Pen pals for 70 years, from Medina and Australia, grateful for enduring friendship

Photo by Ginny Kropf: Kay VanNostrand of Medina, left, and her pen pal of 70 years, Kay Reid of Australia, are all smiles as they met for coffee Saturday at the Coffee Pot Café, during Reid’s visit.

MEDINA – Kay VanNostrand of Medina and Kay Reid, who lives in a suburb of Sydney, Australia, could never have imagined as little girls forming a close friendship with someone half-way across the world.

But that is just what they did.

Last week, Reid arrived in Medina to spend some time visiting VanNostrand.

The girls were both 10 when VanNostrand joined Girl Scouts and Reid joined the Australian equivalent – the Girl Guides.

“I got Kay’s name and wrote my first letter to her on July 1, 1955,” Reid said.

“And I wrote right back,” VanNostrand said. “We wrote back and forth all summer.”

But their friendship didn’t end there, although they drifted apart for a few years. Life got in the way, they said.

VanNostrand went to college and became a teacher, while Reid married and raised four children.

“We always sent Christmas cards and gifts,” VanNostrand said. “When we realized we could talk on the phone, that was how we corresponded.”

“When we got computers, we could correspond with Skype,” Reid said.

When VanNostrand retired in 1997, Reid and her sister Margaret came here to visit.

“I asked if we could come visit, and Kay answered, ‘Yes, yes, yes,’” Reid said.

“It took two weeks for me to get her letter and another two weeks for her to get my reply,” VanNostrand said.

In 2002, VanNostrand’s friend Barb Filipiak went to Australia to visit a fellow teacher and extended her stay to visit Reid.

VanNostrand’s first trip to Australia was in 2004.

In 2006 and again in 2008, the Kays met in Hawaii with Filipiak and spent a week together. In 2011 they all met in Alaska, then spent three days after that in Seattle. Reid flew back to Australia and VanNostrand and Filipiak took the train back to Buffalo.

In 2017 Filipiak and VanNostrand went to New Zealand on a tour, and then flew to Australia and spent a week with Reid.

Reid described her flight here this time as a real challenge. She left Sydney on Quantis Airlines and arrived in Dallas to find long lines and only two employees working. She had a two-hour layover to check in, go through Customs and make the long walk to get to the next gate for her flight to Buffalo.

When it became evident the line wasn’t moving fast enough for her to make connections, she found a security person and relayed her concern. He took her where she had to go and she had a 15-minute wait there. In the end, she missed her flight to Buffalo and had a six-hour wait before she could get another flight.

This week, VanNostrand, who turns 83 today, and Reid, who turns 83 on Sept. 12, shared some of their old memories.

“If it wasn’t for Kay, I’d have never done international travel,” Reid said. “It is remarkable because neither of us liked writing letters.”

In previous years, the Kays would open their Christmas gifts together on Skype, but recently they have decided instead of buying each other gifts, they will send something to a charity in the other’s name.

During Reid’s week-long visit, they have done a lot of catching up, they said. They visited Sarah’s Greenhouse and friends in Brockport. They still want to go to Holley Falls and the Western New York National Cemetery in Pembroke.

Reid will leave July 4 to return home to Australia.