After 70 years, transatlantic pen pals are still going strong

After 70 years, transatlantic pen pals are still going strong
(Image credit: KSDK.com)

More than 70 years after 11-year-old Frankie Gentry and 12-year-old Millie Rice first became pen pals, the two are still exchanging letters — except these days, more are coming via email, not air mail.

The friendship started after a man visited Gentry's classroom in England and asked if any of the students would like an American pen pal. Just a few weeks later, correspondence from Rice arrived, and soon their letters began crisscrossing the Atlantic. "We're probably better than sisters in a way, because sisters fall out," Gentry said. Mills added, "Yeah, we're too far apart to do that."

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.