Heather Downey and LaNor Smith were friends for 38 years – but had never met. Then Heather made the trip from Grovedale to the US to meet her pen pal in the flesh. EMILY IANNELLO tells their story.
IT all started in 1977.
A letter was sent half way around the world to a stranger who would one day become a best friend.
After nearly 40 years of writing to each other, Grovedale’s Heather Downey and Livermore’s LaNor Smith met in May for the first time.
The women started writing to each other when they were just 14 and 15 years old.
“I went to Morongo Girls College and in one of our classes we were given pen friends,” Heather explains at home.
“Mum had a pen friend during the second world war years in America, so I requested to have an American pen friend too.
“We don’t remember who sent the first letter. Neither of us kept them. I’ve kept a card LaNor sent me when my mother passed away.”
Heather’s mother wrote to American pen pal Martha for 50 years.
“When Martha died it hit my mum like a rock,” Heather remembers.
Heather’s mum died eight years ago, so LaNor became a rock of her own.
“Even though this trip was my big event, the days were linked with mum. She passed away on 7 May 2007 and my dad passed away the previous October. The trip was my dad’s last wish,” Heather says.
Heather arrived in the international baggage claim area at San Francisco International Airport on the eighth anniversary of her mother’s death.
She was about to do something her mother never achieved: meet her American pen pal face to face.
Get the full story in the Geelong Coast Magazine – out now.
