In 1978, 13-year-old Jill Evans received the news from her math teacher, Mrs. Takaya, that she would be pen pals with 12-year-old Magda Paschaliori from Greece. Evans was in the seventh grade when she signed up for the “International Club” at school, which paired her with Paschaliori. After 46 years of communication, Evans and Paschaliori would eventually meet, spending two days together in Paschaliori’s native Greece.
While growing up, Evans attended Alexander Flemming Middle School in Lomita, Calif., while Paschaliori attended school in a small town outside Athens, Greece. It took two weeks for letters to arrive, but when they did, Evans was ecstatic.
“As a kid, you are excited to get mail. As an adult, I am not always excited because it’s usually bills,” Evans said. The two would discuss holidays, family, and what their respective countries were like. According to Evans, one reason the two kept in touch was because they felt no reason not to. “It was just a natural progression,” said Evans, “It’s not like one of us would just stop responding and give up. It just kept going.”
In the advent of the digital age, they began communicating over Myspace and email, ultimately finding each other over Facebook Messenger in the 2000s. Talking over digital mediums made it easier for the two to keep up with each other’s lives; they did not have to wait weeks to hear a response from the other; now, it was instant.
The two would witness each other’s milestones. Bearing testimony to the other’s moves, children and marriages. Evans would even mail her a Christmas card yearly.
Eventually, Evans’ daughter Jessica suggested they go on a trip to Italy for Evans’ 60th birthday in February, but the two realized that they could go to Greece to see Paschaliori while in Europe in the Fall instead. According to Evans, she and Paschaliori were trying to coordinate a time, and the Fall made the most sense from both a scheduling and financial standpoint.
After 26 hours of travel and three connecting flights, Paschaliori greeted Evans and her daughter at a metro station in Athens, Greece, at 11:30 p.m. Evans could only describe it as surreal. “There’s this person I have seen pictures of and have known all these years, but here she is in person,” said Evans.
Greece’s sunny, humid mid-80s temperature provided the perfect backdrop for lifelong friends to enjoy two days together. They visited the Acropolis, went shopping at Monastiraki Squares, and spent the second day together at the Poalaio Falira, a municipality with a pier overlooking the Aegean Sea.
“Am I dreaming?” Evans asked herself, “Is this real?”
While at Paschaliori’s house, Evans and her daughter saw that Paschaliori’s fridge was covered with the Christmas cards she sent every year. “I thought she had put them up because I was coming. That wasn’t the case; I could tell they were aging at different rates,” Evans said.
According to Evans, the whole trip was amazing, but being there for only two days, it was challenging to let everything fully sink in. “I was still using those two days to say ‘hi,’ I didn’t have the time to process saying ‘goodbye,’” Evans said.
When Evans returned to the United States, she would find her junior high math teacher, Mrs.Takaya, now retired in her 80s. Evans shared her story and photos of the trip, much to the amusement of Takaya.
Evans and Paschaliori would like to see each other again, but because of health issues preventing Paschaliori from flying more than 30 minutes, she would have to visit her in Greece again. Not that Evans has any problem with it, particularly because of the quality of the food and how good a host Paschaliori was.
“The tomatoes were so good, we can’t eat them here anymore,” Evans said.
