ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, December 13, 1995 TAG: 9512130082
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MATT CHITTUM STAFF WRITER
``Dear Dorothy, Jim and Family,'' the letter begins in lilting, fountain pen-cursive. It's written on festive holiday stationery, with red and green silhouettes of sledders and ice skaters around the border.
``I hope this will follow you - in case you've moved since last December. You get around the country as much as we do.``
The letter is a Christmas greeting postmarked Dec. 13, 1955 - exactly 40 years ago today - from the wife of an Air Force major stationed in Germany. At the height of the Christmas mailing season, the letter made it all the way from Germany to the front door of 1345 Clarke Ave. in Old Southwest Roanoke.
But despite the hopes of its author, it didn't follow anyone anywhere. Rather, it fell through the cracks.
Literally.
This letter and another, postmarked Dec. 14, 1955, somehow slipped into the space between the wooden molding and a wall in the foyer of the huge Victorian apartment house, only to be found accidentally this summer by someone who wasn't even looking for them.
Forty Christmases later, those Christmas greetings are being delivered.
The holiday wishes were hardly missed back in 1955. The people who never got them have long since left Roanoke. But the belated appearance of the two yellowing envelopes is stirring memories for two couples who once lived in tiny apartments on a hillside near downtown Roanoke.
It was a hot day last June when the letters were found by a couple sitting on a bench in the foyer of the building, which is now home to the New Directions program of Blue Ridge Community Services. The woman happened to notice the corners of the envelopes peeking out from behind the molding.
How they got there remains a mystery.
The two card-sized envelopes, addressed to Mr. and Mrs. W.J. Copeland and Mr. and Mrs. E.L. Garrett, were turned over to the mail carrier. He took them to Don Kelly, manager of in-plant services at the Roanoke Post Office.
Kelly determined that since the letters were found at the address where they supposed to go, they were no longer mail in the legal sense. The post office had done its job, and the letters could be opened.
Kelly turned them over to the newspaper to see if there was anything a reporter could do to track down the addressees and get them delivered.
One glance at a 1955 city directory revealed the full names behind those initials and courtesy titles: Wallace John and Dorothy Copeland and Eugene and Ruby Garrett.
After that came a five-minute search on a CD-ROM database of all the phone listings in the United States. Two phone calls later, Gene Garrett and Dorothy Copeland had both heard the bizarre tale of the letters they never got.
As it turns out, both the Garretts and the Copelands had moved out of the Clarke Avenue apartment house in late 1954, and out of Roanoke some years later. The Copelands now live in Kenbridge, and the Garretts moved to Georgia in 1961.
The letter to the Copelands has a military post office box for a return address and a 6-cent air mail stamp. It's from Major and Mrs. Russell Evans.
``That's from Fran and Russ,'' Mrs. Copeland said quietly. No surprise here. She's been exchanging Christmas cards with Fran Evans for years. ``You sure there wasn't a $1,000 check there?'' she joked later.
Dorothy and Fran were friends in Coffeyville, Kan. It was World War II, and both were married to U.S. Army Air Corps fliers from the airbase there.
``She was in my wedding, but when she got married I was pregnant and wouldn't be in hers,'' Dorothy Copeland laughs. They haven't seen each other face to face in years.
She figures the Evanses were in Europe when they sent the letter. ``They adopted two boys over in Germany.''
Sure enough, enclosed with the letter are pictures of two chubby-cheeked boys in matching overalls and sweaters.
``These pictures of our boys were taken for their passports,'' the letter reads, ``and since we thought they were such wonderful pictures of each one, we'd like for our friends to see them.''
Seeing the pictures would have to wait for the Copelands. By the time the letter arrived, they had moved into a house on Sweetbrier Avenue Southwest, where they would stay for 26 years.
``Big John'' Copeland, as he is known, worked at several car dealerships in the 1950s, but later had a long and successful run in the hearing aid business.
Oddly enough, the Copelands in apartment two never knew their neighbors in apartment three, the Garretts.
``We were young, we were newlyweds and we were doing great,'' Gene Garrett recalls. Gene and Ruby had met on a blind date and were married in 1950. He was 24 and she was 20. They moved into the place on Clarke right away and stayed four years. He was an accountant at the Clover Creamery and she worked in the Commissioner of Revenue's office.
``Oh my gosh, it's from my aunt in New Jersey,'' Gene Garrett said on being told the letter to him had a Paterson, N.J. postmark. ``I usually never got a Christmas card from her.''
In fact, he barely knew his mother's sister Nora. He and Ruby had visited her in 1953 on the way back from New York, but that was the only time they had met.
``She married an Italian up there, I think,'' he said, but he couldn't quite remember his eccentric aunt's last name.
The letter is addressed upside down, with the 3-cents liberty stamp turned sideways, and the postmark in the opposite corner.
The card, showing a family in 19th century garb at the gates of a snow-covered church, is signed, simply, ``Nora and Pat DeLuca.''
Garrett said he never heard from Aunt Nora again. ``I don't think my mother ever did either.''
In 1954, the Garretts moved into a brand new house on Fairhope Road Northwest. Gene eventually became a credit manager with Georgia-Pacific lumber company, and was transferred out of town.
Big John and Dorothy Copeland, now in their 70s, have five grandchildren. Dorothy Copeland says the Evanses live in Abilene, Texas. They couldn't be reached for comment.
Gene Garrett went on to be corporate credit manager for Georgia-Pacific, handling more than $1 billion in accounts. He's retired now, and plays a lot of golf.
Ruby Garrett died suddenly of a cerebral hemorrhage six years ago, leaving behind two children, four grandchildren and her husband.
The letters themselves, meanwhile, are back in the reliable hands of the U.S. Postal Service. They're being forwarded at last, each tucked carefully into a large white envelope that is postmarked Dec. 13, 1995.
LENGTH: Long : 124 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. Jonny and Billy Evans are now in their forties, andby CNBthese cards and letters are entering their fourth decade as well,
remarkably well-preserved behind the molding of a house in Old
Southwest Roanoke. color MIKE HEFFNER/STAFF
2 & 3. Gene and Ruby Garrett (top, in a photo taken before Ruby
Garrett's death) of Roswell, Ga., and "Big John" and Dorothy
Copeland of Kenbridge had long since moved out of 1345 Clark Ave. by
the time some of their 1955 Christmas greetings arrived. color.