Forever yours

By Brian Koonz

In the fall of 1944, as America and its Allies fought in the South Pacific and European theaters, a 26-year-old sailor from Brooklyn, New York, headed home on leave. For Louis Kessler, a Quartermaster 2nd Class stationed at Camp Bradford in Norfolk, Virginia, these weekends dispensed the kind of palpitating joy only separation brings. The Greatest Generation was still a bunch of kids when Kessler ran up the stoop of a narrow apartment building to kiss his wife like the movie stars kissed at the Ridgewood Theatre down the street. Nancy Kessler, one of seven children, was a year younger than her adoring husband, who was born into a somewhat smaller brood of five children. Meanwhile, plans to start a family of their own had already begun.

Postmark: Brooklyn, 11/22/44

“I guess it just isn’t in the cards yet. It’s just one of those things when you're too anxious things just don’t happen. Let’s forget it for a while, as soon as you come home for good we will concentrate on the subject. I guess you know I want a child as much as you, but I want you Louis with me to share in that happiness. I don’t want to be alone. If they should ever send you out + I should have a child I don’t know [what] I would do. I want you first darling more than anything else.” — Nancy Kessler

 Postmark: Norfolk, 11/26/44

“Why didn’t you tell me before that you wouldn’t want to have a child while I am still in the service. I know you want one as bad as I do, but I don’t blame you for wanting me near you. We will wait until I am out of the service, O.K. I don’t know what I was thinking about to have ever attempted it ... and I am really sorry that I didn’t consider your feelings.” — Louis Kessler

As a collection, the Kessler letters — likely more than 1,000 pieces in all — form a literary helix: one part history book, one part family journal. But ultimately, this story is about loss — the loss of a country's collective narrative, the loss of patina-aged letters filled with cursive swirls and hopeful dreams. More than 75 years after Louis Kessler ran up that stoop, maybe even two steps at a time, the hole in our national fabric keeps growing. In 2019, the most recent year that statistics are available, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs estimated that 294 American World War II veterans die every day. To put this number into context, 16 million Americans served during World War II. Based on the DVA’s data, fewer than 390,000 U.S. veterans were still alive in September 2019 — roughly 2.4 percent of all who served. This fraction of valor shrinks with each passing year.

The DVA projects America’s last World War II veteran will die in 2044, maybe sooner if the grip of COVID-19 continues to strike without mercy. “The virus has spread in more than 40 veterans’ homes in more than 20 states, leading to the deaths of at least 300 people,” Ellen Barry wrote in The New York Times on May 24, 2020. Although not all of those veterans served in World War II, many of them did. And, as they die, they take their stories with them — tales of crowded train stations with short platforms and long goodbyes, overnight card games fueled by Lucky Strikes and a few bucks pulled from birthday cards such as this one sent to Louis Kessler from his parents in October 1943.

While today's texts and emails are faster and more efficient than letters, they don't require the same commitment. Louis and Nancy Kessler wrote to each other nearly every day because it kept them close. Their words became the whispers and giggles of lovers. Their affirmations became the connective tissue of a marriage, the pages you could touch every night and save in a special drawer by your bed. Or your bunk.

But those days are long gone, suggests former CNN host Larry King, whose book, “Love Stories of World War II,” was published in 2001. “The idea of licking a postage stamp, putting it in the corner of an envelope and writing a letter to a loved one is history,” King said during a phone interview in April. “So you’re not only looking at love letters of World War II, you’re looking at the end of love letters.”

For Louis and Nancy Kessler, their letters built an emotional bridge that crossed calendars and censors for 2½ years. Words to count on. Words to live by. Such comfort also arrived in letters and cards from family, friends, even old Navy buddies.

Most of all, the Kesslers knew their love letters were precious, even when the news was just a rundown of the day, or worse, the acute longing from another lost holiday. Sometimes, their letters were wistful and seemingly lost. Other times, decades after they were written, their letters were simply waiting to be found — hundreds of them stacked in bundles tied with bakery-box string and faded ribbons.

On July 30, 2017, a morning especially well suited for people-watching and coffee-sipping, Louis and Nancy Kessler came to life on a folding table at the Elephant’s Trunk Flea Market in New Milford, Connecticut. A $20 bill bought two bundles and a mystery: Who were the Kesslers, and how did their World War II love letters end up among the vendors selling heirloom jewelry, campaign buttons, vintage comic books and other spectacular finds?

