While sorting through a box of donated household goods last year at The Salvation Army Family Store in Hannibal, MO., manager Tina Eifert came upon a stack of handwritten letters from World War II.
The letters, dated from September 1944 to November 1945, were from Chester McMeen, a U.S. Army soldier from Southern Illinois who was stationed in the Philippines, to his wife, Alma Bernice McMeen.
After reading a few of them, Tina knew she was holding a treasure.
“This was history. These letters meant something to someone. I knew the importance of them,” she said.
She also knew someone would want them returned.
Tina called Amanda Bowen, family service caseworker with The Salvation Army in Hannibal, who contacted local freelance journalist Megan Duncan for assistance.
Megan read through each letter written to Bernice—or “my Almie,” as Chester often called his wife—and put them in chronological order.
“Chester wrote about how he couldn’t wait to get home for a home-cooked meal; how he couldn’t wait to take Bernice on a date; and how he was hopeful for the war to end,” Megan recalled. “He put a lot of trust in Bernice. They were just newlyweds. And she was at home taking care of everything.”
In one letter, Chester said he felt very close to Bernice, despite the many miles between them. “In a way it seems like I haven’t seen you in years, and in a way, it feels like I’ve seen you constantly,” Chester wrote. “I can read your thoughts and see your actions in every letter. We have been apart in body only, as our thoughts are always together.”
Megan wrote a story about the “mystery letters” for The Salvation Army in Quincy and Hannibal. The story soon found its way to a local TV newscast and even was featured in People magazine.
Meanwhile, Megan was on a quest to find the McMeen family.
Working through a Southern Illinois-based chamber of commerce, she was able to get a message to the McMeens’ son, Leland.
It was Leland’s sister, Alyce Montgomery, who recently made the trip to Hannibal to recover the lost items. Alyce had packed up the donation box—not realizing she had accidentally sent off her father’s letters.
Having never read them, Alyce was overjoyed to get the letters back.
After the war, Chester and Bernice raised their three children in Carbondale, Ill., where Chester established the McMeen Cabinet and Woodworking Company in the 1950s. He worked there until he retired. Bernice passed away in 1999, and Chester died in 2002.
Alyce fondly recalls her parents’ long and happy marriage—just shy of 57 years by one day.
“They were dedicated to one another,” she said. “Everyone has trials, of course. But they took their vows seriously, and there was more ‘better’ than ‘worse.’ They loved each other very much.”
The family is grateful to The Salvation Army’s staff for getting the letters back home.
“The Salvation Army took the trouble to do that,” Alyce said. “God works in mysterious ways, let me tell you. These are precious memories coming back to our family.”
