Photos by Lindsy Wolke
They say love is timeless. That’s certainly true for Elias Maxwell and Ilaine Murray, who eternalized their love forever in a collection of heart wrenching letters found in an antique store up in eastern Tennessee.
On a weekend road trip to the Smoky Mountains, Linsdy Wolke and Megan Grant stumbled upon the letters, dated back to the second world war between 1944 to 1946. According to Independent UK, Elias was a soldier, stationed in Hawaii and Japan aboard the USS Rankin. Meanwhile his then girlfriend, Ilaine Murray, was back in their hometown in Blackwood, New Jersey.
The letters, while of course being important relics of the Second World War, show the preservation of love through the horrid times. It’s a refreshing take, given we often see the macro of the war—the big, political players—and not the micro; the small stories in between.
In one letter Elias ended with: “Well, honey, I guess I’ll close for now, this is your Navy Sweetheart saying: So long & God Bless. Yours Forever. P.S. Please think of me while I am away.”
Adorable, is it not?
Lindsy Wolke and Megan Grant were so intrigued they purchased all 21 letters. When they read through the letters and came to the end, they realized the letters had no conclusion. Determined to discover what happened to the couple in the letters, they tracked them down through ancestry.com.
They tracked down two of their children on Facebook and discovered the two had married right after the war.
Don’t you just love a good romance?
You can read the whole story of the couple here: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/love-sex/second-world-war-romance-letters-love-story-ww2-a9161896.html