Wartime love letters returned to U.S. family thanks to Ontario woman's discovery
Katerina Georgieva | CBC News | Posted: May 27, 2021 10:59 AM | Last Updated: May 27, 2021
American family 'glad the letters are back where they belong'
Morris and Betty Starkman were newlyweds in 1953 and about to start their lives together in Detroit when Morris, a doctor, was instead sent to Korea to fight in a painful war as a captain with the U.S. Medical Corps.
Throughout that period, he wrote letters to his new wife and other family members.
Somehow, over the years, those letters, plus ones written back to him, became separated from the family, ending up in a tin box underneath a bunch of old magazines in a basement in Kingsville, Ont.
Angela Thompson had bought the box nearly eight years ago through an online auction in Chatham for artwork, and nearly forgot about it until about a month ago. She started sifting through it and discovered the 38 hidden letters, many of them addressed to Betty Starkman in Detroit.
WATCH | Angela Thompson finds the letters:
She quickly realized the historical and personal importance of the letters.
"These letters don't belong to me," she said, knowing immediately she wanted to get them back into the hands of family.
She said though she opened some of the letters just to get more information about who they were, she quickly stopped herself from reading any further.
"When I realized that they were war letters, I was like, 'No.' Because I know from my grandparents, like, you don't read that. It's very personal."
'Remarkable that they were found'
Before long, Thompson found information online about the late Morris and Betty Starkman. Their obituaries led her to family members she was able to contact through social media.
Their granddaughter, Meredith Starkman, in Brooklyn, N.Y., was the first to respond, with excitement and disbelief.
"We were, like, so over the moon," she said.
Her father, Rob Starkman, was wary at first, before letting the gratitude wash over him as well.
"It was remarkable that they were found after all these years," said Starkman, Morris and Betty's son, who now lives in Florida.
Rob remembers his parents as "wonderful, genuine people."
Morris was born in Toronto and went to medical school at the University of Toronto. In the late '40s, his family relocated to Detroit, and that's where he eventually met Betty.
They were married on Christmas Day in 1952, honeymooned in San Francisco, and soon after, Morris went to war on the front lines, not seeing his wife again for two years.
Letters, a portal to memories of the war
"He had a lot of PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder] as a result of the war," recalled Rob.
"My father was in a war zone where there's a tremendous amount of death. He saw horrible, horrible things."
WATCH | Rob Starkman on whether or not to read the letters:
Rob remembers the letters from when he was a child. He recalls stumbling upon them accidentally when he was around eight or nine. His father discovered him "looking at the letters" and became "incensed."
"I didn't read them, I didn't open any of them," said Rob. "And he said, 'Those are private between your mom and me, and I don't want you reading them. They're not for you, they're not for Susan, (my sister), they're just between mom and me.'"
That memory has stuck with him over the years, a big part of why now, decades later, he's choosing to keep that promise. He won't be reading those letters.
"They were very private people and these letters were very private. My father made that very clear," he said.
"Eventually I would like the original letters to be buried with me since I'm going to be buried with my parents."
Memories of Morris and Betty
In the meantime, he supports his daughter's choice to read through the letters herself, understanding it's a chance for her to learn more about her grandfather, as she's named after him. Morris died suddenly in 1993 before Meredith was born. Rob said the loss of her husband took a great toll on his mother for years. She died in 2016.
Thompson carefully mailed the letters to Meredith, and she's sorting through them with a type of special care inherited from her grandmother, who was a genealogist. Betty Starkman founded the Jewish Genealogical Society in Michigan in 1985.
"That's again why this is, like, the craziest story," said Meredith.
"My grandmother's life was dedicated to this kind of thing, literally looking at family lineage.... So finding these has been really like a full-circle situation."
She said reading through some of the exchanges between her grandparents has been "phenomenal."
"They were very in love," she said.
"It's tragic they were separated for as long as they were right after their wedding, but like, it's so clear from these letters how much they cared about each other."
Letters 'back where they belong'
Rob remembers witnessing that care as a young boy.
"They went dancing every Saturday night, and because they were apart for so long, there was never a time when they were together, whether it was a newspaper, sitting on the couch together, where they didn't touch. They were that connected all the time."
As for how the letters ended up in Canada in the first place, Rob isn't sure. But he assumes it happened when the family had to sell his mother's home when she moved into assisted living in 2013. A number of items from the house were sold off at the time.
Now, years later, Rob is happy the letters are "back where they belong."
"I would really, really, really like to thank Angela for reaching out to all of us," he said.
"So many people would look at these and just ... toss them in the garbage or whatever, and she was kind enough to reach out to our family."