Family reunited with nearly 51-year-old letters

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) – A family in Wilmington got a look into the past as they were reunited with letters from their family members from the 1940s.

It all happened when a woman stumbled across the letters while shopping at ReStore in Ogden. We were there when the family received those letters.

“They were sent from my father’s sister,” Glenn Russo of Wilmington said. “She was trying to get up with my father who was still in the service.”

Letters, addressed from 1946, now returned to the family who lost them.

Glenn Russo believes that the book containing the letters from his family was brought to the ReStore shop in Ogden on accident.

That’s when Maggie Ortega found them.

“I was flipping through the pages to show my mother the book and I happened to stumble across the envelope.” Ortega said
Inside the envelope was a letter from Russo’s Aunt Angela to her brother William, Russo’s father, who was serving in World War II.

Ortega knew she had to find the owner.

“I should get them back to the family because they would have more value in it than me.” Ortega said.

So after Ortega posted pictures of the letters on Facebook, Russo contacted her to get back a piece of his family’s past.
The closure Russo and his family needed after losing his aunt, father, and recently, his mother.

“This probably puts it all together,” Russo said. “This is pretty much it because everything else is gone. I still have the house, my son lives in it. But it all comes in a circle and it is all pieced together now.”

Ortega said it wasn’t about a reward or recognition, she just knew that it was the right thing to do.

“That meant a lot to somebody, aside from me,” Ortega said. They found so much happiness out of it so I’m very very happy.”

Once lost, now found. Full circle.