Many of our pandemic hobbies have long since faded away, but some west suburban pen pals forged during quarantine are still going strong.
18-year-old Madeline Barr is used to texting or calling but the Geneva High School senior says she is enjoying writing letters by hand.
“It was definitely something that was new for me but I thought it was a really cool experience. And it still is a really cool experience just because I felt like I was learning so much about someone I had never even met” she tells WBBM.
She estimates she and her sister Ann were corresponding with Helen Meints for about two years before they met in person.
The Barrs were among dozens of families who answered a request from GreenFields of Geneva in May of 2020 to become pen pals with their residents.
91-year-old Meints says she understood the isolation of quarantine after a polio outbreak when she was in high school forced her and her friends to avoid gatherings.
Barr and her younger sister continue to swap letters with Meintz, talking about things like Madeline’s trip to a baton competition and travel.
Meints has an even longer pen pal streak.
The retired teacher says she still writes to college friends who began corresponding back in 1954.