Catholic school students still fulfilling assignment 20 years later

By Tanya Connor 
| The Catholic Free Press

A class assignment at Catholic schools several states apart blossomed into a 20-year friendship that demonstrates the value of handwritten letters in an age of technology.

“This started at St. Stephen’s School in the third grade,” explained Emily Isakson, 28, of St Joseph and St. Stephen Parish in Worcester. She said that when she attended what was then St. Stephen Elementary School of St. Stephen Parish in Worcester, her teacher, Susan Cassie, had her class write to peers at St. Stephen the Martyr Catholic School in Omaha, Nebraska.

“I believe it was a writing project,” Miss Isakson said. “We wrote three times and they wrote back three times.” It appears from their saved letters that she first wrote Kristen Van Hoosen  – the pen pal she was randomly matched with – on Oct. 19, 2005.

For these two students, it didn’t stop there. They have been in touch ever since – via handwritten letters sent by “snail mail.”

“She’s my oldest friend, and I’ve never even met her,” Miss Isakson said of this friend she’s been in touch with the longest, with whom she’s exchanged photos. While they’re connected on Facebook and Instagram, they don’t rely on those for personal communication. She didn’t even have her pen pal’s phone number until she asked for it, and received it, via Facebook messenger – so The Catholic Free Press could interview Miss Van Hoosen too.

“You’ll be hearing her voice and I’ve never heard it,” Miss Isakson told the reporter.

Let’s hear their remarkable story from them.

“I just remember being so excited, and thinking it was so fun” to have a pen pal – at a school with the same name as yours – Miss Isakson said of the beginning of their relationship.

Miss Van Hoosen also recalled being excited about the pen pal assignment.

“You just got an automatic friend ... I could tell her anything I wanted,” she said. “It seemed like we just connected easily.”

Miss Isakson was fascinated by the idea of having a pen pal in a different state – one she’d never been to (and still hasn’t). It was hard to picture Nebraska. But “it didn’t feel difficult to picture that she was just another girl like me.”

The two said they were both close to their families, played softball and liked doing artistic projects.

When Miss Van Hoosen’s childhood golden retriever died, “I was so sad for Kristen,” Miss Isakson said. “My dream dog growing up was a golden retriever,” but not because her pen pal had one. (Miss Isakson has allergies; her family got their first dog – a shih tzu – in 2016, and now she and her parents have goldendoodles with hypoallergenic hair.)

It wasn’t just common interests that drew the girls together, however. As they grew older “one of the fun parts was seeing ... how we were different,” Miss Isakson said. “It’s nice to see what makes people themselves.” She majored in ancient studies and minored in Medieval studies, got her master’s in decorative arts, design history and material culture, and is now leadership and planned giving coordinator for the Worcester Art Museum. Miss Van Hoosen majored in construction management with a minor in wood technology and is now an estimator and project manager at an excavation company, Top Grade Site Management in Hamilton, Michigan.

Miss Isakson said they’ve been “there for each other” through life experiences, including moves (Miss Van Hoosen now lives in Michigan and likes attending St. Peter Catholic Church in Douglas) and breakups (Miss Isakson is engaged and Miss Van Hoosen has a long-time boyfriend).

But why did the girls continue their relationship?

“I don’t know,” replied Miss Isakson. She said she really enjoyed writing a letter and anticipating a response, and having a friend in a state that “felt far away.”

“The excitement, just the complete surprise of a postcard or a letter in the mail,” Miss Van Hoosen said of why she continued writing to her pen pal. When they were younger they would say in their letters “write soon,” keeping an unspoken agreement that that was how they would communicate.

Both find that valuable.

“I feel most fulfilled when I’m connected with people,” Miss Isakson said; she loves hearing about someone else’s life. “I also know the values of writing and the postal system. ... I think writing is a dying art” in a world of typing. “I recognize Kristen’s handwriting. ... It’s special to think that somebody wants to communicate with you so much” that she’ll write you a letter or postcard.

“We live in this world where there’s a lot of technology,” Miss Van Hoosen said. It’s special getting a handwritten letter addressed to her from her pen pal – the only person she communicates with that way.

“It reminds me to slow down and enjoy,” she said. “I don’t need everything that instantly.” It reminds her to “be happy with the little things.”

She said she tells other people about it. A younger person wondered what a pen pal was. Others think it’s “cool” or say they haven’t written a letter in a long time, and should do so. Miss Van Hoosen hopes some will write, say to a grandmother, who would appreciate that a young person took time to reach out that way.

She said her mother sometimes sees Joanne Vamosi, the teacher who started this all at St. Stephen’s on the Omaha end, and Mrs. Vamosi doesn’t know of any other students continuing this assignment all these years.  

But these two pen pals plan to keep it up – and hope to meet in person someday.