My mom and I spent hours combing through a box of hundreds of love letters written by a couple in 1941 to 1945.
This box was given to me by my partner‘s mom who knew I’d take an interest in this story. It had a two dollar sticker on it and had been given to her by her mom.

From what we have pieced together, this couple Louis “Claude” Burch, and Elinor Smith were very much in love and wrote the most beautiful letters to one another in the years 1941-1945. Throughout those years they lived in Washington DC, Ohio, Texas and Washington State. He was stationed in Italy, Texas, and possibly England. They write to one another about current events like Pearl Harbor and he sends vaguely worded letters to her about his location. It’s truly extraordinary story.

The images pictured are the only photos included with the letters, Claude mentions including snapshots in some of his letters but they were missing in the box. We can’t confirm that the woman pictured was indeed Eleanor as there was no writing on the back of any of them, but one was stamped Washington DC.

The letters slow down in 1943 and we found a letter congratulating them on their marriage so we think they were together that year. In 1944 it seems he had to go overseas and was in Italy until at least 1945.

It feels strange to put these letters online for all to see but I am sharing to find out more about this couple and I’m not sure what routes to go. I have her birthdate and was able to find her obituary (she lived a long life), but I don’t have his birthday and I cannot find him. I do have his ASM number and I tried looking that up through various websites, but couldn’t find anything conclusive. I possibly found his draft card but couldn’t fully confirm. Does anyone have any ideas or routes to take to find out more about this couple? They seemed so in love and my hope is that the letters stopped
 because he came home from the war.