CHAPTER 2

CONNECTING THE LOTS

The restless love letters between Nancy and Louis Kessler are not simply a curious flea market find. The couple's letters also have surfaced in the Special Collections Research Center at the Earl Gregg Swem Library at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. Others have found their way into the inventory of eBay seller Kurt Kitasaki in Irvine, California. From higher education to the highest bidder, there is great interest in the correspondence and musings of the Kesslers.

Gary Barranger, a member of the William & Mary Libraries Board of Directors, donated about 75 letters written by the Kesslers to the Special Collections Research Center. Barranger has deep and longstanding ties to the college. He earned his undergraduate degree and his law degree from William & Mary. Today, he serves as president of his family's wholesale construction materials business in Richmond, Virginia.

Barranger bought his Kessler letters from Kitasaki a few years back so he could preserve them at William & Mary. On this particular February afternoon, just about an hour from campus, Barranger sat in a conference room down the hall from his office and lamented the loss of America's veterans and their stories. “Houses get cleaned out and nobody wants the letters,” Barranger said. “People always have strong attachments to a piece of jewelry or the desk where dad used to write out checks. But typically, nobody wants the papers or letters.” Except in this case, the Kessler letters aren't just wanted, they're sought for their candor and longitudinal value as a historical body of work.

Jacob Hopkins, an archives and collections specialist at William & Mary, works in the Special Collections Research Center. The repository includes prized letters from Thomas Jefferson, the professional and personal papers of U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger, and two collections of letters written by Nancy and Louis Kessler: the “Louis E. Kessler Letters” and the “Nancy Kessler Letters to Louis Kessler.” Hopkins contends there is a nuanced distinction among the papers of Jefferson, Burger and the Kesslers that should not be ignored.

“We value the everyday, the informal, the ephemeral, even the anonymous just as much as the more formal and famous,” Hopkins said. “So even alongside the big figures of history like ... Thomas Jefferson, we also value the everyday people. We recognize that all of these components make up history. You don’t need to be famous in order to be a part of history. You’re still worth valuing, preserving and sharing with others.”

William & Mary is about 45 miles northwest of Norfolk, where Camp Bradford once shared a Virginia coastline with four other U.S. naval bases. The installations were built in record time beginning in the summer of 1942, said Clay Farrington, former historian of the Hampton Roads Naval Museum in Norfolk.

“The area underwent several mission changes in fairly short order,” Farrington wrote in a February email. “But I think that Bradford at the time ... was very invested in training the crews of the LSTs (a class of ship that did not exist before the war) who would shortly find their way to the Pacific.”

Postmark: Norfolk, 3/1/44

“I'm all packed, and after I come back from breakfast, I guess we will get ready to go on the L.S.T. for the two weeks cruise. Yesterday afternoon we spent all of it at recognition, and a good thing it was, what with the heavy rain. When we came back from chow last night, we had an examination, physical, you know. When that was over, I went over to the ships store + got a couple packs of cigarettes, Luckies is the bargain.” — Louis Kessler

Kitasaki, the eBay dealer, has sold at least two bundles of Kessler letters using the handle of “mozartbach1971.” In October 2017, Kitasaki sold “an original lot of around 28 World War Two related letters that belonged to a Navy Sailor named Louis Kessler” for $39 after 16 bids. In July 2018, Kitasaki sold “an original lot of around 12 World War Two letters that belonged to a Navy Sailor named Louis Kessler” for $13 after six bids. Suddenly, two bundles of 171 cards and letters purchased for $20 at the Elephant’s Trunk Flea Market seemed like a glorious bargain.

Kitasaki is more of a flipper than a collector on eBay. He sells “old historic and military letters, and other paper collectibles,” according to his digital storefront, and has been an eBay seller for the last 14 years. During that time, Kitasaki has conducted more than 38,000 transactions. He deals exclusively in volume, which explains why he didn’t have much to add about the origin of the Kessler letters he sold in 2017 and 2018.

“I actually don’t believe I can give any further information about the letters as I don’t remember anything about them,” Kitasaki replied in a February email. “I believe I purchased them a long time ago, and I can’t remember the dealer they were bought from.”   

