Pandemic Pen Pal Provides Comfort to Hundreds of Elderly Americans
Even before she sees the name on the return address, Nancy Sloane knows who sent the letter — the Snoopy sticker that seals the envelope is a dead giveaway.
It’s from Wesley Morgan, a 32-year-old fan of the comic strip “Peanuts” who’s been sending cards and letters across the country to comfort elderly folks in isolation due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“He’s kept me from being lonely,” said Sloane, a retired teacher now quarantined at the Brookdale Senior Living Community in Denver. “I look forward to his letters.”
After Morgan was furloughed from his job at the Denver International Airport in March, he soon ran out of TV shows to watch and items to craft.
He learned of a friend’s efforts to write to people at a Denver nursing home and felt called to do the same, putting to use his beloved “Peanuts” cards and stationery sets, collected over many years.
“I couldn’t think of a better way to use this collection,” he said. “It was something I could do from home. I didn’t have to leave.”
At first, Morgan simply went to Google, scouring the internet for people to whom he could write. He eventually stumbled upon several Facebook groups like “Forget Me Not” and “From the Heart” that take and share requests for letter correspondence.
There he found lists of eager recipients, ranging from dozens of residents of a nursing home in New Hampshire to a single elderly woman recommended by her mail carrier.
Since then, he has sent over 500 letters and has heard back from 142 people. Many of them have become regular correspondents — his “Peanuts” pen pals, as he calls them.
“Almost every time I receive anything back it is pages,” he said. “They just have so much to share and talk about.”
Sloane is one of his most regular correspondents. She lives alone, recovering from multiple ailments, and her only in-person interactions come twice a day with facility caregivers.
She and Morgan began writing each other so frequently that they recently switched to email to speed the correspondence.
“We write about our pets, I tell him about my travels and my journeys and the work I used to do,” she said. “I don’t know. Maybe because I’m so holed up in here, I love to tell about my past.”
Sloane expressed how important Morgan’s letters have been to her.
“I’d read his letters and reread them,” she said. “It just cheers me up that there’s somebody, quite frankly, that cares about me.”
They hope to meet in person someday.
“When this is all over Wesley, I’m going to take you out to dinner,” she told him by email, while acknowledging with a laugh that she can’t drive due to a botched knee surgery, so he’ll have to take her instead.
In early November, Morgan returned to work at the airport. But he continues his correspondence with anyone and everyone who writes him back.
Recently he even included Christmas gifts of socks and slippers — “Peanuts”-themed, of course.
“They’ve been a bright spot for me this year,” Morgan said, “and I just wanted them to know that.”
The Western Journal has reviewed this Associated Press story and may have altered it prior to publication to ensure that it meets our editorial standards.
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