1930s love letters uncovered in Vancouver home returned to family

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) — Thirteen years ago, a construction worker found a stack on love letters, and this week, he finally figured out who they belong to.

While ripping open the stairwell walls in a Vancouver home, letters fell out and were later thrown into a bin. But construction worker Dario Trampus tells CityNews he quickly went to rescue the letters.

“I was like no you can’t throw those out those are someone’s life right there.”

https://twitter.com/AshleyBurr_/status/1275892996018335745

Later that day, Trampus carried the letters home and looked through them to figure out who they belonged to.

By reading through, Trampus found out the entries were love letters from a lady named Mim to a man named Len written between 1938 and 1940. And the two were engaged to be married.

With no luck finding the pair, Trampus held on to the letters for over a decade until this past Father’s Day when he posted the story to a local Facebook group. And within a few hours, he was given the phone number of the couple’s daughter.

The phone was ringing in my purse way across the room, [and I was] scrambling to get it out before it stopped ringing, and I just got it in time,” Jeanne Pennell, daughter of Mim and Len says. “And this fellow said, ‘Is your name Jeanne Pennel?’ and I didn’t know what to say. I said, ‘Well, yeah, why?’ And he said, ‘Well, I’ve been looking for you for 15 years.’

The letters — which were found in Pennel’s childhood home on Dunbar St in Vancouver — are the first time she has seen the letters from her parents, who were married for 48 years.

“It’s just amazing my mom and my dad I know they must be listening because it’s just too incredible,” she says.

Her father passed away in 1987 and her mother died in 1996.

But before Trampus handed them over to Pennel and organizing the letters, he sat down one more time to read them.

“Now they are off my plate and back to where they belong it feels good,” Trampus says.