It really was that simple. Letters meant you weren’t forgotten and folks cared about you. There was no social media or texting during the war. There were just letters that began with “My darling” or “Hello sweetheart.” Some days, a sailor might get two or three letters — a real bonanza in 1944. Although about 15,000 men were stationed at Camp Bradford, Ellis said, letters were the great equalizer. Officers, enlisted men, wives and girlfriends back home, everyone wanted mail. 

Postmark: Brooklyn, 11/12/43

“I have been waiting for the mailman, but he has not come yet so I guess I’ll get your mail this afternoon. I didn’t get any mail yesterday either. I guess we both feel the same when we don’t receive any mail.” — Nancy Kessler

Not every letter contained pinpricks discovered by censors, of course. Sometimes, the letters revealed nicknames and other terms of endearment, sweet secrets shared between lovers but never at the expense of national security. Kessler often called his wife “Pot” in their letters. Why he referred to her that way is anyone’s guess. Kessler reserved other sentiments for a mail system that took four months to deliver a letter from his sister-in-law in San Francisco, Ann Piotrowski.

Postmark: Norfolk, 10/16/44

“Well, they seem to be trying to see how far they can go here with this mail business. Now you get mail between 12 + 2 and 5 + 8. I just came from the P.O. and stood in line for 50 minutes. At least I didn’t stay there in vain anyhow as I got your letter of the 12th with the enclosure. Thanks a lot, Pot, but I'd prefer to save my birthday drinks, and have them with you the next time we are together ... I also got cards from Mom + Dad, Imelda, and Helen. I also received a letter from Ann dated June 8 when she was on her vacation. It sure kicked around a lot, but it finally caught up with me.” — Louis Kessler

Just months earlier, Kessler was headed to Normandy as part of the D-Day invasion. Kessler was packed and ready to ship out, according to his daughter, NancyLou Mueller, who lives in Fort Myers, Florida. Records from the National Archives estimate that 6,000 U.S. troops were killed, wounded, captured or missing after the D-Day invasion — the largest land, sea and air attack in history. But Kessler never boarded his LST at Camp Bradford.

“My father managed to miss D-Day. He got appendicitis. He was recovering from that,” Mueller said. “They were moving their gear, and he was having a little bit of trouble carrying his stuff, and his commanding officer looked at him and noticed all the stitches were opening up from the surgery. So he insisted that my father go get it taken care of. That’s the only reason he didn’t end up at D-Day.”

Louis Kessler was released from the Navy on Dec. 4, 1945, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. His tour lasted 930 days, long enough to write hundreds of letters and read just as many. He was not alone. As a historical conglomerate, these first-person stories offer details, context and a manuscript for the Greatest Generation. Other World War II veterans have shared stories and photos to a ledger whose ink continues to fade from the inevitable effects of time and mortality.

CHAPTER 4

FOCUS ON VETERANS

Stacy Pearsall, a decorated combat photographer and a retired U.S. Air Force staff sergeant, started the Veterans Portrait Project in 2008 while recovering from combat injuries sustained in Iraq. Since that time, she has photographed more than 7,500 veterans, including hundreds of World War II veterans. Her images have hung in the National Portrait Gallery, the Pentagon, the National Veterans Memorial and Museum, and elsewhere.

“These stories are really important to record because often times we tend to group World War II veterans’ experiences into a blanket experience,” Pearsall said during a phone interview in May. “That's not the case at all.

“I’ve met some who had never stepped off the farm before they were drafted, and some from the inner-city who had never really spent time with a white person before they joined the military and served in a segregated unit. All of their stories are different.”

Pearsall shares these stories with intimate portraits that honor each veteran’s service. Some veterans are photographed in uniform. Others are photographed wearing World War II baseball caps with the names of their ships on the front. Still others are shown posing with photos from their youth.

“I’ve met people that I didn’t even know their jobs existed during World War II. With this constant discovery through individual stories, I’ve learned so much,” Pearsall said. “Elizabeth Barker Johnson was an African American woman who served on the front lines during World War II in the European Theater.

“I had no idea that women were serving on the front lines in any other role than medical. I had no idea that there was an all-woman unit that delivered mail to the front-line soldiers. And I had no idea they were all African American women. They were called the Six Triple Eight.”

