A forgotten library book turned into a reunion over one very loved letter.
Katie Slocum, 36, from Washington, D.C., found a handwritten note tucked inside Ann Patchett’s State of Wonder after picking up the book from a Little Free Library in her neighbourhood two years ago.
She had taken the book home, put it on her shelf and forgotten about it. When she opened it earlier this year, she found a letter dated Aug. 28, 2003, written in cursive on floral stationary.
The letter was from a grandmother to her granddaughter, addressed to “My dearest Jackie,” and described her as someone who bubbles and sparkles “like a rare vintage champagne.”
“Besides the fact that I wanted to make sure that Jackie got this wonderful letter that her grandmother wrote her, I also just wanted to meet her,” Slocum told As It Happens host Nil Kӧksal. “Thankfully for me, when I did meet Jackie, I realized everything her grandmother wrote was true.”
Slocum had little to work with. There was no address, no postage and no last name.
“I didn’t even know if the person who had put the book in the library was from the neighbourhood or was still around,” she said.
She first posted in neighbourhood Facebook groups and on Reddit, but got nowhere. She then contacted Dan Silverman, who runs the neighbourhood blog PoPville under the pseudonym “Prince of Petworth.”
On Feb. 27, Silverman shared the appeal. Soon after, Jacqueline Roche, 38, saw it on his Instagram page.
“I came home from work exhausted on a Friday, and my usual routine on Fridays is I allow myself some social media time, and I was flipping through … and I saw this picture,” she said. “I shouted out, like, ‘That’s me! That’s my letter!'”
Roche said her grandmother, Irene Roche, wrote the letter for her 16th birthday, and she had treasured it ever since, carrying it with her everywhere she had lived.
It reads: “My dearest Jackie, I would like to tell you about the Jackie I know. The day you were born, you put smiles on everyone’s face. You were just beautiful. As you got older, we all enjoyed your performances on cue. You even enjoyed it then. It was centre room at that time. When you were older, I could see the loving, caring and sweet person you were becoming. As a teen, you bubble and sparkle like a rare vintage champagne. You make the time anyone spends with you fun. You give of yourself, and that’s a wonderful thing. It’s a rare gift. I know whatever life gives you, you will take with both hands and keep on dancing. I am so proud to be your grandmother. Love you with all my heart.”
Roche cried as she read the letter aloud.
“You just don’t forget a letter like that.”
She said she had not realised it was missing, but thinks it was accidentally left in the book and donated to the Little Free Library when she moved out of the neighbourhood in 2022, two years before Slocum picked it up.
After seeing the Instagram post, Roche messaged Silverman.
“We Found Jackie!!” he wrote on his blog.
Silverman put the two women in touch, and they met in the neighbourhood. Slocum returned the letter, and the pair became friends.
“We got to have a nostalgic recollection of the times that she spent in the neighbourhood when she lived there and just talking about all of our favourite spots and all the things that we had in common,” Slocum said.
Roche said her grandmother, who recently celebrated her 90th birthday, has loved the story.
“[She] and I have been having the best time with this. We cannot believe it,” she said. “We’ve had tremendous laughs and so many fun conversations about this.”
Irene Roche told The Washington Post that friends at her senior community were also delighted, though some said they wished they had written similar letters to their own grandchildren.
“They never thought of it, you know?” she said.
The letter is now back in Jacqueline Roche’s nightstand.
“I’ve placed it away from any books,” she said.
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