friend worked in factories after age 14.
The day Patterson receives a post from Wales, she sits down and replies. It can take months to hear back from Europe.
“She isn’t a writer, I am,” Patterson, 78, said. “We have called at the odd time, but I’m not a phone person.”
The two married the same year, and both waited six years to have a child, both daughters.
Forgive me for not having any drama today. I expected heartfelt letters about the trauma of parenthood, life’s annoyances, world hunger or the agony of health problems.
I expected best friends, sisters really, cherishing having an intimate person across the ocean for pouring out one’s heart.
Sigh, their correspondence is ultralight. Here’s how it goes: Calver receives a pacemaker. She writes that she has a new pacemaker, but that’s it. Patterson writes about the Alderwood Garden Club, Alderwood Manor Historical Society, the Sno-Isle Genealogy Society, Lynnwood Senior Center or her summer home in Nanaimo, B.C.
“They are just newsy,” Patterson said.
Newsy notes for 60 years. No drama, but pretty darn sweet.
Keeping the letters going is so like Patterson. She still meets once a month with old pals from Rainbow Girls. And the grade school gang goes to lunch.
Nothing heavy, just the pleasure of sustained friendship.
Columnist Kristi O’Harran: 425-339-3451 or oharran@heraldnet.com
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