The 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion was the only all-Black, all-female battalion during World War II, according to the U.S. Army Center of Military History. The battalion's motto was a call to duty: “No mail, low morale.” In May 2019, Lincoln Penny Films in Virginia released a documentary about these extraordinary women titled, “The Six Triple Eight.” The trailer is below.

Letters were the lifeblood for the 16 million Americans serving their country. Mail infused hope and humanity into a time when such values felt very far away indeed. It's why Louis and Nancy Kessler wrote to each other nearly every day. Maybe Louis couldn’t hold Nancy’s hand in Norfolk, but he sure could hold her letters from home.

CHAPTER 5

BACK IN BROOKLYN...OR WAS IT QUEENS?

Although Nancy Kessler's mailing address during the war was 1919 Madison St., Brooklyn, 27, New York, the couple actually lived in Ridgewood, Queens. So what gives? As it turns out, before five-digit zip codes were pitched to America in 1963, there were two-digit zone codes, according to Jenny Lynch, historian and corporate information services manager for the United States Postal Service in Washington, D.C.

“In the 1940s, Ridgewood was a station of the Brooklyn Post Office; it was assigned zone number 27 in May 1943, when zone codes were first introduced,” Lynch wrote in a July email. “A 1957 postal zone directory in our library confirms that 1919 Madison Street was in zone 27 (i.e. it was within the delivery area of the Ridgewood Station). The use of zone codes was encouraged, but not required.”

While her husband lived in a Quonset hut at Camp Bradford, Nancy Kessler worked as a bookkeeper and a secretary in Queens. She passed the time with friends and family, often having dinner with her in-laws. She enjoyed going to the movies at the Ridgewood Theatre, rolling a few games at the local bowling alley, catching the occasional Broadway show and shopping along Myrtle Avenue. Nancy usually went to these places with a few girlfriends. Some of them still had boyfriends or husbands at home. Others, just like her, waited patiently — and sometimes, impatiently — for their sailors and soldiers to return. On Sundays, she found comfort going to Mass and reconnecting with her faith.

The screen at the Ridgewood and the movie nights at Camp Bradford gave Nancy and Louis Kessler an instant conversation starter, a bond to write about in their letters. Maybe it wasn’t dipping their hands in the same popcorn bucket and sharing a soda, but it was something. Sometimes, it was everything. It wasn’t only milk, cheese and meat that were rationed during World War II. Moments and memories were rationed, too.

Postmark: Brooklyn, 11/27/44

“Yesterday was a beautiful day. I got up, had breakfast, read the papers + went to the 12:15 Mass. I took a ride out to Alice’s, but she wasn’t home yet. She was working. I waited for her and we went to the Ridgewood to see ‘Dragon Seed.’ It was a wonderful picture. Now I know why you felt the way that you did after you saw that picture. I don’t think it’s just propaganda. I believe most of it is the truth.” — Nancy Kessler

Meanwhile, the songs floating across the AM dial were just as popular in New York City as they were in Norfolk and the rest of the country. They were poignant and romantic ballads, the stuff of sweet dreams and violin strings. Instead of working overtime one Saturday, Nancy decided to catch up on her errands, do a little shopping and write her sweetheart a letter. Jo Stafford, a singer and actress who found fame in front of a microphone with Tommy Dorsey’s big band, had just released a new song, “How Sweet You Are.” Clearly, it’s on Nancy’s mind — and she hopes it’s on Lou’s mind, too.

Postmark: Brooklyn, 11/13/43

“That song, ‘How Sweet You Are’ is very pretty. Do you think of me when you hear it? Darling there are so many songs that go with you, + even if I never heard any songs my thoughts would always be with you.” — Nancy Kessler

Stafford died in 2008 at the age of 90. Her legacy and allure were captured this way by the Los Angeles Times in her obituary: “Ms. Stafford's solo career began with an inextricable link to the war. A favorite of American soldiers, she was told by a veteran of the Pacific that ‘the Japanese used to play your records on loudspeakers across from our foxholes so that we'd get homesick and surrender.’”

Another story, another voice of the war, was lost. But not before “How Sweet You Are” became the soundtrack of a lifetime for the Kesslers.

CHAPTER 6

BUILDING A FAMILY TOGETHER

After Louis Kessler returned home to the apartment in Ridgewood, Queens, he and Nancy spent the next six years saving for a house. Along the way, they started that family they had written about in their earlier love letters. The couple named their first child, NancyLou, after joining their first names in 1949. A second child, Louis William, was born in 1954.

