PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania — Despite 50 years of friendship, pen pals Carolyn Evans and Connie McNiel had never met in person. That is, until now.<\/p>\n
It started in 1975 when Evans, from Whitehall, Pennsylvania, responded to a television commercial. It encouraged kids like her to send in their information and be matched up with a pen pal.<\/p>\n
McNiel’s 5th-grade class in California was on the other end of the deal. She remembers her teacher handing out cards with names and addresses on them.<\/p>\n
She sent out two letters, but she only received a response from Evans.<\/p>\n
First by mail, then by phone, then by social media. The two pen pals have spent the last half-century side-by-side, but never in person.<\/p>\n
They decided they would finally meet in time for their 50th anniversary of friendship.<\/p>\n
McNiel flew to Pennsylvania with her husband to meet Evans and her husband at the Hotel Bethlehem. Then, they took a trip to Philadelphia to visit the Art Museum, Independence Hall, and Pat’s King of Steaks.<\/p>\n
They continued to enjoy time together in Gettysburg and Hershey Park.<\/p>\n
And white this was their first trip together, they say it will not be the last.<\/p>\n
Following their childhood aspirations, Evans became a hair stylist and McNiel became a photographer. McNiel is also dedicating her time to creating an ‘All Ages and Abilities Accessible Park’ in her hometown of Carrollton, Georgia.<\/p>\n
They hope their story inspires people to connect with one another more often.<\/p>\n
Watch the video above to see moments from their special meeting together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania — Despite 50 years of friendship, pen pals Carolyn Evans and Connie McNiel had never met…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":372257,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5132],"tags":[179248,5229,179251,179250,1448,179249,2830,1311,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-372256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-50-year","tag-america","tag-for-the-first-time","tag-meet-in-person","tag-pa","tag-pen-pals","tag-pennsylvania","tag-philadelphia","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115532834262589007","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/372257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}