After 51 years of writing, pen pals finally meet in Sumpter Township

In 1966, Mr. Smelt, a seventh-grade English teacher at South Middle School in Belleville, assigned his class a writing project. Each student was to select a name from a list he had and write a letter to that person.
“I saw a girl who had the same last name as me, so I chose her,” Dianna Hall (Reinhard) said. The girl, Fiona Hall, lived in Werris Creek, New South Wales, Australia.
Reinhard remembers writing a letter to Fiona telling about her family and home. Mr. Smelt graded the letter on grammar and punctuation, and spelling and then she sent it off to Australia. And, waited.
Fairly quickly she got an answer. A fancy envelope with unusual stamps and trimming was delivered to her mailbox.
It was from her new pen pal.
Dianna sent her picture to Fiona and Fiona sent a picture of her and her brother back to Dianna.
Over 51 years, they continued to write about graduations, marriages, divorces, children, grandchildren, never daring to believe they would ever meet. They sent little trinkets back and forth in the mail, often including Christmas presents and special things for their children.
Over the past few years they changed from letters with stamps to emails. Dianna said her daughter is already setting up a Facebook page for her mother to use to communicate with Fiona.
Fiona now lives in Cootamundra, New South Wales, Australia.
Fiona and her friend, Sue Coleman, toured Europe last year and last Christmas Fiona asked Dianna if it would be convenient to meet in September because they had decided to tour the United States.
Dianna was very excited and welcomed her plans with enthusiasm.
Fiona and Sue flew into Dallas on Sept. 4 and immediately flew to Boston where a bus tour began. They went to New York, Niagara Falls, Boston, Graceland, TN, and many places in between. Finally, they flew into Metro Airport from New Orleans for the big pen pal meeting.
Dianna and her husband Bob picked them up on Friday and took them to Ruby Tuesday’s and then the next day to Cracker Barrel and on Sunday to a restaurant in Ann Arbor so Fiona could meet Dianna’s children. Then it was back to Metro Airport on Monday, so the travelers could fly to San Francisco. On Oct. 6, they flew back to Australia.
“I never dreamed I would ever meet her,” said Dianna. “This was the first time we met in 51 years. It was very emotional. I hated to see her go.
“When we picked them up, it was as if we were lifelong friends. They were very comfortable in my home. They asked if they could borrow my hair dryer,” Dianna recalled with a smile. “It was such an enjoyable time.”
She pointed out they were both 12 years old when they wrote their first letters to each other and now both are 63.
Fiona, too, was delighted, telling Dianna it was a dream come true to meet her and a highlight of her trip to the U.S.
Fiona and Sue, the Australian travelers, are longtime friends and both nurses.
Dianna graduated from Belleville High School in 1972 and worked for 16 years at Sumpter Ace Hardware. For the last six years she has been a school bus driver for the Van Buren Public Schools.
Dianna said there is a shortage of bus drivers so she had to get special permission to take off a Friday and Monday for her visitors from Australia, but she said the district was able to give her the time off.