Letters from Heulwen Morgan Thomas to Alice Kipnowski Pacholik and miscellaneous items, including photographs, greeting cards, and travel brochures.

The correspondence between Alice Kipnowski Pacholik and Heulwen Morgan Thomas began in 1938 when Alice’s English teacher at Alvernia Catholic Girls High School in Chicago assigned students pen-pals from English speaking countries overseas. From that point on, Alice and Heulwen maintained a steady correspondence for over seven decades, until Heulwen’s death in 2011.

All correspondence in this collection is from Heulwen Morgan Thomas to Alice Kipnowski Pacholik. In the letters, Heulwen references personal matters (school, teaching, suitors, vacations, illnesses, children, etc.) as well as world affairs. She often enclosed newspaper clippings with her letters to support a discussion or friendly debate. Topics included World War II, religion (Heulwen was raised Protestant, while Alice identified as Catholic), health care, exchange rates, McCarthy and communism, nuclear weapons, Kennedy’s assassination, royal weddings, and American politics and elections. The two friends did not meet in person until 1982, when Heulwen and David visited Alice and Joe in the United States. In 1987, after Joe’s death, Alice traveled to Great Britain where she stayed with Heulwen and David for several weeks.

The collection also includes photographs of family homes and relatives of Heulwen (included in the correspondence it was enclosed with), as well as travel brochures from Alice’s 1987 trip to Great Britain.