We write today to celebrate a life ended peacefully after a long decline right on her 96th birthday, Feb. 15. It seems appropriate that God would call Betty Guhl home on a meaningful date. Such was the way with her.

We first wrote about Betty when her husband of 61 years, Paul Guhl, died in 2009. They were an indomitable team that seemed to have been together for at least their whole lives. They sat on boards and committees for decades and never lost interest in the needs of the community they chose to call home. As we considered stories that we might share about Betty, we found one that blew our own minds. In over 40 years of fellowship and hard work together through Noank Baptist Church, our family missed this gem somehow. And so we present the following as evidence of a love that was meant to be.

Betty was born and raised in Reynoldsville, Penn., as the youngest of five children. After high school, she worked to put herself through three years at Penn State University.

One late fall day in 1944, she and fellow female classmates were asked to make holiday cards with handwritten letters of encouragement for American soldiers in Europe. As the story goes, Betty made a lovely card but forgot to actually write the letter until they were being collected to be sent. According to her granddaughter, Abby Cobb, she scrolled something like “Happy Holidays! Regards, Bets” before passing it in.

Meanwhile, Paul, who was born in NYC and grew up in Stamford, had left Staten Island as a soldier in the Army’s 75th infantry division in October 1944 and was the lucky recipient of Betty’s all but blank card. For those who are unfamiliar with World War II history, the 75th landed in France and joined the allied forces in ground warfare for the Battle of the Bulge by late December.

So Paul was fighting for his life by Christmas. While most men might have thrown the card away and forgotten it in the fog of a relentless war, Paul was not most men. Instead, he wrote her a long, sarcastic letter — snarking that her carefully crafted words and patriotic efforts had carried him through his first holidays in battle.

He sent it expecting no reply; he was satisfied that he’d made his point and fought on with valor.

Where most women might have been offended or thrown Paul’s rebuke away, Betty was not most women. So what did she do? She penned her own eye-roll-worthy epistle and sent it right away.

In fact, they then proceeded to write back and forth to each other every day until Paul returned safely from deployment. They married in 1947 and raised their family in Pennsylvania and Ohio before settling here in Noank in 1972. Years later, their children had all of the letters bound together as a book for future generations to treasure.

Even in the darkest of days, Paul and Betty found ways to joke and laugh and keep each other and everyone around them going. We take comfort in knowing they are reunited in Heaven, still poking fun and laughing.

Ed Johnson and his daughter Lacy live in Noank.