Manitoban reconnects with pen pal after decades without contact

People come in and out of our lives -- if we're lucky, the important ones stay for a long time. However, sometimes the connection is brief.

Decades ago, one young Manitoba girl made a friend half a world away.

They exchanged letters for months, but then years went by without a single word.

That girl is now grown up and she's managed to find -- and reconnect -- with that friend.

HOW IT BEGAN

For Canadian soldiers serving overseas, receiving a letter written by someone in your home country is a welcome treat.

"We always got letters from grandmothers in Newfoundland. They're just such nice people I suppose is the reason," said Paul Francoeur, a retired commander with the Royal Canadian Navy.

Francoeur, who served as a peacekeeper in Bosnia, said he would also occasionally get letters written by children.

He would often write back, but that was usually the end of the correspondence.

However, one 11-year-old letter writer from Carberry, Man., did write him back, which sparked the beginning of a pen pal correspondence.

"He had a lot to say. He was really entertaining in his writing, and it got me really excited to continue to converse and write back,’ said Raelyn McIntosh, the Manitoban who became Francoeur’s pen pal.

Francoeur noted it was nice to find a friend who would laugh at his jokes.

"I have nephews and nieces who would have been that age, and they're all sick of my stupid jokes, so a new audience to laugh at my nonsense was most welcome,” he said.

The jokes and other messages were traded between the two for about half a year.

"He was always sending me little gizmos and gadgets based on where he was,” McIntosh said.

“So it always made me excited to see what I was getting next, and where he was."

Then, after 9/11, he was deployed to the Middle East and the letters stopped.

"You lose track and that's a bit of a shame,” Francoeur said.

HOW THEY RECONNECTED

Twenty years passed, and then as fate would have it, McIntosh stumbled across one of Francoeur’s letters as she looked through a box in her basement.

She thought it would be nice to look up her old pen pal.

There was only one small problem – despite her Google detective work, she couldn’t find him.

That's when she decided to go to the internet for help, and a short time later it delivered.

"It wasn't even 24 hours later that I found him," McIntosh said.

They picked right up where they left off, and have even met over Zoom.

However, just because technology has changed doesn't mean the letter writing is over. In fact, they've already exchanged some.

"She's told me about her family, and I've seen pictures of her kids,” Francoeur said.

“She's seen pictures of my family and we kind of have a little bit of insight into each other's lives."

It is a connection that was renewed decades later, and this time, they plan to keep the letters coming.