I like going to the thrift shop since it’s one of the places where I can find a rare treasure. One always goes there expecting to get a needle in a pile of ordinary pieces of straw. One will always feel good when he finds something rare or something of great value.
In this clip, Ilene Ortiz of Westminster, Colorado, finds an unexpected treasure in the thrift shop. She did not just find furniture. This woman found a love letter that was hidden in a record sleeve. She was stunned to see the letter was dated Dec. 29, 1944.
The letter was written by a World War II soldier, Bill Moore, to his lover, Bernadean, back home.
“I get emotional because it’s a love letter! And someone should have it. It’s not mine, someone else should get it,” Ortiz told InsideEdition in 2015.
So, after keeping it for six months, Ortiz engaged the help of 7NEWS to locate the rightful owner.
Not too long after, they located Melina Gale, one of Bill and Bernadean Moore’s three children.
“I can’t believe Ilene found this,” Melina told CBS News. “Most of their dating was through letters in the war.”
Melina said her parents first met while her mom was still in high school in Fredonia, Kansas.
The couple were married for 63 years till Bernadean died in 2010.
Bernadean kept all Bill’s letters that sent her while he was in Europe serving in Patton’s Third Army.
But after Bernadean’s demise, Bill stayed at a veteran’s assisted care facility, and eventually, the letters vanished.
“Years and years. And we can’t find them,” Melina told 7NEWS.
Hence, it “meant everything” to receive that letter from Ortiz.
“So this is the only original that we have,” said Melina.
Just few days before Valentine’s Day in 2015, Melina went to visit her father, now 90, in the veteran’s assisted care facility in Aurora, Colorado.
That day, she brought along the love letter to give it to him.
Bill was stunned and overwhelmed when he saw the letter.
“I had no way of knowing it would show up in the way it did, and it would actually reach me,” he said.
He couldn’t hold back his tears while reading the long-lost letter.
“My darling, lovable, alluring Bernadean,” Bill read. “I ran out of space, but I could have written a lot more adjectives describing you. You are so lovely, darling, that I often wonder how it is possible that you are mine. I’m really the luckiest guy in the world, you know. And you are the reason, Bernadean. Even your name sounds lovely to me.”
Bill, was only 20 years old when he wrote this letter to Bernadean
“I love you. I guess I always will,” he continued.
The love Bill has for Bernadean is so big there aren’t words to describe it.
“I loved her, and she loved me. That’s all I can tell you. It’s a heartache not being with her all the time,” he said.
The love between Bill and Bernadean Moore still remains strong after seven decades…
