The year was 2009 — Dashauna Priest sat in her 3rd-grade classroom in Lorain, Ohio, and got to work on the day’s assignment:
Write a letter to an armed forces veteran and thank them for their service.
It’s a great way to get kids to practice their handwriting, and a common way to help them develop their writing. But in Dashauna’s case, the letter came to mean much more than that. It found its way to WWII veteran Frank Grasberger, and its simple message of thanks resonated with him.
“Thank you for saving us from Hitler. If it wasn’t for you, we would never have freedom. You made freedom for us. You sacrificed your own life.”
The letter was short and sweet, but carried a profound message that meant a lot to Grasberger. “It really tore my heart up when I saw it,” he recalled. “I just couldn’t believe a child could write a letter about a war,” he told Post Guam.
Alongside the note was a drawing of an American flag and an Army helmet, done in crayon. Grasberger still has the letter; he’s kept it close for more than a decade. Now 95 years old, he received the surprise of a lifetime when he finally got to meet Dashauna Priest this month!
The meeting was coordinated by Jill Pawloski, the resident services director at Vitalia Senior Residents where Grasberger lives with his wife, Delores. When Grasberger showed her the letter and told her how much it meant to him, she knew that finally having a face to put to the writing would mean the world to him. So, she searched on social media and eventually came across an Instagram profile that she thought might be Priest’s. She sent a message and waited.
At that moment, an hour’s drive away from the facility in Strongsville, Ohio, Dashauna Priest was looking through her memory box at her home in Sandusky. There, she re-read a note she’d had for more than a decade. It was Grasberger’s response to her original note, mailed back to the school and given to her when she was still in 3rd grade.
“You really made me feel very good about fighting the war. War is a terrible thing but if it helped to keep you and many others ‘free’ it was well worth it.”
Then, she checked her messages. “I actually cried because it was like, ‘Wow, this is crazy. I just read the letter,’” she told ABC News.
Priest jumped at the chance to meet Grasberger after more than a decade since they’d first made contact. The meeting was arranged, and the two were in tears when they saw each other. The meeting was made all the more poignant because Priest had joined the Army National Guard, following Grasberger’s example to serve her country.
“She is one of our daughters. We looked 12 years for her, so we have to enjoy her now,” said Delores Grasberger, in an interview with Post Guam. For his part, Frank was overjoyed to finally meet the young woman whose words had meant so much to him all those years ago. “Some miracles do happen,” he said after they first spoke. See the moment the two first met in the video below!
@arrowseniorliving Warning: video may cause eyes to leak 🥲 #kindness #bekind #whatseniorlivinglookslike #wholesomecontent
♬ original sound – Arrow Senior Living