Melbourne man's search for owner of 73-year-old love letter
A man is appealing for help to find the recipient of a 73-year-old love letter.
Josh Hallam, from Melbourne, wrote on Facebook his grandparents were recently cleaning out a cupboard.
The cupboard isn’t theirs and was donated as part of an auction.
“As they were cleaning it they found inside the bottom shelf a collection of envelopes and letters written by a man to his wife in 1946,” Mr Hallam wrote.
“The man was in the navy and writes of his love to her and how he misses her.”
He added the woman’s name is Nancy McClurg and her husband is E.R.A. McClurg.
The ship Mr McClurg was serving on was the HMAS Bingera. The ship was part of the Royal Australian Navy in World War II and patrolled Australia’s east coast.
The letter is addressed to an Ascot Vale residence in Melbourne’s northwest.
“It would be great to reconnect the family who these belong to,” Mr Hallam wrote, before adding: “but [I] don’t know where to start [looking for them]”.
His post has been shared more than 1,300 times with many hoping the letter finds its owner.
“What an amazing thing to find,” one woman wrote.
One woman may already have the answer.
The woman claims E.R.A. McClurg is Edison Vance McClurg who married Nancy Helena in 1945.
In the National Archives of Australia, Mr McClurg is said to have been born in 1922 in Rochester, Victoria. His place of enlistment was Port Melbourne and his next of kin is listed as Nancy.
“They had three children - Grant, Mark and Becky,” she wrote.
She added the family lived in Shepparton in 1968 before living in Geelong in 1977.
However, both parents, along with their son Grant, have since died, she wrote.
Mr Hallam wrote he has contacted a Mark McClurg in Coffs Harbour but he didn’t turn out to be from the same family.
It’s not known if he’s been able to reunite the letters with the McClurg family yet.
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