ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) — A 95-year-old 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 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.
“Well, I grew up in the 30s, and we threw nothing away,” Valentine Gross told KFYR in North Dakota.
The letters, written in 1952 when Ben Gross served in the Korean War, were packed into one package for shipment to Peachtree City, where Ben now lives. But the package never arrived intact.
“That was the first inkling that I had that something was wrong,” Ben Gross 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.”
How the letters became separated from their package remains a mystery, but Gross gives thanks to the U.S. Postal Service, who noticed the unique nature of the mail. Multiple postmasters tracked Gross down and contacted him. Some private citizens helped as well.
As he poured over what he had written as a 21-year-old, the letters tell the story of a North Dakota farm boy during wartime. Some are typed, others 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.
Copyright 2026 WANF. All rights reserved.