Pam Gritton Gassel

In the 60s, it was common for people to have pen pals. I was no exception. My favorite was Maureen from New Zealand. We wrote letters for 2 years (ages 10-12). We stopped writing for some reason, and I stashed some of her letters in a scrapbook. 

Fast forward to the pandemic. One of my projects was rummaging through all I’d saved and figuring out what to do with everything.  Lo and behold, I found the letters and started reading them to my family. The next thing I knew, one of my daughters was searching for Maureen on Facebook and found what looked like a match. She contacted her through Messenger, asking if she’d had a pen pal from Illinois. Within an hour, Maureen messaged her back and confirmed it! She also said, “I recently was thinking of your mother and would love to hear from her!”

Just like that, we became Facebook friends, catching up on our lives and even having our first phone conversation!

I can’t believe how fast this happened. It’s wild — It used to take 2 weeks to receive a letter and that was our only form of communication.  Now, 56 years later, I saw how the power of instant technology changed the concept of pen pals, as it only took about a minute to find someone halfway around the world.  It’s definitely been so cool to experience renewing a friendship with someone I was close to years ago, but never met in person!