SALT LAKE CITY — A woman from Pilesgrove, New Jersey found letters from World War I, and they were written by a soldier from Utah. She wants to return the letters to the soldiers’ living relatives for the holiday.
“I scour thrift stores, antique stores, auctions, and purchase letters, photo albums, journals, vintage typically military and try to locate the families,” Shaw said. “Nine times out of 10, the families don't know those items exist, or they got lost. They were in an estate sale, they were in an attic, and they had no idea these items existed."
Shaw, who calls herself an heirloom hunter, found more than 20 letters from an auction in New Jersey and purchased them for $20.
“You get to read all about the life and life back then,” Shaw said. “You get to kind of travel back in time and start doing some digging. You can look up the address, find the house. It's really neat.”
The letters were written in 1918 by a man named Mauritz Herlin, who was from Salt Lake City.
Mauritz, who was 22 at the time and went by Arnold, often sent letters back home to his mom Lena while he was stationed at Fort Winfield Scott in California.
In his letters, he talked about his expenses while he was in the Navy and Army — how laundry was 65 cents and he was left with $8.50 to make it through the week.
He also shared his experience getting stationed by the water and seeing boats and his first camouflaged ship. One letter was about New Year’s Eve, and another was about helping with the 1918 flu epidemic.
Once Shaw finds letters like these, she organizes them and does her own research on ancestry websites or social media platforms to see if she can locate any family.
While all five of Arnold Herlin’s children have passed, Shaw hopes to connect this long-lost history to Herlin’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
"I am definitely trying to get them back to the family for the holidays,” Shaw said. “And they'll be able to see what it was like in 1918. Their family history is in here starts to talk about World War I in here.”
After FOX 13 posted this article, a direct descendant reached out to the station to learn about how she could get in touch with Shaw and access the letters.
