HAHIRA – Karen Conboy Matz is expected to finally speak this month with a group of South Georgia residents about her pen-pal relationship with a soldier from Lowndes County who died in Vietnam.

Matz was a teenager living in California in the 1960s when she exchanged letters with Cpl. John E. McDonald, a soldier fighting in Vietnam. From late 1968 until his death on April 15, 1969, she estimates she received 16-17 letters from the soldier who grew up in Hahira.

Matz is scheduled to visit via Facebook Live with members of McDonald’s family and the public at 6 p.m. Monday, May 13, during the Hahira Historical Society meeting at 116 E. Lawson St., said Tim Coombs, Historical Society president.

Coombs has been trying to connect the society with Matz for several years. Matz, who lives in Reno, Nev., told The Valdosta Daily Times this week she is excited about the scheduled Facebook Live session. She had been scheduled to visit Hahira during Memorial Day weekend 2019 but she suffered appendicitis while traveling to the airport for the journey. The COVID-19 pandemic led to the cancellation of a second planned visit.

“It brings me joy to know it’s happening,” Matz said, “but I know it will be hard even all of these years later.”

WRITING LETTERS

A sophomore at Manteca High School, 16-year-old Karen Conboy and her class were assigned in October 1968 to write Operation Christmas letters to military personnel serving in Vietnam.

She said her fellow classmates weren’t thrilled by the prospect of becoming pen pals with soldiers.

“But I had a brother two years older than me who we knew would be drafted and sent to Vietnam, so I put a lot of thought into my letter,” she said in a past interview. “… I never expected to hear anything from it but he wrote back to me.”

So she wrote him again and he wrote her again. A pattern of regular correspondence formed.

Both children of large families, she wrote of how her older brother picked on her. He wrote back saying that’s what older brothers do. Matz said she recalled feeling like McDonald shared wisdom with her.

They grew close through the letters. She sent him pictures and he sent her a photo of himself kneeling in front of a water buffalo in Vietnam.

He promised to come meet her when he returned home to the States.

She was 16. He was 22. She initially led her parents to believe McDonald was only about 18 but soon admitted the truth. The age difference concerned her parents but they felt there was no harm in sharing letters with a man serving his country overseas.

“Mom said he could come meet me but that was it,” Matz said in 2016. “He could meet me but she would be with me the whole time.”

He was her first crush but the soldier and the teen would never meet.

FINDING THE PAST

John E. McDonald was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Leonard McDonald. He attended Hahira High School. He was one of six children. He loved cars and going to the races, according to family. He reportedly worked in an air-conditioning plant before being drafted into the Army.

He was a member of the 101st Airborne Division. He served as a machine-gunner in South Vietnam. He had been in the Army 11 months and in Nam for about five months when the 22-year-old was killed in action April 15, 1969.

Interest in Karen Conboy and the missing letters began during research to name a road in honor of McDonald in the fall of 2015. The City of Hahira and the Lowndes County Commission renamed one mile of Shiloh Road as the Cpl. John E. McDonald Memorial Highway.

While researching information for the road naming, Coombs discovered the story of McDonald’s wartime pen pal, a 16-year-old girl named Karen Conboy. Her story was published in the Manteca, Calif., newspaper then republished May 22, 1969, in the Hahira Gold Leaf newspaper.

The Valdosta Daily Times published a story about Coombs searching for Conboy in April 2016.

Coombs found old newspapers from Manteka with a photo of the teen Karen Conboy. Using the photo as reference, he searched the Internet and found a woman of about the right age who resembled the teenager. The older woman was Karen Matz, who worked in a Reno, Nev., clinic.

Coombs called the clinic but was told Matz was on leave. Coombs shared his story and why he called. Clinic personnel took his name and number and promised to try reaching Matz.

In relaying Coombs’ message, as soon as the friend at the clinic said the name John E. McDonald, Matz said, “You can give him my number.”

Matz told The Times she was shocked to hear McDonald’s name after so many years and even more surprised that someone was looking for her in connection with him.

SAYING GOODBYE

In April 1969, Karen was away on a high school 4-H field trip. The destination was about 45-50 miles from her home. She and classmates rode on a school bus and were to return by the same bus.

To her surprise, she saw her father pulling into the 4-H event in his Dodge Dart. She thought she might be in trouble. She thought something may have happened to her mom or one of her siblings.

“He said, you have to come home with me now,” Matz said in a past interview. “You have received a telegram. Mom and I opened it and think you should come home to see it.”

He said nothing else.

At home, the telegram informed her that John McDonald had been killed. McDonald’s mother had sent the telegram from Hahira.

“I’ll never forget that day,” Matz said. “I could not stop crying. I didn’t go to school for a couple days. I was so devastated.”

NEXT STEPS

Matz said she always regretted not coming to Hahira for McDonald’s funeral but she was 16 and lived on the other side of the country.

For years, her parents and the McDonalds regularly exchanged Christmas cards. Matz called the McDonalds for several years. She estimated regularly calling until the late 1970s or early 1980s until time passed and the calls stopped.

“I felt like I knew the family after Johnny passed,” she said. “It was comforting for me and I think it was comforting for Johnny’s mom.”

She said she has never forgotten the young man she calls Johnny McDonald.

Karen married and they had a son. Her husband died.

She moved to Reno to be closer to her son while he attended school. He’s a doctor in the San Francisco area. Matz stayed in Reno where she has many friends.

Recently, when Hahira was selling nameplates on benches, Matz purchased one to memorialize McDonald. Something from Karen to Johnny.

“So everyone would know how special he was to me,” she said this week. “… Even though we never met, he will always hold a special place in my heart. How special is that? To have had that and to be taken in by a whole community. How lucky am I?”