Love letters from war: Utah woman finds parents’ letters nearly 7 decades later

SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) – It’s a laugh of affection that Kathy Poulsen Romero has when remembering her father.

Kathy’s parents were married in 1952, and less than a month later, her father went back to fight in the Korean War.

More than two decades after her parents passed away, Kathy finally went through some of their belongings. She found a photo album and a box containing 75 letters her parents wrote to each other while he was away on service.

“I can’t help but think that my mother lovingly put these letters in here that my dad wrote from Korea,” Kathy said.

In one letter, her father, Medford, wrote to his wife, Lila, saying, “I will do my best to safeguard my life because I am always thinking of the day we will meet again. Be a good kid and may God bless you and keep you always. With all my love, your boy, Med.”

Each letter is addressed with love and a stamp of approval. The letters — and the emotion behind them — Kathy didn’t know existed.

He talks about anything and everything,” she said. “I had no idea that my father could write like that.”

Shortly after Medford returned home and was honorably discharged, he got Polio. So when Kathy was born, and her whole life until he died, she said her dad was ill on top of dealing with everything else a war veteran deals with.

That consumed him, but Kathy said the letters set him, and herself, free.

After finding the letters, Kathy combined all 75 into a book: “Love Letters from Heartbreak Ridge.”

“I had no idea what was in there,” Kathy said. “I feel like I was supposed to be the messenger in the story.”

So is it love letters, between one Korean War veteran and his bride? Of course. But it’s also a love story between a daughter, finding new love with her father again, even beyond the grave.

“I’d give anything to have my daddy sitting here with me tonight and he has … he will be but it’s giving me a freedom,” Kathy said.