- Two women assigned as pen pals at the age of 10 for a fifth-grade school project finally met in person more than 40 years later
- Haley Briggs, from Douglassville, Pennsylvania, and Krystel Alston, from Ontario, California, continued to write to each other throughout their lives
- Earlier this month, the couple, both now 53, met for the first time in Pennsylvania because Briggs doesn’t fly
Two women who were assigned as pen pals for a fifth-grade school project at the age of ten finally met in person more than forty years later.
Haley Briggs of Douglassville, Pennsylvania and Krystel Alston of Ontario, California continued to write to each other throughout their lives.
After finally agreeing to meet to celebrate their 50th anniversary in 2020, the happy occasion was postponed due to the pandemic lockdowns.
However, earlier this month the two, now both 53, met for the first time in Pennsylvania because Briggs doesn’t fly.
The pair brought some of their decades-old letters to show each other and reminisced during the emotional meeting.
Two women assigned as pen pals at the age of 10 for a fifth-grade school project finally met in person more than 40 years later
Haley Briggs (left), from Douglassville, Pennsylvania and Krystel Alston (right), from Ontario, California, continued to write to each other throughout their lives
The pair brought some of their decades-old letters to show each other and reminisced during the emotional meeting
“Dear Haley, do you have a best friend?” one letter requested.
While another asked Krystel: “Is it snowing where you are?”
The pair went out for dinner and said they will stay in touch and be in each other’s lives.
“We definitely gain something from it,” Alston explained, “to give something to this other person.”
“That’s hard to come by these days,” Briggs added.
After many years of exchanging letters, the couple moved from paper to social media, where they could send each other photos and talk about their lives more often.
Although there were sometimes gaps in communication over the years, the women never lost touch.
“For a long time we wrote letters by hand,” Briggs told ABC News.
Although there were sometimes gaps in communication over the years, the women never lost touch
The pair went out for dinner and said they will stay in touch and be in each other’s lives
“I think we thought about each other, you know, whether we were in contact or not,” she said.
Adding: ‘I got married, had a son, my mother passed away. She lost her father, then Facebook was created and then it became digital.”
“We came from two different schools, two different states on different sides of the country and we’re still friends 43 years later. The only difference is we were in the same place at the same time,” Alston said.
Adding: ‘We’ve always kept in touch somehow.’