Mary Danner looks through a collection of letters written to her husband from friends and family during his time in the military. The letters had gone undiscovered for decades.
JOHNSON CITY — For decades, Mary Danner never even realized the letters existed. Now they are some of her most cherished possessions.
This summer, Danner, who lives in the Johnson City area, received a phone call from Tina Golden, the DR coordinator for the teams serving in Johnson City as part of the Hurricane Helene relief efforts. Golden was calling Danner to let her know that a duffle bag of letters had been uncovered.
The letters were written to Danner’s late husband, Melvin, from his parents, sisters, aunts, and neighbors. They were written to him in 1967 and 1968, when he was serving in the military and stationed in Fort Benning, Ga.
“Having these letters means so much to me,” Danner said. “I will treasure them the rest of my life.”
Golden, who played a key role in finding Danner and getting the letters to her, said the duffle bag was discovered when a youth group from New Beginnings Baptist Church in Currington was visiting Johnson City, doing DR work as part of a mission trip.
The youth group included some middle schoolers and high schoolers who weren’t old enough to go to the DR job sites and were instead tasked with cleaning out the storage unit in order for it to be used by a local backpack ministry.
“One of the young ladies found the tote bag,” said Golden. “Someone originally told her that she could throw it away, but as she was carrying it to the dumpster, she saw all the letters and decided that it might be something someone wanted to keep.”
The bag of letters was brought back to the DR Incident Command Post at Grace Baptist Church. Golden, with help from some other volunteers, then did some FBI-style work on the letters, eventually using the internet to find an obituary for Melvin Danner.
From there, they were soon were able to locate Mary and told her about the letters.
“We first had to convince her that this wasn’t a scam or an attempt to hack her,” said Golden. “She came the very next day and picked up the letters. Watching her reaction to seeing the letters was priceless.”
Danner said she poured over the letters for several days, and noted that there seemed to be a central theme to all of them.
“I read through the letters — and the main message that they kept saying was ‘stay true to your faith, go to church, pray and read your Bible,’” said Danner. “His mama told him that in almost every letter she wrote.”
Incredibly, the letters had only minor signs of decay and damage.
“There were a few that were written in pencil and they were a little faded out. So, I would just kind of follow along and fill in the blanks.”
Danner said she now keeps them in an easily-accessible place in her house.
“Sometimes, when I am watching TV or something, I will just start going back through all of them,” she said. “They are so special to me.”
