Pen pals to meet in Germany after 50 years of writing letters | Kris Capps

When Peri Lane was a junior at Lathrop High School, her German teacher took the entire class to Germany for two weeks over Christmas. It was after that trip that she saw an advertisement in Alaska Magazine from someone in Germany, seeking a pen pal. Peri wrote back.

For 50 years, she and Jurgen Schwartz, have exchanged letters several times a year. He was 25 when they first wrote to each other and lived in East Germany, behind the Berlin Wall. She was a high school junior in Fairbanks. Today, she is in her mid-60s and believes he is 83 years old.

Over the years, they have shared information about their lives, their families, their states and their careers.

“We started writing in 1975,” she said.

The connection took on special significance after she got married because her husband at the time had been born in Germany.

“When we first started writing, it did take letters a long time to get to me,” she said, from her current home in Washington. “He lived in a part of East Germany.”

“Lately, it only takes 10 days or less,” she added.

Her pen pal was very interested in the trans-Alaska pipeline in the 1970s. Although she was only in high school, she worked as a file clerk for Bechtel Corporation, which played a significant role in the construction of the pipeline — before Alyeska Pipeline was ever in the picture. The company hired high school students to do filing in the summers for $15/hour, a huge hourly rate at that time.

“He asked if the city was as wild as everyone said, and I said, ‘Yeah,’” she said.

He wasn’t able to share stories of his own vacations because in East Germany at that time, no one took vacations.

“Until the wall came down,” she said. “Then he traveled a lot.”

The two pen pals shared global events, each through the eyes of their own cultures: the wall coming down in 1989, the Covid pandemic, and more.

“He wanted to practice his English, so he wrote to me in English,” she said. “He never had a computer. He doesn’t have a car. He uses public transportation. He is very old school. He grew up in Dresden and at the time, he didn’t have a lot of choices. When he got married, he had to apply for housing.”

When his family grew, he had to apply for different, roomier housing.

“He loves to garden,” she said. “He has space in a community garden.”

She has saved every letter over the years and she can’t believe she is finally going to meet him.

“It’s so exciting,” she said.

The Wish of A Lifetime program through AARP is paying for everything — airfare, hotels, transportation and more. AARP is a national organization that focuses on issues affecting those age 50 and older.

The Wish of A Lifetime program, founded by Olympian Jeremy Bloom, grants life-changing wishes (similar to Make-A-Wish for older adults) as they look to inspire people to age with hope and joy. The program empowers older adults to fulfill their hopes and dreams and reconnect them with the people and passions that matter most.

Muhich applied to the program after reading about it in the monthly AARP magazine. It took many months before her application was officially approved and now she is set to travel overseas in mid-August.

She is pretty happy she sent it in that application.

“My mantra is, if you don’t ask, the answer is always no,” she said.

This time, the answer was yes.

She has already shared this happy news with former Lathrop classmates who still live in Fairbanks and is trying to track down her former high school German teacher, who lives somewhere Outside.

Her brother, Buddy Lane and sister-in-law Karen Lane, both live in Fairbanks and Peri and her husband Steven are regular visitors. They often take vacations together and in Peri’s words, “Their kids are my kids.” And of course she is also looking forward to the 50th anniversary of her graduation from Lathrop High School.