The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Women unravel mystery of World War II love letters
On the way home from a weekend road trip to the Smoky Mountains, two friends, Lindsy Wolke and Megan Grant, found themselves browsing the relic room of Smoky Mountain Knife Works in eastern Tennessee.
Among the fossils and old currency, they stumbled upon a few handwritten letters from World War II. The love letters, written from 1944 to 1946, were so absorbing — and the two friends stood there reading them for so long — that an employee came by and joined them, becoming equally enthralled.
“We were sitting there for what felt like forever,” said Grant, 24, of Clarksville, Tennessee.
Wolke and Grant purchased all 21 letters and hurried to the car to continue reading the love story of Elias Maxwell and Ilaine Murray. At the time, Elias, 18, was stationed in Hawaii and Japan on the USS Rankin, and Ilaine, 19, was back in their hometown of Blackwood, New Jersey.
“The notes were just so beautifully written,” said Wolke, 24, who also lives in Clarksville. “Reading them just made your heart melt. It was like reading a book.”
The ending to the love story, however, was missing. So they turned to an ancestry website to try to find the couple. Wolke and Grant were delighted to learn that, after the war, the young lovebirds had indeed married and had four children. But they also learned Elias and Ilaine passed away years ago.
Wolke did some sleuthing and found two of their children on Facebook. She sent them messages but neither replied.
Undeterred, she posted a photo of the letters on a Facebook group dedicated to unique items found while thrifting. It caught the eye of a friend of one of Elias and Ilaine’s children.
Barbara Murray, 65, of Clementon, New Jersey, one of the Maxwell children, had seen Wolke’s message about the letters but dismissed it as spam. It wasn’t until a friend sent Wolke’s post from the Facebook group that Murray allowed herself to consider it could be real.
The sight of her mother’s handwriting on the envelopes left her “literally shaking.”
Murray said she was moved that the two young women found them and were so determined to track her down.
On Oct. 4, Wolke and Grant drove 800 miles to return all 21 letters to their rightful owners.
Murray imagined how her parents would have reacted to this story of two strangers unearthing their heartfelt and personal letters. “I think my mother would probably blush some,” Murray said. “My dad would be like, ‘Wow! This is great!’”