Messages in a Bottle Sent From Near Fieldbrook Answered 32 Years Later

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Photo of the two letters.

Thirty-two years ago, two little girls, Dee Dee Snyder and her cousin Holly Daley stood on a bridge over Lindsay Creek and, hopefully tossed a couple of glass jars into the water. The containers held various messages to the world in general.

Yesterday, one of those jars was found. Karen Raskin says she was doing a Salmon Survey on Lindsay Creek near Old Railroad Grade Road in Fieldbrook when the person she was with discovered a single glass jar containing two letters painstakingly printed out so many years ago. Raskin smoothed the simple letters out and read them. When she realized that the letters contained local addresses, she photographed the letters and uploaded the images onto the Humboldt County, California in Pictures Facebook page. Soon fans of the page put the clues together and began linking first Dee Dee then Holly to the post.

Dee Dee whose last name is now Vallerga said all day long her phone has been buzzing. Learning of the find touched her. “I remember throwing them off the bridge,” she said. “It brought back a lot of memories of running around Fieldbrook and how simple everything was back then.”

She contacted her cousin Holly who began to tear up. “When I contacted Holly, she said, ‘Oh my gosh I’m crying right now….All the memories.'”

Dee Dee said she recalls tossing the bottles on more than one occasion. “We’d throw several bottles off the bridge when the water was high. We just did them sporadically. We would probably do them about five at a time,” she explained.  The two girls would put their messages in a ziplock. Then, Dee Dee said, “We would put it in a glass jar and then put wax around it.”

One day, her uncle saw and pointed out, “You know they aren’t going to make it very far. They are glass and they’ll all break.” So the girls stopped doing it and never got a response to any of their messages. “I just assumed that they all broke,” she said.

Dee Dee now has three children of her own. When she told her nine-year-old middle child about the message being found, the girl was thrilled. “My daughter wants to go do that now.”

Meanwhile, Karen Raskin sent the messages off another journey. She explained on the Humboldt County, California in Pictures Facebook page, “We put the bottle back, along with another note stating when we found it. So the story will go on!”

“I just hope it makes it a little farther down the creek,” said Dee Dee.

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Closeup of Dee Dee Snyder’s letter

 

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19 Comments
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Otis
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Otis
8 years ago

With all the crime and bad news dominating the internet it’s nice to read a story like this once in a while.

Karen
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Karen
8 years ago

Clarification Kym- I did not personally find the bottle- another person I was with spotted it.

William Shakespeare
Guest
8 years ago
Reply to  Kym Kemp

Great story KYM. Just wondering where do DEE DEE and HOLLY live now.

Deedster
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Deedster
8 years ago

Both girls are still local and Uncle Bill still lives on the property in Fieldbrook

pb
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pb
8 years ago

this is great

Mike Dronkers
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Mike Dronkers
8 years ago

This gave me the feels.

0LDMANWHOSTUMBLESINTHEWOODS
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0LDMANWHOSTUMBLESINTHEWOODS
8 years ago

KIM, IF YOU LIKE STORIES LIKE THIS .LOOK UP….. “PADDLE TO THE SEA” . ….A MOVIE WRITTEN BY STANLEY JACKSON….ITS ONE OF THE SWEETEST MOVIES EVER…. A YOUNG FELLOE CARVES A SMALL WOODEN CANOE ,,,WITH A BROTHER IN IT ,AND SETS IT IN A NEARBY CRICK …….KIDS LOVE THIS MOVIE AS WELL AS BIG KIDS………..YEP, IT FEELS GREAT TO GET SOME GOOD NEWS… WE JUST GOT THE GOOD WORD THAT ONE OF OUR FRIENDS JUST GOT AN ALL CLEAR ON POSSIBLE LUNG CANCER, AND ANOTHER FRIEND JUST MADE IT SAFELY THROUGH VERY SERIOUS SPINAL SURGERY…. KEEP THE GOOD NEWS COMMIN…. THANK YOU!

Mary
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Mary
8 years ago

The note was written on my 24th birthday! I was a student at HSU. Yes, it brought memories of being a young adult.

Caitlin
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Caitlin
8 years ago
Reply to  Mary

It was written on my second birthday ! 🙂

T.....
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T.....
8 years ago

What an awesome story! Such a breath of fresh air after dealing and reading loco. Ahhh.

DAV
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DAV
8 years ago

Precious memories are like unseen angels
Sent from somewhere to my soul–

Lost my best friend yesterday in Redway and needed some good news just like this article.

Daniel
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Daniel
8 years ago

Such a great heart warming story. It bought a smile to my face thinking back to a time when the simplest things were fun for kids and there was little to no fear of bad things like there is today. I don’t think I would let my kids (if I had any) put our address on one of these letters nowadays, too many freaks out there now :(. Thanks for a great story Kym!

V man
Guest
V man
8 years ago

When we were kids we did things that now seem silly
We put messages in bottles and ran around willy-nilly
But now we are older, our bones break they don’t bend
DAV I’m sorry you lost your best friend.