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Photograph courtesy of Hortensia Garcia

Sunnyvale's Hortensia Garcia met pen pal Marlies Rielat in Berlin last month.

Trans-Atlantic pen pals mark 50 years in Berlin

By Katherine Petersen

Hortensia Garcia of Sunnyvale and Marlies Rielat of Berlin already knew each other when they met for the first time 25 years ago. Garcia answered a letter from Rielat as an eighth-grader in 1947, and the two became close friends through the mail.

"I picked out her letter [at school] because she mentioned she liked seashells, and so did I," Garcia said. "We shared a lot over the years about dances, boys, parties and whatnot. We kind of grew up together."

Garcia and her husband just returned from a trip to Europe that included three weeks in Germany with the Rielats in celebration of 50 years of friendship.

"If my English teacher hadn't handed out letters for us to answer, I never would have gone to Europe," Garcia said.

The Rielats and their friends treated Garcia and her husband like royalty, Garcia said. They visited museums, fortresses and castles. The Rielats gave the Garcias a gift of a three-day stay in Dresden and threw a party to celebrate their friendship at a restaurant atop a radio tower.

"It was a very special celebration of 50 years of friendship," Garcia said. "In her toast for us, she said that I was her oldest friend, and she loved me like a sister."

In turn, Garcia gave Rielat an afghan embroidered with the inscription "Marlies and Hortensia, pen pals for 50 years."

Garcia returned home Oct 20 and spent the next few weeks creating two photo albums out of pictures from the 33 rolls of film she took.

The two used to write nearly twice a month, but now the letters have become more sporadic. "The letters we write are long and very descriptive," Garcia said. "But somehow as we got older, there's more going on and more time between them. We do call each other on our birthdays, though," Garcia said. The two women have met in person five times.

Garcia described their first meeting as a little bit uncomfortable. "I kind of forgot she'd have an accent, and at first, conversation was a bit difficult. But our smiles, hugs and 25 years of letters spoke for themselves," she said.

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This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, December 3, 1997.
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