Features
Friendship Blossoms Across Atlantic
After 64 years of writing letters to each other, Irene Burgin of Rotherham, England, and Virginia Maxwell of Springfield II, USA,are as close as sisters, though they have spent their lives thousands of miles apart physically.
It was chance that paired them as pen pals, but the comparisons between the two women and how their lives have unfolded are uncanny.
"About the only thing we don’t have in common,” says Virginia, “is that she’s left-handed and I'm right-handed."
The written word is able to convey emotions and the impact of significant events in a way the spoken word cannot. Between Irene and Virginia, it has always been that way.
"You can write things," says Virginia, "that you can't always say in conversation."
By 1944, Sheffield and its steel factories had already been bombed hard by the German Luftwaffe. Vast preparations for D-Day and the long-awaited retaliation were taking place across southern England. That was the year when Irene, a 12-year-old girl in Sheffield, became pen pals with Virginia, a 12-year-old girl in Massachusetts.
It was the start of a beautiful friendship.
Through their letters, the two girls discovered that they were born only four days apart. Virginia sent to Irene nylon stockings and other items the English could not buy during the war. That first Christmas, Virginia sent Irene a ring decorated with a garnet, their shared birthstone.
The correspondence continued throughout high school. Virginia sent her senior picture to Irene. At the same time, Irene sent her senior picture to Virginia. Back then, it took about six weeks for their letters to arrive. Those pictures crossed each other somewhere on the Atlantic.
When the pictures arrived, both girls were amazed to see that they were wearing the same style of sweater, the same kind of pearls and the same shade of lipstick.
And they wrote to each other all through their teen years and into their 20s.
"We wrote through this boyfriend and that boyfriend,” says Virginia, "when we got engaged and when we got married."
They were both married in the same year, 1952. Both of their husbands were older men who had served in World War II. Both women are Methodist. They like the same music. They like to travel. The same things make them laugh.
They kept writing as Virginia and her husband, Glenn, moved from Massachusetts to St. Louis and then to Springfield. Irene and her husband, Alan, settled just a little northeast of Sheffield, in Rotherham.
The two women and their husbands have met several times, both in England and in the U.S. Their last meeting took place about 10 years ago in Palm Springs, Calif. Irene and Virginia occasionally speak to each other on the telephone. But mostly they write letters.
When their pen pal relationship reached 60 years, the Rotherham Advertiser newspaper printed a story about it.
"We have so much in common," Irene told the newspaper, "and are very much alike. We are closer than sisters. I know all about Virginia's family, and she knows all about mine."
In one of her recent letters, Irene wrote that only her sister has known her longer than has Virginia.
So it was a shock for Virginia to read the letter from Irene that arrived in Springfield a few weeks ago. In that letter, Irene reluctantly wrote that she is fighting bone and lung cancer.
Since that news arrived, Virginia has written to Irene once a week. On Tuesday, she posted a Valentine's Day card to Irene. She chose this particular card because it says on the cover, "Some gifts you hold in your hand/Some gifts you hold in your heart."
Irene's is among the many family pictures Virginia keeps on the door leading to her garage. That way, she says, she can see her old friend and keep her in her heart whenever she leaves home. It is the same in the downstairs room in which Virginia rides an exercise bike. Nearby is Irene''s picture. While she exercises, Virginia looks at it and sends positive thoughts to Irene.
"So we communicate that way, too," she says.
A visitor asked Virginia if she has contemplated the void that will be left someday, after 64 years of pouring her heart and soul into the letters that will no longer be written.
"Oh no,” she answered, "there won't be any void. I wrote to Irene and I told her that. I told her that no matter what happens, we will always be together."
"Like the card says, 'Some things you hold in your heart.' We have a love for each other that won't ever end."
A photograph of Irene accompanied that article in the Rotherham newspaper. It shows her seated at her writing desk, where she displays the framed senior high school pictures of two young girls who unknowingly dressed alike in their portraits.
And on Irene's finger is a garnet ring sent to her nearly 64 years ago by an American girl she had never met, but who was destined to become so very important in her life.
This story has been reproduced by kind permission of:
Dave Bakke, The State Journal-Register, Springfield, IL USA. Published Sunday, February 03, 2008. http://www.sj-r.com
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