After a Walmart employee found a handwritten marriage proposal penned by an Airman in 1954 on the floor, he was determined to reunite the letter with its author.
Dakota Lovain worked at the Walmart in Dalton, Georgia, before his most recent deployment with the National Guard.
On one of his shifts, Lovain found an old letter left on the floor, postmarked July 30, 1954.
The letter had been written to a woman named Martha Young by her lover, Max Holcomb.
In the letter, Holcomb promised to be home within a couple of weeks and planned to ask Young’s parents for permission to marry their daughter.
Captivated by the mystery of the sentimental letter, Lovain wanted to return it to its rightful owner.
Lovain was deployed before he could complete the task, but his co-worker, Jennifer Hendrix, took up the mission on Lovain’s behalf.
Hendrix reached out to the media, and a story about the letter was aired on a local Chattanooga TV station, WDEF-TV reported.
Soon after the story aired, Hendrix received a tip — the name of a man was believed to be the grandson of Max Holcomb.
Hendrix used Facebook to get in contact with Jason Holcomb, who did turn out to be Max’s grandson.
While Jason has no idea how the letter ended up at the Dalton Walmart, he was able to answer some questions about the author and the intended recipient of the letter — his grandparents, Max and Martha Holcomb, who were married for 60 years.
“It just blew my mind, my hair stood up on my neck, and I thought surely not,” Holcomb told WTXF.
Jason Holcomb said he was basically raised by his grandparents. Martha died in 2014 and Max followed in 2017.
“They were selfless people,” said Jason Holcomb. “They always thought about each other before they did anything. They were inseparable.”
Max Holcomb served in the Air Force and was stationed in Alaska at the time he sent the heartwarming letter to his “Honey.”
Now that his grandparents have both passed away, Jason is thrilled to have such a cherished piece of family history to hold close to his heart.
It’s likely that nobody will ever know how that special letter ended up on a Walmart floor, but the Holcomb family is grateful to the employees who went out of their way to bring a sentimental treasure home.
