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For The Washington Post

Virginia Oliver

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Alvin Gauthier

Alvin Gauthier was going about his workday as a postal carrier when he stumbled upon something unusual in his parcel hamper: a Christmas card sent in 1944.

He sifted through the hamper and found several other loose letters written between 1942 and 1944, all of which were signed by Marion Lamb.

There was also a tattered envelope postmarked 1942, and addressed to “Mr. &amp; Mrs. Harvey Lamb Jacksonville, Arkansas.” It was stamped “U.S. ARMY POSTAL SERVICE.”

“I had no idea where they came from,” said Gauthier, who has been a mail carrier in Grand Prairie, Tex., for more than 20 years.

Debbie Smith

As a Marine Corps veteran who served in Iraq in 2003, Gauthier felt a personal connection to the wartime letters. He knew they would probably mean a lot to the writer’s relatives.

“I had to find the family,” Gauthier said.

He searched online and found Marion Lamb’s <a href="https://www.mooresjacksonvillefuneralhome.com/obituary/4590415" target=_blank>obituary</a> from 2010. Then he decided to look for Lamb’s relatives. He reached out to a local news station in Arkansas, KARK-TV, and explained what he found. It ran a story about the letters.

Minutes after <a href="https://www.kark.com/news/local-news/texas-postal-worker-hopes-to-deliver-world-war-ii-era-letters-to-jacksonville-family/" target=_blank>the story aired</a> on April 26, JoAnn Smith — Marion Lamb’s sister who lives in Jacksonville — started getting phone calls.

“I was shocked,” said Smith, 84, the only one alive of her six siblings. Marion Lamb was the eldest and had no children. He served in the military from 1941 to 1945, and was stationed in Seattle, Alaska and the South Pacific.

Family photo

Smith was surprised to learn of the collection of eight letters penned by her brother and addressed to their parents. She was deeply touched that Gauthier — whose email address was included in the news story — took the time to try to track down her family. Right away, she reached out to thank him. They had a long phone call.

“I had a bond with him immediately,” Smith said. “He’s just a caring, giving, wonderful person.”

She told Gauthier she wanted to meet him in person, and he agreed. He offered to hand-deliver the letters to her.

Smith initially thought the letters had somehow been lost in the mail for more than 80 years. But once she got in touch with her daughter Debbie Smith, she quickly learned how the decades-old heirlooms landed in Texas.

It turns out, JoAnn Smith’s nephew who lives in Smyrna, Tenn., had the letters in his possession for decades and in mid-April had mailed a large package of artifacts to his cousin Debbie Smith, who lives in Grand Prairie. The priority package landed in Gauthier’s mail hamper, but it wasn’t properly sealed. Many of the letters spilled out.

“It hit me like a ton of bricks,” Debbie Smith said. “Of course that’s what happened.”

Debbie Smith said she is the family historian, which is why her cousin had shipped her the letters. When she received the package, it had clearly been unsealed.

“It came open on one end,” she said. “I think he just overfilled it.”

Gauthier had long been Debbie Smith’s mailman, she said, and he would often go out of his way to do nice things, like dropping larger items at her door rather than at her mailbox.

Still, she and her family were astounded that someone made such an effort to reunite them with the precious heirlooms — which easily could have ended up in the trash.

“For me, the most amazing thing in this story is Alvin, and his determination to get the letters to the family,” JoAnn Smith said.

Gauthier was so determined, in fact, that he told them he would hand-deliver the letters to JoAnn Smith in Jacksonville. While he could have simply given them to Debbie Smith on his regular route, he said he had already promised JoAnn Smith he would bring them directly to her.

“The whole family wanted to meet me, so that made me want to drive to Arkansas to give them the letters in person,” Gauthier said.

Courtesy of KARK

On his day off on April 29, Gauthier drove for nearly five hours to bring the letters to JoAnn Smith. Debbie Smith also decided to travel there for the occasion.

“He paid for the hotel, his own gas. He wouldn’t let us pay for it,” said Debbie Smith, adding that the family offered several times to cover the cost of the trip but that Gauthier politely refused.

Gauthier said he felt a duty to deliver them in person.

“I’m just a regular person. I’m a dad, I’m a husband,” he said. “I would do it again. I would do it for anyone.”

Courtesy of Alvin Gauthier

When he arrived at Smith’s home, they read the letters together, and JoAnn Smith was moved to tears.

“She was very emotional,” Gauthier said. “I just put my arms around her.”

JoAnn Smith said the letters brought back fond memories of her big brother, who always “looked after everything and everybody.”

“In the letters, he inquired about me more than once,” said JoAnn Smith, who was a toddler when her brother, then in his late teens, was drafted. “It made me feel good.”

In a way, she said, the letters brought her closer to her brother — and also to Gauthier, a stranger who quickly became a dear friend.

Gauthier said he’s been in touch with the Smiths every day since he delivered the letters.

“It’s been wonderful,” JoAnn Smith said.

While he was in Jacksonville, Gauthier had lunch and dinner with the family and traded stories.

Courtesy of Debbie Smith

“We all just talked and hung out and got to know one another,” Debbie Smith said. “We had a great visit.”

Next month, JoAnn Smith is taking a trip to Grand Prairie, and she is looking forward to visiting with Gauthier.

“I hope to be able to see him and his family,” she said. “Our connection with Alvin is very important.

McGill University, BA

Columbia University, MS in journalism 

Sydney Page is a staff reporter who writes for The Washington Post’s Inspired Life section, a collection of stories about humanity. She has been a contributor to The Post since 2018.

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