Pen pals spent 70 years exchanging 700 letters

Gloria Bruce and Shirley Clements weren’t supposed to be pen pals.

Their 70-year correspondence resulted from a happy accident in 1953. Bruce wrote to a British girl, who decided to trade letters with a friend so each would have more in common with her match.

Now Bruce and Clements’s friendship has spanned roughly 700 letters, two continents and numerous adventures in England and Louisiana and on five cruises around the world. The pair, both 81, have transitioned from letter-writing to calling, emailing and texting as technology has evolved.

On Sunday, the duo rode on a float in a St. Patrick’s Day parade just outside New Orleans — an activity they chose because it was one of the few local events they had not already done together.

“We’re just like two little children,” Bruce said as they prepared for the celebration. “We’ve been giggling since she came here.”

The women’s unique friendship, previously reported by New Orleans-based television station WWL-TV, began when they were in elementary school — Bruce in New Orleans and Clements in Batley, England. One of Bruce’s classmates had a British pen pal, and some of that girl’s friends wanted writing buddies of their own.

Bruce, 11, volunteered and wrote to a girl named Susan. But she said when she got a letter back, it was from Clements.

No matter — Bruce and Clements had a lot in common. Both loved to read and collected stamps. Both had learned to embroider from their mothers. Their birthdays were 10 days apart.

As they got older, their similarities deepened. The women both had children, and both of their first husbands died. They even have similar builds, which Clements said made it easy for her to borrow Bruce’s nightgown once when her luggage got lost in transit to New Orleans.

The duo finally met in person in 1985 when Clements, a biochemist, stopped in New Orleans after a conference in California. The cross-country flight was turbulent, Clements said, and she wondered whether she would survive to finally lay eyes on her kindred spirit.

“We got on like a house on fire from the first minute to now,” Clements said.