Closet purge sparks friendship 36 years in the making

By Guest Columnist Theresa Davis

When my son-in-law’s mother died unexpectedly, he was left to wade through a lifetime of her treasures.

I decided to start going through closets, desks and file cabinets to better organize what was important and start a major purge.

In my daughter’s closet, I had several boxes of her programs, report cards, test papers, awards, etc. I took them to her, and we dug through these memories together!! We found a neatly-folded thank you note that she had written in the third grade at Clinton’s Northside Elementary School in 1990. She thanked “Mrs. Wells,” who apparently worked in the cafeteria, for her delicious food over the last two years.

Once we found the note, I could not remember ever seeing it and had a strong sense that Mrs. Wells needed to be thanked for her hard work even thirty-six years later! I felt remiss that she hadn’t received this precious acknowledgement at the time it was written.

I had no idea how I was going to find “Mrs. Wells” when I had so little information, but I turned to Facebook and posted the information I had and asked if anyone knew her. I received a response with her name and phone number from her niece, Vicki Hobson. Her name was Lottie Wells!! She was the cafeteria worker at Northside who was the intended recipient of the thank you note.

I called her and explained to her the reason for my call. She was excited to learn about this note and that I had reached out to her.

On March 24, my daughter, Nikki Davis Nail, and I were having lunch in downtown Clinton. I pulled the thank note out of my purse and told her, “Today is the day!” She looked at me with questioning eyes, to which I explained, “We are going to take the note to Mrs. Wells today!!!!”

After a quick phone call to her, we were on our way to deliver this long overdue show of appreciation and to complete this class room assignment. We arrived within minutes of our phone call, and we were lovingly greeted into her home.

It was a moment that Nikki and I will never forget.

Nikki and I sat with Mrs. Wells on her sofa, and Nikki unfolded the note that was written on wide ruled, three-hole-punched notebook paper. She began to read the note to Mrs. Wells. Mrs. Wells’ smile became wider, and tears filled her eyes. The moment was precious!

Nikki handed the note to her, and she clutched it to her chest. She said to Nikki, “If you had given me this thank you note thirty-six years ago, it would not have meant as much to me then as it does today! I’m going to frame it and hang it on my wall!”

Priceless! We were all three filled with great emotion! Nikki and I now had a new friend, and her name is Lottie!

In order for this story to come full circle, I knew I had to reach out to the teacher that gave this assignment on June 5, 1990. I knew this would have been Nikki’s third-grade teacher, and it was in her Reading class. After much searching, I was able to contact Vickie Hopson. She recognized the way the heading of the assignment was written, as this was how she always instructed her students to start their papers. She said this was probably at the end of school, and she told her students to write a thank you note to anyone they wanted to and give the note to them.

For some reason, Nikki must not have delivered her note and stuck it in her Trapper Keeper along with all her other “end of the year” papers, only to be discovered thirty-six years later.

The note reads: June 5, 1990, Reading, Nikki Davis. Dear Mrs. Wells, Almost every day I ate in the lunchroom. You have the best lunches. I like French fries, macaroni, hamburger, a sausage pizza. I have enjoyed two years that I ate in the lunchroom. Love, Nikki D.

It’s never too late to thank someone, even for the smallest of things!