Lonely Soldier’s Love Letter Makes It Home — After 71 Years [Video]

World News Videos | ABC World News

When 20-year-old soldier Bill Moore wrote a love letter to his future wife back home, he probably never expected that it would take 71 years to reach its destination. He also probably never expected that it would be his daughter who would receive and read the letter.

The letter, dated December 29, 1944, was written while Moore was serving overseas during World War II in the 10th Armored Division of Gen. George Patton’s Third Army. However, the letter never made it to the teenager from Kansas. Instead, it surfaced 71 years later in a thrift store tucked inside a record album bought by Ilene Ortiz from Westminster, Colorado.

According to Yahoo! News, when Ortiz found the letter six months ago after buying the record, she decided to try to locate Moore’s family before Valentine’s Day. She contacted KMGH, the ABC News affiliate in Denver.

“We brought the album home and we were looking through it, and I said, ‘There’s a letter in here!’ I thought, ‘This is such a romantic letter and someone should have it.'”

Ortiz was able to contact Moore’s daughter, Melinda Gale, on Thursday about the letter. Gale, who lives in Evergreen, Colorado, was amazed by the phone call she received from Ortiz. She said her mother, Bernadean, had saved every letter she had gotten from Moore and she had read several of them throughout the years, but never like the one that had been discovered.

There is no doubt it is a love letter as it begins:

“My darling, lovable, alluring, Bernadean. I ran out of space, but I could have written a lot more adjectives describing you. You are so lovely, darling, that I often wonder how it is possible that you are mine. I’m really the luckiest guy in the world, you know. And you are the reason, Bernadean. Even your name sounds lovely to me.”

Gale then passed the letter to her father, who now is 90-years-old and living in a care home in Aurora, Colorado. As the ABC Channel 7 News reported, Moore teared up as he read the words he wrote to his future bride, Bernadean Gibson of Fredonia, Kansas.

The couple were married for 63 years, but, unfortunately, Bernadean passed away in 2010. Moore still finds it difficult being without the love of his life.

“It’s difficult talking out loud about it to other people. But I loved her, and she loved me. That’s all I can tell you. It’s a heartache not being with her all the time.”

His daughter also read it to her own daughter.

“I read it for my daughter last night. It really hit me that we were seeing the true depth of my parents love that, as children, we knew was there, but you don’t hear it. Their love sets such a beautiful example of what life can be.”

Expressing love through letters was once a very common thing for people to do and some loved doing it. As the Inquisitr reported, one man has written his wife 10,000 love letters over the years.

[Video by ABC News.com]