To go with 2026 zeitgeist, OpenAI should buy the letters, scan them, feed them into their training data and drop them into a shredder.

A similar Dutch find was made into a podcast series (also in Dutch): ‘Liefste Lies’. An amazing story!

‘Liefste Lies, een podcast over verlangen.

In Sittard is een koffer gevonden met honderden liefdesbrieven uit de jaren 40 en 50 aan één vrouw: Lies. Tientallen mannen, onder wie Toon Hermans, en een enkele vrouw schrijven haar hartstochtelijke liefdesverklaringen, smeekbedes om een foto en huwelijksaanzoeken. Allemaal, en veelal tegelijkertijd, denken ze dat Lies de ware is, tot ze hen onherroepelijk in de steek laat. Wie is deze mysterieuze vrouw? Voor wie zal ze kiezen? Hoeveel vrijheid heeft ze en hoe is dat nú eigenlijk in de liefde?’

As usual, the automated HN title mangler strikes again.

This is the premise for the Taiwanese movie Cape Number 7: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_No._7

Not the same story, but very related is this Heavyweight's episode from its last season: https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/heavyweight/66-deborah

My mother was a summer camp counselor in the late 1960s, and my father wrote her a whimsical love letter while she was working there. The incident became an important turning point in their courtship, and when they married, they preserved the letter as an artifact of their early relationship.

I should get Dad to scan it in. All I remember is that it was full of corny humor (except Dad has always been the serious, straight man) and he pseudonymously signed it “Garibaldi Fisch” and then Mom was left to puzzle out who the real sender and suitor could be.