In between the births of their children, Nancy and Louis put a down payment on a house in Merrick on the South Shore of Long Island in 1951, according to their daughter, NancyLou. But one day during construction, the Kesslers visited the house and discovered that it had big problems. The basement had flooded after a rainstorm, and a wall that was supposed to be moved to make the kitchen larger was actually moved the wrong way and made the kitchen smaller. It was just as well. The couple got their money back and found their dream home five miles north in East Meadow at 479 Glenwood Lane. Not a day went by that Louis Kessler didn’t picture buying a house with Nancy and spending his life with her. He recounted their courtship in a letter from Camp Bradford.

Postmark: Norfolk, 10/17/44

“As to what made me fall in love with you, I know that when I used to see you pass outside, it seemed as though you ignored just about everyone. I used to get there early to be sure to see you go by and say, ‘Good morning, Smiley.’ It was a combination of your beauty and smile, I guess that sent an arrow to my heart. I found my opinion right there and have never regretted it since. I often thought to myself, those first days in November, ‘What have I to offer her,’ that was my mind. But my heart won out and I am glad of that. I thought, for awhile, that you were going out with me just so that you wouldn’t hurt my feelings by refusing, but that was only for a few days. I was so happy and I guess a little delirious when you first told me you loved me, and I’ll always be that way.” — Louis Kessler

NancyLou was 2 years old when her family moved from Queens to Long Island. Her brother, Louis William Kessler, was born three years later. He was the third generation to have “Louis” typed on a birth certificate. To avoid any confusion with his father, the family affectionately called him, “Skip.” As NancyLou grew up, she found parents who were loving, attentive and kind. Her father was the neighborhood dad who organized all the games on the block. Her mother was the unrivaled cook who made every holiday memorable and delicious. Together, they complemented each other perfectly and inseparably.

“My father got a job with the railroad when we came out to East Meadow and he had that for quite a while. He used to play with the kids every day,” Mueller said. “He had all these great games, and we all used to play ‘Red Light, Green Light’ and ‘Giant Steps’ and ‘Potsy’ and ‘Colors.’ He was always around in the afternoon, which was really nice.”

On Saturdays, the family did chores around the house and the yard. Afterward, it was date night for her parents, NancyLou recalled. Louis and Nancy Kessler still dressed up for a night on the town, just like they did before the war. Dinner and a movie, cocktails, maybe a holiday party — Nancy always wore her blue-green eyeshadow and pink lipstick. The colors favored her.

On Sundays, the family visited relatives in New York City, or the relatives came out to Long Island. There was never a shortage of cousins to greet and cheeks to kiss. As the Kessler children grew up, NancyLou became a principal dancer with the Tietjen Ballet Company and graduated from Hunter College in New York City. After working as a computer programmer, she married Richard Mueller, moved to Long Island and had two children, Richard and Louanne. Skip lived at home and worked at Grumman, the aerospace contractor that employed thousands of people on Long Island. Suddenly, the sailor and his bride were growing old together, just like they had always planned.

In 1991, the Kesslers celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary at nearby Westbury Manor. It was a wonderful party with family and friends. Nancy wore a yellow corsage. Lou, of course, wore a matching yellow boutonniere. They laughed and kissed and laughed some more. Lou even got down on one knee to playfully reenact his proposal, NancyLou said. A year later, after all the heartfelt toasts and well wishes, Nancy was diagnosed with late-stage pancreatic cancer and the world stopped.

“One of the hardest things after my mother passed away [in January 1993] was something would happen, and right away, I’d be going to pick up the phone to dial my mother just to let her know what happened — and she wasn’t there anymore,” NancyLou said. “I’d have to stop myself, but it was such a normal reaction. Any time something interesting happened, or something you really wanted to let her know about, I couldn’t do it anymore.”

When NancyLou arrived at the funeral parlor after her mother died, she immediately noticed that Nancy's makeup was all wrong.

“You know how they try to make people look pretty normal? My mother used to wear blue-green eyeshadow every day. She didn't look right when I saw her,” NancyLou said. “I had my husband go back to the house to get the blue-green eyeshadow.

