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Love letters find their way back to her

Social media helps Vancouver woman return them to their rightful owner

By Emily Gillespie, Columbian Breaking News Reporter
Published: January 9, 2015, 4:00pm
5 Photos
Sara Redlich, 27, of Vancouver returned a box of love letters to Rose Hill, 64, of Hillsboro, Ore., on Friday.
Sara Redlich, 27, of Vancouver returned a box of love letters to Rose Hill, 64, of Hillsboro, Ore., on Friday. Redlich found the letters, written more than 40 years ago by Hill's husband, at a Goodwill store and searched out Hill using social media. Photo Gallery

Standing in the entryway of a bustling restaurant, Sara Redlich clutched a bouquet of flowers and a box covered in Christmas wrapping paper.

She waited anxiously for a woman she’d never met to give her back what was inside: love letters that dated back more than 40 years.

“I get to give her her memories back,” she said. She said she’d wrapped the letters up to make it more fun to give them to the woman to whom they were addressed: Rose Hill.

Redlich, 27, found the letters about six years ago during a trip to a Goodwill store in Hillsboro, Ore. At the time, she lived in Aloha, Ore., and found the old, tattered letters and other vintage looking papers strewn among the other items sold at the second-hand store.

One of the papers, a military discharge paper, had a man’s Social Security number on it. She gathered them up and approached an employee. Redlich said she didn’t seem interested.

“So I grabbed them all … I thought, ‘I need to find the rightful owner,’ ” she said. “‘If nobody else is going to do anything about it, I am.'”

But soon after, Redlich put them in a box and forgot about them. She moved to California and then to Salmon Creek, where she’s lived for the past three years.

This past week, as she was preparing to move across town, Redlich came across the box.

“It’s crazy, I’ve had these for six years,” she said. She admits that she read a few of the letters — written by a man named Joe Hill to his wife, Rose.

“I wanted to get helpful information, but I just got sucked into the love story,” she said.

Taking to social media, Redlich posted her plea for help in finding the letters’ owner to the Facebook group “Vancouver Area Free Market.” Tips came in, and Redlich called numerous people named Rose Hill. Within 24 hours, the right Rose Hill got in touch with her. She lived in Hillsboro, Ore.

“I was hoping for at least one person to care about who this person was, but I had all of Vancouver helping me,” Redlich said.

Hill said that her son woke her up when he called her to say: “Mom, you’re all over social media.” Hill laughed, “It was really surreal.”

Redlich and Hill spoke over the phone but didn’t meet each other in person until Friday — Jan. 9, the day that Rose and Joe Hill got married 42 years ago.

Joe and Rose

Hill went by Rosie Lippincott and was 12 when she met Joe Hill picking strawberries at fruit farms in an area that is now Charbonneau, Ore. The two lived in nearby towns, and over the years, they became close friends.

Joe Hill joined the Navy and was home on leave from the Vietnam War around Christmas in 1972. He didn’t have a car, so Rose let him borrow her Mercury Capri as he dropped her off and picked her up from work.

“Somewhere in there, a kiss happened,” she said.

The two started dating and quickly decided to elope — they flew to Reno, Nev., in the days before Joe Hill had to be in San Francisco to head back to Japan.

The letters that Redlich found were the first letters Joe wrote to Rose after they were married.

Leafing through the envelopes that have yellowed with time, Rose Hill grew quiet.

She opened one and read it. Tears welled in her eyes. She laughed. She whispered, “Oh my God.”

One letter, dated Feb. 15, 1973, Joe Hill wrote in delicate cursive: “I love you Rose! That may sound like an ending rather than a beginning, but let me assure you, it’s only the start of the beginning. Only the start of my feelings for you. Love is the only word capable of coming close to the description of my feelings for you. As inadequate as words seem, I am forced to use them for now. The time will come, though, when I can show you just how much you mean to me. When that day comes, I will be the happiest man alive.”

Over the past year, Hill’s memory has been fading. The feeling, she said, is akin to hearing your parents talk about when you were a kid.

“You know you were there, you know they’re not fibbing. … I just don’t have that first-hand memory,” she said.

She’s hoping these letters will be a trigger to help her remember herself when she was in her 20s.

Rose and Joe Hill divorced about two years ago, ending a marriage of five days short of 40 years.

“With a marriage that long and it doesn’t work, you carry a lot of guilt and shame,” she said.

The two remain friends, but the letters, Hill said, have the power to be liberating.

“Jan. 9 has a whole new meaning for me now,” Rose Hill said. “A new chapter, a fresh start.”

The day is also one that marks a new friendship. Redlich and Hill said they plan to keep in touch and visit each other from time to time.

Hill wore a few strands of vintage jewelry around her neck, intending to give one to her new friend Redlich.

“I wanted to wear it so that it will carry with it some of my soul,” she said. “I wanted it to be something meaningful. She cared for these (letters), she cared for us.”

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Columbian Breaking News Reporter