PeopleSeptember 6, 2026 · 6 min read
The Pen Pals Who Never Met
Three decades of letters, and finally a single video call across six thousand miles.
By Maya Okonkwo · Field editor
They were assigned to each other in 1993 by a school exchange program that folded the following year. Eleanor kept writing anyway. So did Kofi.
Between them they have 618 letters, boxed and in order: two marriages, three children, one bankruptcy, one recovery, a great many descriptions of weather.
Neither ever traveled. Money, then children, then time, then the feeling that it might spoil something.
In June, their grandchildren set up a video call without telling them. It lasted four hours. They have agreed to keep writing letters regardless. "The phone is nice," Eleanor said afterward. "But you can't read a phone twice."
