Woman Travels 9,000 Miles for Pen Pal's 1985 Sunglasses

CONCORD, N.H. -- Holly Ramer traveled 9,000 miles from New Hampshire to New Zealand in March to deliver a pair of purple, lip-shaped sunglasses to her pen pal Molly Nunns, fulfilling a request the 13-year-old Nunns made after spotting them in a 1985 issue of Young Miss magazine.

The two were matched through International Youth Service, a now-defunct agency, when both were teenagers. Their correspondence began with a formal aerogramme signed "Yours hopefully, Molly Nunns," featuring a 45-cent stamp on pale blue paper that folded into an envelope. Within a year, the letters grew more affectionate, with sign-offs like "Lots and lots of love" and doodled hearts on the letter Ys in their names. Nunns shared stories of her family and classmates, while Ramer described middle school life in snowy New Hampshire, where summer Christmases seemed unimaginable.

Over 15 years of letters, they built a bond that led to in-person meetings: a day in New York in May 2000 during Nunns' U.S. tour, a crossing in London years later, and Nunns' family visit to New Hampshire in 2018. During Ramer's recent trip, Nunns reflected, "Who would have thought when we started writing in 1985 that one day you'd...