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Seniors Pen Pals - Building Pen FriendshipsPen friends can correspond for a lifetime, or find new seniors pen pals later in life as Irene's father did. Seniors, stay active mentally, and write to another senior to share life! I love this story! Wendy By Irene Hyatt, CO As a surprise for my 90+ year old father one year, I put a listing in the LEX magazine asking for correspondents and promising that he would answer. What joy this brought to both of us, because even after his death, many of his pen friends continued to write to me. He'd been doing the letters for a couple of years when he heard from Walter. Here's part of what he wrote to Walter on April 12, 1994: Dear New Friend Walter, Thank you for your good letter and information about yourself. I am just an old man living alone, bom on a southeastern Kansas farm on Christmas Day, 1901. We lived on that farm until I was in 5th grade. I walked 2 miles to a country school. We continued there til my sister got a teaching certificate, but my brother just quit. He got a farm job. I continued and in my junior year the school added football and track. In my senior year I was captain of the football team and at a meet at Goodwell, Okla I tied the state record in the high hurdles without hurdles on which to practice. I then went to Fairmount College. It is now Wichita State U. I went for football and track. I earned 4 letters in track and 3 in football. In my senior year I decided to coach in H. S. I accepted a H. S. teaching job but I did not get a coaching job so I volunteered to assist the coach. He accepted and we won all but one scoreless tie games. We won all of our football games with high scores and no team ever scored against us. In one of our league games we scored 256 points in a single game. Ripley, famous for his 'Believe It Or Not' column, used it in his papers. A new teacher came and I liked the looks of her and courted. Exactly one year after we met we were married. Incidentally, the school board gave me a forty dollar per month raise in pay ( What my father didn't divulge here was that he got the raise in pay, but Mother got fired for getting married! Irene). Our marriage lasted for 63 1/2 years before I lost her to death. First she gave me a daughter and six years later a son. We lost him at age 51 but he had no blood heirs. Our daughter has two daughters and each of them has two young sons. So that is my family. All live in the area so I see them often. Thanks again for your good letter. Sincerely, B. K. Hunter P. S. My daughter says your typewriter is just like one my friend Gaile has. He is a college friend and lives in Colorado Springs and still types his own letters. I was only a hunt and peck typist and so write longhand, but I cannot read what I write and have my daugher type my letters for me. I am legally blind and don't hear so good either. I used to walk 3 miles a day with my dog, Mimi, but my hip has been hurting the past few weeks so I can't. I have tried riding the exercise bike. I plan to get back to 3 miles a day walking as soon as I can. Mimi needs the exercise!
You will find that we are not your speediest correspondents. We do write, but it takes time. We will send the tape back so that you can share it with someone else. I cannot really hear it, but Irene has tried it for me and she listened to it. Thank you for your letter and all the stories and tape. They tried to do something about my eyes. I had some laser treatments and shots in my eyeball, but nothing could be done to improve my vision. I have a little dog named Mimi. She was my wife's dog. I always fed her and watered her and took her on walks, and she would come in and sit down on Mildred's feet. I still take Mimi outside about 7 times a day. Now I have a longer leash. I can sit on a bench and let her exercise herself. During World War II I went to Canada and worked on the Alcan Highway. When my wife and I went on our Alaskan tour a few years ago, I walked around Whitehorse and saw almost nothing that looked familiar. It has changed considerably. I was there almost a year. My family remained in MO. A man tested me on driving trucks. Most of the trucks did not have very good brakes, and I learned to downshift and drive safely on poor gravel roads. We have started a new book to read. It's called Good Evening, Everyone. Irene said she took it on their around the world trip. Lowell Thomas grew up in Colorado. Irene said some years ago she and her husband joined a Knife and Fork Club because Thomas was coming to Boulder to talk., and that's the only year they went to that club. She said they really enjoyed his talk. He was in his 80s at that time. I think I'm going to like this book. Sincerely, B. K. Early on I'd enclosed a note to Walter explaining that B. K. couldn't do movies, television, chatty conversations with groups of people, puzzles, reading magazines and newspapers, etc. There were few things he could do for entertainment. Letters became a very important part of his day. There were about six of his former college classmates who all kept in touch with their letters. They were all in the 90-96 year old age brackets! I like to think that this bunch coming out of Wichita in the late 20s were more successful than most in keeping friends in touch. Letter writing was very special to all of them. It doesn't matter how a correspondence starts, the important thing is to keep it going.
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