Posted on: Sunday, November 21, 2004
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Pen pals meet after staying in touch for 50 years
By Lee Cataluna
Advertiser Columnist
Joyce Mondoy and Ginger Sowers have been dear friends for close to 50 years, but up until a few weeks ago, they had never met.
It started when they were around 11 or 12. Joyce lived in a bustling West Coast city. Ginger lived in a tiny Midwestern town. They were introduced by a girl from New York who was trying to pare down her many pen pals.
"We'd write about what our families were like and what it was like growing up," Ginger remembers. "She was from San Francisco and I lived in a town in Kansas that was about 500 people, so there was a big difference.The city girl and the country girl."
"We'd write about all the latest fads, how I'm doing in school," Joyce says. "And boys."
Photo courtesy of Joyce Mondoy "We're not sure why we kept writing all those years," Joyce said. "We just clicked, I guess."
As the decades passed, the norm was to write every Christmas and two or three times a year.
"I don't think there was a time when we ever lapsed," Ginger says.
They always wanted to meet in person. Over the years, there were numerous near-misses.
One time, Joyce was visiting Washington, D.C., when Ginger and her career-Navy husband were living in Virginia. They talked on the phone, but Ginger wasn't able to make the trip to see Joyce.
Another time, Joyce and her husband were planning to be in Salt Lake City, where Ginger and her husband frequently visited, but the trips didn't coincide.
In 1967, Ginger's husband got news he was being transferred to Alameda, Calif. She was so excited because she'd finally get to see her pen pal from San Francisco.
"She told me she was coming and I said, 'Oh, no! I'm moving to Hawai'i!' Two weeks before she came, I moved over here," Joyce says.
Still, every year at Christmas time, the two would write, "Who knows? Maybe this year we'll finally be able to meet!"
This year, Ginger decided to make it happen.
"This was our 40th wedding anniversary and my husband gave me a choice of anywhere I wanted to go. I chose Hawai'i so that I could meet Joyce."
They planned to be in Hawai'i a month, visit four islands, and see Joyce at home on Moloka'i, where she was a teacher at Kualapu'u Elementary for 30 years.
Then it happened again.
On the day they were supposed to meet, Joyce's husband had a medical emergency and had to be rushed to Honolulu.
"I made arrangements for a friend to greet them on Moloka'i with leis, give them the use of our truck and take them to the hotel to get settled," Joyce says.
When her husband was better, Joyce flew back to Moloka'i to catch up with Ginger.
"We had just come back from hiking to Kalaupapa, so I wasn't at my best," Ginger says. "Oh, but it was wonderful to finally meet her!"
The pals got to spend a few days together. Joyce showed Ginger and her husband around the island.
"We loved Moloka'i," Ginger says. "It was sort of like my hometown in Kansas, except Moloka'i is bigger."
Last weekend, on Saturday, the women met up again in Honolulu. Joyce's husband was feeling much better, so the two couples went to dinner at the Halekulani. Both women brought along pictures to share — photos each had sent the other when they were still in middle school.
"On that picture she had, I had written, 'Who knows, maybe someday our paths will cross,' " Ginger says. "We always hoped it would happen."
Now that the two have met, they'll be writing even more frequently. E-mailing, too, though they say that's not as personal as putting a pen to paper.
They'll write about plans to meet up again — maybe next time on the Mainland — and they'll close each letter with their old familiar lines.
"We always signed it 'love,'" Joyce says. " 'Love, Joyce' and 'Love, Ginger.' "
Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or at lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.
The two kept in touch all through high school. When they got married, they sent their wedding pictures. They wrote when they had their children. They wrote when they became teachers. Joyce's first husband died when her son was just 5 and she wrote to Ginger for comfort and support.
Pen pals Ginger Sowers, left, and Joyce Mondoy met recently on Moloka'i. They later went to dinner in Honolulu with their husbands.
