French woman visits Highland pen pal after exchanging letters for 46 years
They live 4,500 miles apart, speak different languages and rarely see each other, but they feel like sisters.
That’s because Mary Wilson, 61, of Highland, and her pen pal, Annie Almoguera, 62, of Brioude, France, have been exchanging letters for more than 46 years.
They’ve gone through marriages and births, deaths and divorces. They’ve gotten to know family and friends via photographs and written descriptions. They’ve learned about cultures half a world away.
“Literally, when I got a letter from her, I would smile for days on end,” Mary said. “It just uplifted my spirits so much, and Annie felt the same way. I guess it’s because we were just so connected.”
The women met for first time five years ago in Canada, where Annie’s son lives. The following year, Mary spent two weeks in France, and they rendezvoused once again in Canada.
This month is the first time Annie has visited Mary in the United States. She and her friend, Georges Charbonnel, have done a little sightseeing, but that’s not their priority.
Annie wanted to see where Mary lived, worked and played so she could better visualize it while reading her letters.
“I don’t come to see America,” she said in broken English. “I come to see Mary and to be with her family and friends. I don’t need anything else. ... Mary is like my sister. No, not ‘like.’ Mary is my sister, and I want to be with my sister.”
Letters go back to 1973
The former Mary Westendorf was 15 and living in Pesotum, Illinois, south of Champaign, when she took a French class in high school. She drew Annie’s name and address out of a hat as part of a pen-pal program.
Mary wrote her first letter on Jan. 25, 1973, addressing the envelope to “Mademoiselle Annie Almoguera.” She listed her classes, hobbies and favorite foods, including pizza, chocolate, cherries and chewing gum.
“Now we are in basketball season,” Mary wrote. “It is one of my favorite sports. I also like to draw and paint pictures. What kind of books do you like to read? I like to read about American Indians. I like also to go motorcycle riding and riding on horses.”
Mary threw in a few French words and signed off as “Marie,” her name in French.
Annie replied on Feb. 2, 1973, but it took weeks for her letter to arrive because she used a regular stamp instead of sending it airmail. Mary almost gave up on her.
In her letter, Annie noted that that she, too, liked reading about “cow-boys and indians,” as well as watching westerns on TV.
“Every holidays, I go to Spain on the beach (seaside),” she wrote. “I am not tall, but I am not small, my eyes are blue and my hair is brown. I have not a recent picture of me but I send you one in my other letter.”
From the beginning, the pen pals corresponded mostly in English. Annie wasn’t fluent, but she had studied the language in school for seven years, while Mary had taken only one French class.
“I think, ‘If she writes me in English, I will learn more English,’” Annie said.
Most pen pals lost interest
Few of Mary’s classmates continued to correspond with their pen pals after high school, but she put forth a special effort.
“For me, it was exciting,” she said. “My sister says I was a dreamer. I had visions of traveling and doing different adventures, and I found this fascinating.”
Mary got married at 17, gave birth to a son and daughter and eventually divorced. She gained two stepsons with her second husband, Dick Wilson, who died in 2013.
Mary lived several places in Illinois and Missouri and worked a variety of jobs, including nine years as a TWA reservation agent. Today, she stays busy as a grandmother of 10 and seasonal employee in an H&R Block office.
Annie was married 40 years before getting divorced last year. She still lives in her hometown of about 7,000 people in south-central France, where she operates a home child-care center. She has a daughter, two sons and six grandchildren.
Over the years, the frequency of letters between Mary and Annie varied, from every few weeks to every few months, depending on what else was going on in their lives.
“It takes a long time for me to write a letter,” Annie said. “I had to go to the dictionary because I wanted Mary to understand my letter.”
Their closings have gone from “Your pen pal” to “Your pen pal and friend” to “Your friend” to “Your sister.” In recent years, the women also have communicated by email and Facebook.
First meeting was emotional
For decades, the pen pals didn’t have the time or money to travel overseas. Mary planned a trip to France in 2001, but it got canceled after terrorists attacked on 9-11, and a family illness kept it from being rescheduled.
Mary and her daughter, Teri Kallal, flew to Canada to meet Annie for the first time in 2014, when Annie was visiting her son, Sylvain Azevedo, an information-technology specialist in Quebec City.
The women hugged, cried and stared at each other in amazement for several minutes at the airport, an emotional scene that Teri captured on video.
“It was the first time, but it was like I had saw Mary yesterday,” Annie said.
The following year, Mary spent two weeks in France, thanks to her stepson, Mark Wilson, who gave her the trip for a Christmas gift. Annie took her to see stone castles, quaint villages, the Eiffel Tower in Paris and the Mediterranean Sea.
This month, Annie and Georges rode the Gateway Arch tram and cruised the Mississippi on a riverboat, and Georges went to a Cardinals game. But Annie’s favorite part was just spending time with Mary.
“I am the only one who continued to write to my pen pal (out of my class) because Mary always wrote me,” Annie said. “She never left. I liked writing, and I liked writing her. She told me all about her life. I know her very well. I think she is a very nice and kind person.”
This story was originally published September 26, 2019 at 5:01 AM.
