Oldfangled Legwork in Newfangled Times

Just ask Carol Murdock Scinto . In 1939, when she was 13 and living in Astoria, Ore., Carol found a pen pal in England. Dorothy Johnson was 13, too, living outside Leeds.

The girls wrote to each other several times a year, through the ups and downs of World War II: the Battle of Dunkirk, the Blitz, Pearl Harbor, D-Day, V-E Day, V-J Day.

In 1952, they met in person when Carol lived in England as a youth club leader for a British YWCA. By then, Dorothy was Dorothy Llewellyn, married with a 6-month-old son.

"Unfortunately, we lost touch after that, probably because of the exigencies of daily living," said Carol, who lives in Rockville. The demands of career and family, along with various moves, meant the letters stopped crossing the Atlantic. "But I never forgot Dorothy."

Three years ago, Carol decided to try to find her old pen pal friend. She didn't turn to the Internet but to the Royal Mail.

"I wrote to the two addresses that I had," she said: the first address and the last known address. "I remembered them. I didn't have to look them up or anything. They were just imprinted on my mind."

Carol knew it was doubtful Dorothy would be at either address, so she outlined her quest to the current residents. Both wrote her back. One said she didn't know Dorothy's whereabouts, but she knew that Dorothy's husband had been in the town's fire brigade. Maybe its members would have some information.

The owner of the house Dorothy had grown up in wrote to say that when his home was on a garden tour a woman had asked to see inside, explaining that she had grown up there. His neighbors knew how to get in touch with her.

That woman turned out to be Dorothy's sister. Through her, the pen pals made contact again.

I asked Carol why she had been so adamant about finding Dorothy. She thought for a moment. "I don't like to let people go, I guess. . . . That's about as good an explanation as I can give you."

Last month, Carol stepped off the train in Walsall, a town in the Midlands outside Birmingham.

Dorothy walked up and asked, "Are you Carol?"

After 52 years, the two 80-year-old women had a lot of catching up to do.

Catch up with me atkellyj@washpost.com.