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Mystery love letters found in vintage Army trunk in Seattle home

Mysterious love letters between a active duty Army man and his wife were found in a home in Seattle's Central District.

SEATTLE — A mother and daughter are on a mission to reconnect love letters between an Army man and his wife with their rightful owners. 

It’s a story that dates back to the 1950s and one that fits in a travel size case.

Rachel Galberth is now the caretaker of a vintage Army trunk. It sits just next to the kitchen in her Seattle apartment. It's an old rusty storage container she just can’t get rid of because of what’s inside.

“We are talking about an army chest full of well-preserved letters,” Galberth said.

Those letters, hundreds of them, capture the life between a active duty Army man and his wife. The correspondence spans two decades.  

“It talks about when their children were born, when families were coming to visit,” Galberth said.

Rachael’s daughter, Brooke Galberth, gets the credit from saving the box from the trash. She recovered the trunk from a home in the Central District that was under foreclosure. These letters were very close to becoming garbage three years ago.

“All of that personal information and the correspondence between the husband and the wife would just be lost. Future generations would not be able to read that and not know what was going on during the time of war,” Rachel Galberth said.  

And that’s why she wants your help finding the family these belong to. Here’s what we know: the man is a soldier, Fred Gray. His wife is Lillie May Gray. The letters are dated between the 1950s and 60s and they were sent and received from around the country.

“It would really be wonderful for the family to be able to have these letters and look back and maybe learn something from these letters past,” Galberth said.

And it’s not just mail. There are fading negatives found in the stack of paper. A black and white glimpse of who this couple may have been.

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