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Lost WWII love letters uncovered during NYC home renovation
By Alex Mitchell, New York Post
Years worth of correspondence between Navy man Claude Marsten Smythe and wife Marie Borgal Smythe were found in the walls of their one-time Staten Island home, much to the delight of daughter Carol Bohlin, who left New York City in 1974 and now lives in Vermont.MyHeritage.comTheir love stood the test of time — and home improvement.
After 80 years, a stack of World War II-era love letters pulled out of the walls during a Staten Island house renovation have been returned to the descendants of a prolific Navy man who wrote warmly — and frequently — to his wife.
Dottie Kearney, 51, uncovered the sheaf of correspondence between Brooklyn-born boatswain’s mate Claude Marsten Smythe and Wisconsin native Marie Borgal Smythe back in the mid-1990s, when Kearney and her husband bought the Eltingville fixer-upper — once home to the Smythes — and started tearing out the old walls.
“[Claude] was so polite. He always wrote ‘My dearest’ to her and said how hard the war was, how he was longing for her, wanted her home cooking, and thought of her everyday,” Kearney, a retired beverage manager and bartender, told The Post.
The care Smythe showed in his writing moved Kearne FINISH READING HERE
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