The Oak Lawn Community High School Social Studies Department received a treasure from a former student who discovered WWII letters beside a trash dumpster. World War II veteran Leonard Andersen and Al Binsfield wrote those letters during World War II. Those letters were recently reunited with Marge Harrington, who is the daughter of Andersen and niece of Binsfield.
This reunion was years in the making. In 2017, an OLCHS student discovered a box of letters discarded in a dumpster. The student thought they looked important, so she brought them to school to show her History teacher, Phil McGee, and the Social Studies Department Chair, Kristin Kuchyt.
Kuchyt said, “This was an extraordinary discovery by one of our students, and it was especially meaningful to hear what they meant to Leonard Andersen’s daughter, Marge. When teaching about World War II, we emphasize not only the experiences of soldiers but also how families on the home front navigated their daily lives during the war. These letters offer a powerful window into the realities faced by an American family during wartime.”
After receiving the letters, McGee and Kuchyt shared these letters with the Oak Lawn library to archive these local history treasures. Oak Lawn Public Library’s local historian, Kevin Korst, scanned all the letters and chronicled them for their World War II local archives. Korst then returned the letters to Mrs. Kuchyt, who held onto them.
Marge Harrington eventually found these scanned letters with a Google search. Harrington explained, “After a genealogy inquiry from a family member, late one night, I did a simple Google search on the matter. Before my eyes was a library listing that referenced a letter sent by my uncle to his mother. In the bit of online information supplied, it noted my uncle’s plane was shot down during WWII, and that he survived. I knew this about my uncle, but was surprised to see this online. I contacted the library to inquire what they had and how they obtained it. They referred me to a local teacher, Kristin Kuchyt, whom I contacted, and a few days later, we spoke by phone.”
The letters contained correspondence between Harrington’s parents, soldier Leonard Andersen, and his wife, Marian. There were also letters between her Uncle, Binsfield, and his family.
These letters were written from the Pacific Theater and captured the story of the war from far and near.
Harrington said, “ Finding out about these letters was initially quite puzzling, especially how the letters got out of the possession of our family. After my conversation with Kristin, I was excited that I was going to get the letters back and be able to read them and share them with family.”
Ms. Harrington was asked about her plans for the letters. She said, “Our family considers the letters a priceless treasure, and they will be kept safe and secure. I plan to scan all the letters so each of my siblings will have an electronic copy for themselves.”