kindness
A message in a bottle found two sisters, 53 years later
Two girls threw it in the sea. Only one lived to be found right.
A message in a bottle written by two New Jersey sisters in August 1973 turned up in a South Jersey marsh this June, 53 years after they threw it into the ocean at Ocean City. John Kauterman found the old glass while clearing trash from Cape May County wetlands with his nonprofit, The Tidelands Initiative. He peeked inside and read the first line. The note, dreamed up by nine-year-old Laurie and written out by her sixteen-year-old sister Allison, claimed a band of ruthless sponge fishermen had captured them and forced them to dive in shark-infested waters. Kauterman posted it to a local Facebook page. People noted there aren't many sponge divers in the northeastern United States. Within twelve hours, they had found Allison Spencer in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Laurie died of cancer in 2017. Allison recognized her own teenage handwriting at once. She thinks Laurie would have been unbearable about it. Kauterman and Laurie, it turned out, share a birthday.
