cool Genealogy Love Story

"I didn't grow up with him, so this is a whole love story we never even knew,"

"I love touching them, knowing that my grandparents had their hands on them," 

Stranger Discovers Long-Lost Love Letters in Attic, But Story Doesn't End There

A long-lost box of treasures found in one man's attic has unlocked a decades-old love story, ending in an unexpected surprise for a family that for the past roughly 70 years hadn't even realized anything was missing.

Joshua McKinney, of Casnovia, Mich., was removing old insulation in his home's attic on Jan. 25, when he found a stack of old love letters from the World War II era.

"He was scooping up old insulation to put the new insulation down, and while he was scooping, the letters just fell," Christina Frein, the now very grateful grand-daughter of the man who'd written the letters, told GoodMorningAmerica.com of McKinney's discovery.

The findings were wrapped in a dainty, disintegrating pink ribbon and included a birth certificate from 1942 for William Kissel, Frein's father, and a marriage certificate from 1941 for Edward and Virginia Kissel, Frein's grandparents.

Unsure of how these delicate old documents had ended up in his attic, McKinney and his sister decided to try to find the family these letters had once belonged to. They alerted their local news station, which shared the remarkable discovery on social media, and within four hours of the post circulating around the western Michigan area, Frein, who lives about an hour away in Muskegon, took notice.

"He found these on the same weekend my uncle, my dad's brother, passed away," said Frein, a complete stranger to McKinney. "It was really freaky, like my dad was trying to talk to me."

As soon as she heard about the discovery, Frein traveled to collect the sentimental pieces. But what she found when she got there was even more than she had expected.

"I thought I was going to retrieve stuff of my father's, but to see all these things, love letters from my grandfather to my grandmother, that was a huge bonus," Frein explained.

Edward Kissel, her grandfather, passed away before she was born.

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"I didn't grow up with him, so this is a whole love story we never even knew," said Frein. "When my grandma remarried, she never really talked about him."