The distance between tiny Tyvan, Sask. and bustling Brisbane, Australia, is far, but the connection is strong for two women who have exchanged letters for the past 54 years.
When Francy Redding, who lives in Tyvan, made her first trip to Australia to meet her penpal, Kay McIvor, this summer, their lifelong friendship struck a chord in the larger city and beyond.
Media of all types picked up the story of two girls who first began writing to each other in 1964, thanks to the Western Producer penpal listings.
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Redding sounded a bit bewildered by the interest, but said she thinks the reason is simple.
“It’s a happy story,” Redding said one of the reporters there told her.
And it is.
Redding was nearly 10 years old and living on the family farm when she first sent a letter to Kay. She had originally written to someone else, but the reply was that the response to the WP ad had been so great she now had too many potential penpals. Could she pass Francy off to a friend?
“Kay’s story is one day her dad came home and he had his tin lunch box and he opened it up and started handing her letters and she picked one of my letters out of a whole pile,” Redding said.
They did lose touch briefly, but otherwise have kept each other close through growing up, raising children, and now having grandchildren.
In fact, some of their grandchildren have taken up the penpal torch and begun writing to each other, too.
“They’re quite excited,” Redding said just after the first letters had been sent from Regina.
Kay and her husband, Malcolm, have been to Canada four times but Francy had never been able to go until a few months ago.
The McIvors were even able to attend Redding’s daughter’s wedding in 2011.
“They’re family. Period,” Redding said.
Redding probably got her desire to be a penpal from her mother, who started writing to someone, also in Brisbane, in 1935.
They eventually lost touch, but neither was forgotten. Francy’s mom died in 1989 at 67 but before Nina Tooth found the Redding family online in 2006.
Tooth is now 92 and Redding met her while in Australia.
Tooth returned letters, photographs and artifacts, such as tiny replica Dionne quintuplet dolls, that Redding’s mom had sent her.
And the letter-writing goes even further. Two of Redding’s sisters have penpals, one in New Zealand and one in Brisbane.
“We’ve been writing to these girls all these years,” Redding said. “I think it’s just been a really wonderful experience my whole life.”
During her visit, Redding was able to visit all the places that McIvor had told her about in letters. She was thrilled to see wild horses and dingos and all types of animals in the wild, except a platypus.
“It’s an incredible, beautiful, tropical country and I had the joy of being chauffeured around for three weeks,” she said. “They are so down to earth, easy going, fun people.”
When she returned home, Redding wrote to everyone she met, keeping up a tradition.
The letters have changed to become texts or cards, and phone calls are now more common than they used to be.
But it seems unlikely the two pals will ever lose touch again.