“Then I put her eyeshadow on like she would've done it and redid her eye makeup. That was important to me. It had to look like her. I had them change the nail polish and lipstick, too, because they had it as an orange color, and she always wore pink lipstick.”

But life was about to get harder for the Kessler family. Exponentially harder. In December, just 11 months after Nancy died, Skip committed suicide in the East Meadow house. He shot himself in the back bedroom and was found by his sister and a neighbor. Skip had grown withdrawn after the death of his mother and the more recent death of an aunt. The day he died, Skip told NancyLou that he was going to kill himself. She urged him not to do anything rash, but he hung up the phone and never picked up again. NancyLou rushed to the house with her children in tow: Richard was 14 and Louanne was 7. While NancyLou went inside the house with a neighbor, the kids waited in the car. It remains one of the worst days of her life.

Louis Kessler was never the same after the deaths of his wife and son in 1993, NancyLou said. The house that had been filled with laughter and cousins and stovetop magic was painfully empty now. A few years later, the cancer came for Louis Kessler, too, and it spread swiftly with cruel precision.

“When my father was really sick, he had cancer all through his body, including his brain. And he was acting a little odd every now and then. Quirky things,” NancyLou said. “At one point, my kids came to me and said they didn’t want to spend a lot of time with grandpa anymore because he’s making them nervous because he’s acting weird.

“And I said, ‘Look, you know your grandfather is sick. This is not who your grandfather is. Your grandfather is the guy you knew all those years raising you and spending time with you. And I hope you’ll realize that.’ And they went away for a couple of days and thought about it. And then, they came back and said, ‘You’re right. We thought about it. We have all these memories.’”

Richard Mueller, now 41, seemed to smile through the phone during a June interview. He recalled a grandfather who taught him how to ride a bike and how to tap out messages in Morse Code.

“I still remember the first time I rode a bike by myself with him. He'd always hold the back of the seat and run with you,” Mueller said. “You'd always know he was there, and I liked that. But then one time, I'm riding and riding, and I looked back and he's two houses behind me waving.”

The Muellers lived in Westbury, the next town over from East Meadow. They were close enough for dinner on the weekends and a trip to Mister Donut for a box of heaven with extra sprinkles.

“I remember going to their house for dinner. My grandmother was a great cook,” Mueller said. “And when we went home, we always had to call and let the phone ring twice to let them know we got home OK. If we forgot, they would call you wondering what happened?”

After Louis Kessler died in January 2001, a family's oral history of World War II was buried with him at the Cemetery of the Holy Rood in Westbury. But what about all those stacks of love letters, all those World War II sonnets postmarked from the past? What happened to them?

NancyLou remembers her parents talking about their letters, but she never read them or touched them. She never saw the carefully preserved bundles wrapped in bakery-box string and faded ribbons, even when she cleaned out the house after her father's death.

“We did it all ourselves. It was a huge job,” Mueller said. “Every week we had a special pickup, and we would fill the entire [driveway] from the front of the house to the other end where our cars would normally be. And we did that week after week after week, but we never saw any letters.

“The neighbors were all saying they were going to start cleaning out their houses because it was such a big job,” Mueller said. “I mean, my father had tools in the garage. He had things in the basement, which had been set up with closets and everything. He was a pack rat. There was just so much stuff.”

Today, Pete and Kristin Stea live in the East Meadow house with their three daughters. The couple built an addition some years back, but several features remain the same. The family still uses the laundry chute that Lou Kessler built on the main floor. And Pete Stea still uses Lou's workbench in the garage where the Kessler children's names are etched in concrete.

Although Stea once found a small velvet bag of Skip's belongings on a ledge inside the laundry chute — the bag was later returned to NancyLou — he never found any letters in the house, either.

So maybe the letters never made it to Long Island. Maybe they were left behind when Louis and Nancy Kessler moved to the suburbs. These days, a New York City park, Rosemary's Playground, sits on the lot where the Kesslers once lived at 1919 Madison St. in Ridgewood, Queens.

This much is clear: Someone found the letters and saved them from the trash can and the burn pile as Gary Barranger, the William & Mary benefactor, might suggest.

And then someone sold the letters. And someone else sold them after that.

Until one day, on a July morning in Connecticut especially well suited for people-watching and coffee-sipping, Louis and Nancy Kessler shared their love letters all over again.