ATLANTA, Ga. (ANF/Gray News) — A Korean War veteran is receiving letters he wrote home more than 70 years ago after they mysteriously separated from their original package and began arriving at addresses from 1952.
In late fall 2025, Ben Gross, 95, was surprised to learn his brother, Valentine Gross, had kept over two dozen letters he had written home to North Dakota during his military service.
“He said, ‘I’ve got all these letters. I’m going to throw them out unless you want them,’” Ben Gross said.
Valentine Gross told KFYR in North Dakota that he grew up in the 1930s and that his family threw nothing away.
The letters were written in 1952, when Ben Gross served in the Korean War. They were packed into one package for shipment to Peachtree City, where Ben Gross now lives. However, the package never arrived.
“That was the first inkling that I had that something was wrong,” he said.
The letters, still in their original envelopes, somehow became detached from the package and began making their way individually to the addresses to which they had been sent in 1952 and 1953.
When asked when he had last seen the letters before they came in the mail, Gross said, “Well, when I wrote them in 1952.”
It’s not clear how the letters became separated from their package. Gross thanked the U.S. Postal Service, which noticed the unique nature of the mail. Multiple postmasters had tracked Gross down and contacted him. Some private citizens helped as well.
As he looked over what he had written as a 21-year-old, the letters told the story of a North Dakota farm boy during wartime. Some of the letters are typed; others are handwritten.
“Father Chuck told me to write you right away and thank you for the cookies,” Gross read from one letter, after his family had sent him a care package.
“I remember this one, specifically,” he said of another.
The letters continue to arrive. One was delivered on Saturday, but more than a dozen letters remain missing.
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