Pat DeReamer just celebrated her 95th birthday, but what made this milestone even more special was the arrival of a card in the mail — a card that has been part of her life for over eight decades.
The sender? Her lifelong friend, Mary Wheaton-Kroger, who turns 95 in May.
After 60 years of exchanging the same birthday card, DeReamer and Wheaton-Kroger made history by entering the Guinness World Record book for the longest greeting card exchange.
Now, they’re applying to reclaim that record with their 81-years of exchange.
The well-worn cover of the card has a cartoon dog wearing a large red and black polka-dotted bow tie with fuzzy blue ears.
“The dog has two fuzzy balls, and they’re kind of in his ears. Over the years, they have flattened out, and become just flat balls, but they’re really soft when you touch them,” DeReamer of Louisville, Ky., told As It Happens host Nil Kӧksal.
It’s paired with a greeting which DeReamer sees as an amusing foreshadow to their lengthy bond: “Here’s wishing you a birthday that really is colossal.”
Then on the inside, “Cause it’ll be a long, long time before YOU’RE an old fossil!”
Accompanying the message is a large dinosaur that stretches across both pages, and its bones are where DeReamer and Wheaton-Kroger have added their signatures and the year they signed, turning the card into a living history of their friendship.
“It was a good idea because it had all the spaces to put all this information, and the year, and everything,” said Wheaton-Kroger.
The roots of this unique tradition stretch back to the early days of the Second World War, when DeReamer’s family moved to Indianapolis.
A young DeReamer felt out of place in the new city, until she met Wheaton-Kroger, who immediately took her in.
“I was kind of the lone duck in our seventh or eighth grade class, and Mary was very kind,” said DeReamer.
Wheaton-Kroger invited DeReamer over to her home, and their long-lasting friendship began.
“I went many times afterwards because I discovered they had a total, complete soda fountain bar with ice cream in their basement,” said DeReamer.
On DeReamer’s 14th birthday, Wheaton-Kroger gave her the now-famous birthday card — and it was passed back on the following month for Wheaton-Kroger’s birthday.
From then on, the tradition continued, year after year, even as the two moved to different cities — Wheaton-Kroger to Carmel, Ind., and DeReamer to Louisville.
Over the years, the card has become a testament to their friendship and the fulsome lives they’ve lived.
“The inside of the card has a million names. Some of them, you know, it would say Mary Wheaton. And then, it went from Mary Wheaton to Mary Wheaton-Kroger,” said DeReamer.
Their children, who witnessed the card exchange every year, saw it as something special.
“Once a year, mom would be taking out this old card and seeing to it that it got in the mail in a timely manner. That was kind of intriguing … and then as time went on it became increasingly special,” said Don Kroger, Wheaton-Kroger’s son.
When asked what has kept their friendship so strong over the decades, DeReamer’s answer was simple.
“The secret to everything in life is love — showing and sharing love in any way you can, whether it’s just a hug or whether it is stopping somebody with a smile or whether it is shaking a firm hand or even saying to one of your children, ‘Gee, I love you,'” she said.
That same love, says DeReamer, is for strangers too.
“There are people that you run into every day that you feel close to, and I think giving a hug when you leave is very special.”
As the two friends approach another milestone, they’re confident they will keep up the tradition.
“Neither one of us have any intention of passing before we’re 100 because we’ve got to get the card going over a hundred,” said DeReamer.
Wheaton-Kroger is on the same page.
“It’s like we have a competition with the world … and we love this, still keeping in touch with each other,” she said.
