This Box of 300 Love Letters Showed Up Out of the Blue. Who Was the Whimsical World War II Soldier Who Wrote Them?
Nobody knows who dropped Speedy Weber's correspondence at a USO office in 2022. Researchers have finally tracked down two living relatives who remember him
A box containing over 300 love letters from World War II soldier Louis Weber arrived at a United Service Organizations (USO) office in New York in 2022. The soldier, known as "Speedy," had been married for only a year when the letters were written to his wife, Frances, who remained at home in the Bronx. Speedy, a 23-year-old from New York, had been in the Army for just a few weeks when he began writing to Frances.
America's involvement in World War II was just beginning, and Speedy would spend the following years on the other side of the Atlantic. The collection eventually made its way to the organization's headquarters in Virginia, where it piqued the interest of archivist and historian Michael Case. After several years of searching, an amateur sleuth helped track down Speedy's nephew, Arthur Serota, who lives in Los Angeles.
Serota, now 84, provided additional details about Speedy and Frances' life together, including the fact that Speedy never got past high school but wrote in an evocative style. Serota and his niece, Karen Weber Figilis, shared memories of the couple, describing Frances as "classy" and Speedy as generous with a natural warmth.
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