When Andrew Carroll’s family home in Washington, DC, burned down in 1989, no one was hurt, thank God. But Carroll, then a sophomore in college, lost everything, including valuable letters from a friend who had witnessed the Tiananmen Square massacre in China.
A distant cousin, James Carroll Jordan, heard of the conflagration and called to check in. Carroll explained that everything had been lost, including those letters, which he recognized had historical relevance.
“Funny you should say that,” Jordan replied. “I was just going through my old World War II footlocker, and I came across a letter I wrote to my wife in 1945.” He mailed Carroll the letter, and what Carroll read changed his life.
Jordan was 23 and serving in Europe, though the war was pretty much over.…
