Estimated read time: 5-6 minutes
SPRINGVILLE — As 100-year-old Dorothy Barron Switzer opened the letter, the message inside was "totally unexpected" as she read that someone had found a note from her late brother hidden in the wall of their childhood home.
Steven Park explained that he found a handwritten note by her brother Robert Barron from 1932 while renovating the building at 308 N. Main in Springville. Switzer said she immediately knew she had to go visit her old home one last time.
"Robert Maughan Barron, moved in house when 9 months old in fall of 1922. Placed note here Sept. 6, 1932," the note reads.
Park used FamilySearch to find Switzer, Barron's only living relative, to give her the note that he found while knocking out a bathroom wall. As a social studies teacher, Park felt like he had uncovered a piece of history.
"It just reminded me of when I was a kid and my dad would build things, and like I remember marking on two-by-fours," Park said. "It's like what I would have wanted as a kid was for someone to actually find the note. That's why you write the note is so someone can find it."
After getting in contact, Switzer agreed to travel from St. George and meet Park on Thursday to visit her old house and receive the note.
"As soon as we walked in the house, came through the back porch and into the kitchen, the first thing I spotted was a corner round shelf that my dad had put up, heaven knows how long ago, where we kept the telephone," she said. "It's still there! I was just totally delighted to see that. Everything else has been spruced up and altered a little and changed, but that little telephone shelf is still in the corner."
Switzer said it was "amazing" to walk around the house that she hadn't been in for more than 80 years and relive some of her childhood memories.
She was so grateful to see the note from her older brother, whom she always called Bob, that he wrote when he was just 11 years old. She said she misses her brother every day and it was so fun to hear from him and have a new way to remember him.
"This little kid that played with me, sharing a fun idea that he had to write a note and put it in the wall," she said.
Barron died in 1945 in the mountains of northern Italy while fighting during World War II. He was only 23 years old and was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star Medal.
"One thing about Bob, he let me tag along with him to go do something fun. It was all right with him if I came along. I went hiking with him and his friends and that was OK. He was my friend," she said.
Part of the house has been changed into a bicycle shop and Park is now renovating the other side to be a coffee shop. Switzer said a lot of the house has changed so it's not the way she remembers it, but that's OK with her as Park is "a very nice guy and he is doing a good job."
"We had so many good times in that house. A lot of it was just doing the day-to-day work that needed to be done. We had a big garden and we did a lot of canning. Dad worked away from home, and so it was up to Bob and me, to some extent, to maintain that garden and mow the lawn and keep things watered and going. Lots of lots of fond memories," Switzer said.
She described finding the notes all these years later as "crazy" and said the whole thing was such a "wonderful experience" and "totally unexpected."
Switzer's youngest daughter Becky McDonald and granddaughter Melissa Johnson accompanied her Thursday.
"This has been a real roller coaster of an experience — not sure at first, if this was a scam, but it wasn't," McDonald said. "I have driven by that house for years and years and always wanted to go in. Today I got to go in and see this place that my mom has always talked about."
Although McDonald never got to meet her uncle, she said she has always felt close to him.
"That was pretty cool to actually hold that note that my uncle wrote that I've always felt so close to, and I've had spiritual experiences in my life with him, even though I'd never met him," McDonald said.
"I just am so grateful to Mr. Park for making this happen. What a cool thing for him to do! And I'm grateful that my mom is still here to experience this," she added.
"It's just rare that at the age of 100, you get invited to your childhood home to be able to go inside. It was just so heartwarming and exciting to be able to bring her up and let her experience this," Johnson said.
After visiting the home, the family members stopped by the Springville Museum of Art, the building where Switzer attended and graduated high school.
Johnson said the museum staff were shocked and excited to meet Switzer as she is the oldest person they've met who had graduated from there before it was converted into a museum. She said the museum plans to interview Switzer about her experience and about her parents who taught at the school.
"It's just been a very fulfilling day of memory lane," Johnson said.
Contributing: Eliza Pace
