The Pen Pal
In the fall of 1939, a ten-year-old student in Iowa named Juanita Wagner picked a name from a list of pen pals. She wanted to write to a girl her age in Europe. The list had been provided by her teacher, Miss Birdie Matthews, who had met some teachers from a Montessori school in Amsterdam. Juanita chose a name that would become known to the world: Anne Frank.
Juanita wrote a letter to Anne and waited for a reply. The only letter from Anne to Juanita that still exists is dated April 29, 1940. It is a poignant document, a small window into Anne’s life just before the world changed forever. It’s believed that Anne wrote a first draft in Dutch, which her father, Otto Frank, then translated into English for her.
The letter also included a special detail: Margot Frank, Anne’s sister, had also enclosed a letter for Juanita’s older sister, Betty Ann. The two girls sent pictures of themselves and a postcard, small tokens of a friendship that transcended the great distance between them.
This story of the pen pals is a powerful testament to the fact that Anne Frank was a real girl with a real life. It reminds us that before her story was one of tragedy, it was one of friendship, and that even in a world on the brink of war, two young girls on different continents could find a way to connect.