WWII soldier’s love letters found during a home renovation 30 years ago reunited with family

Love letters penned by a soldier during World War II were returned to his daughter 30 years after a Staten Island homeowner found them during a home renovation.

Homeowner Dottie said she found the letters addressed to Marie Smythe from her husband, Claude Smythe, in the ceiling of her renovated home 30 years ago.

She said she was recently watching a talk show on television and saw “heirloom investigator” Chelsea Brown was the guest and reached out for help.

Brown used MyHeritage, a genealogy website, to track down the couple’s adult daughter Carol Bohlin in Vermont.

“This one was so special because I didn’t actually know if the descendants would ever see my message about the letters (sometimes that happens),” Brown said in a release to MyHeritage. “This one was also particularly special because this wasn’t an artifact that I found. A woman who was doing a renovation in the ’90s found these letters in her house, and she didn’t know what to do with them for years. She’d held onto them until she discovered what I did.”

Photos of Bohlin show her happy to be reunited with her parents’ long-lost love letters, along with a photo of her parents.

MyHeritage.com via Storyful