I found a 100-year-old letter hidden in the walls during a home renovation… it sparked a quest to find the writers family

A man has revealed how he discovered a 100-year-old letter hidden in the walls of his home while doing a renovation… and was able to reunite it with the original writer’s family.

Curtis Smith, 47, from Casper, Wyomingbought a two-bedroom, 1,800-square-foot home for $69,000 back in 2002 with his wife, Lisa, which was originally built in 1917.

But it wasn’t until nine years later in 2011 when they started redoing the bathroom and nearby hallway that they came across a relic from the 1900s stashed away in the walls.

‘We essentially wanted to do away with the “Jack and Jill” style bathroom and put in a hallway type entrance, which involved knocking out the existing closet,’ he explained during a recent chat with the Daily Mail.

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‘Being an old house, the walls are constructed of plaster and lathe board. After the dust settled from knocking out the plaster, we began the clean-up process.

‘It was then that I noticed a blue piece of paper buried in the ruble, leaning up against the wall.

‘All I can figure is it must have either intentionally been placed in the wall as a time capsule, or maybe it had accidentally fallen in during the construction process?’

The letter was sent from Bantry, Ireland, in September of 1917 and was addressed to a Mr. Con Shea who lived at Smith’s home in Casper, Wyoming.

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‘It was a letter thanking Mr. Shea for a present he had sent to his family back home in Ireland,’ explained Smith.

‘There was also some catching up and keeping him abreast of the goings on back there in Ireland.’

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‘Dear Con, A few lines in answer to your very nice letter which I received a few days ago. I was glad to know that you and Mary and baby are in good health as we are same, thank God,’ the letter reads.

‘Well Con, before I will say any I must thank you very much for the present you sent me.

‘I must say it was awfully nice of you to think to send it to me, thank you over and over for I didn’t expect it or either I didn’t deserve it.’

The writer went on to discuss how ‘mother is always troubled’ with ‘fear’ that something will happen to ‘Mary or the baby’ and that they’re looking forward to get ‘baby photos’ in the mail.

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Smith said he was ‘ecstatic’ over the find, and quickly started Googling the names in the letter to try to find out – and he soon came across a Wiki page for a man named Cornelius Patrick Shea.

‘He had immigrated to the US, and had become a very successful sheep herder here in Wyoming,’ Smith explained.

‘Sadly, I also found out that he and his wife Mary had passed about four months apart in 1928. He passed after being shot by a fellow woolgrower after an argument. She passed after a “lingering illness,” leaving their children alone.’

Enthralled by the find, Smith decided to post photos of the letter online to the website Flickr.

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He thought the story was over there – however, three years later, a relative of Shea reached out to him.

She left a comment on the Flickr post which read, ‘Hello, my name is Laura O’Brien. I am related to Con Shea.

‘Would you mind sharing a copy, transcription or the original letter with me? I would like to share with the family.’

The two started chatting and Smith said she ‘confirmed all the details’ he had previously found about Shea online.

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‘I did in fact send the letter to be with its family in December of 2014. It just felt to me like that is where it belonged,’ Smith shared.

‘I hope they treasure it as much as I did. Somewhat disappointingly, I have never heard anything from them after that. I tried reaching out again recently, but have yet to receive a response.’

Even so, Smith still thinks of Shea often, and often visits his family plot in town to ‘pay respects at his and Mary’s final resting spots.’