80-year-olds Patsy Gregory and Carol-Ann Krause have been swapping letters since 1955 when they became girl scouts on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean.
The pair went on to send and receive more than 800 correspondences, always remembering each other’s birthdays, wedding anniversaries, and Christmas.
But they never met in person until Patsy told her daughter Steph that she’d always wanted to visit Carol-Ann, now living in Conway, South Carolina.
So her family surprised her with a ticket to the USA on her birthday in June this year which allowed her to fly 4,000 miles for the overdue get-together.
Patsy, who shared a heartwarming embrace with Carol-Ann on July 14th, said she had recognized her as soon as she opened her door.
“It was quite emotional, it was lovely,” Patsy from Lancashire County, England said in an interview. “I didn’t feel any nerves, I was excited. It was great to be able to meet her at last.”
“It was just as though I’d seen her last week because we’d known of each other for so long.”
America’s Carol-Ann, who was approached by Steph about the visit before Patsy’s birthday, said she was a little more anxious about their first meeting in person.
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Patsy was just 12 when she began writing to Carol-Ann, with the pair discussing their day-to-day experiences. Carol-Ann was living in Buffalo, New York at the time, and Patsy admitted she had been particularly intrigued about the teen’s life in the USA.
“In the girl guides, I happened to get Carol-Ann’s name,” Patsy recounted, using the British term for the girl scouts. “We started writing and we never stopped. It’s as simple as that.”
“It was extremely interesting to learn about her life. The weather, of course, was a big feature. She was living next to the Great Lakes.”
“We would write about what had happened in the day, school, anything that was going on, where we were going, who we went out with, or whatever. We were just sharing news, as you would with a friend next door,” said Patsy.
As their lives changed, so did the contents of their letters. Patsy was married in 1964, and Carol-Ann followed just a year later. They both had three kids each, and though they carried on through the decades, sending a total of 400 letters at least per person, they never met face to face.
Patsy said she had mentioned to her daughter Steph that she’d always wanted to meet Carol-Ann before her 80th birthday on June 6th, after which her daughter used social media to track down her pen pal’s family in America to ask if they would be interested in organizing a meet-up stateside.
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“Her daughter said she wanted to surprise her mother with a gift of coming to the USA to see me as it’s something that she has always wanted to do,” said Carol-Ann. “I was more than happy to take her up on the offer. Our birthdays are only separated by a month.”
During the stay, she said the pair had chatted for hours about their friendship while also taking in the local sights and going out for meals at places Carol-Ann and her husband frequented—all as if they had only been separated by a few years, such was the strength of their friendship.
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