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WW II US veteran receives wife’s love letter posted in 1945 after 72 years

The 96-year-old war veteran received the letter on his wife’s sixth death anniversary.

Updated on: May 11, 2017, 23:00:46 IST
Associated Press | By
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A love letter lost in the walls of a New Jersey home reached a World War II veteran 72 years after it was written.

A New Jersey resident found a love letter at her home and got it delivered to the addressee using help from social media. (Representative image)
A New Jersey resident found a love letter at her home and got it delivered to the addressee using help from social media. (Representative image)

Melissa Fahy and her father found the letter in a gap under the stairs while renovating her Westfield home.

The letter, postmarked May 1945, was written by a woman named Virginia to her husband, Rolf Christoffersen. Her husband was a sailor at the time in the Norwegian Navy.

“I love you Rolf, as I love the warm sun,” Virginia Christoffersen wrote. “That is what you are to my life, the sun about which everything else revolves for me.”

Fahy told WNBC-TV in New York that she could not believe the love and admiration Virginia had for her husband. “It was really sweet to see that long-distance love,” she said.

She decided to find the Christoffersens and deliver the letter, turning to a Facebook page for help. Facebook users located the couple’s son in California hours after Fahy’s post.

The son read the letter to his 96-year-old father. Virginia died six years ago this weekend.

“In a way, I guess it’s his wife coming back and making her memory alive again,” Fahy said.