Sister Gets 53-Year-Old Message in a Bottle From Sibling

When nine-year-old Laurie and her teenage sister Allison tossed a bottle into the Atlantic Ocean in 1973, they had no idea it would return home 53 years later with a message that would bring both tears and laughter.

Their mother had sent them to Ocean City, New Jersey that August day with a mission: write a message, bottle it, and send it to sea. Laurie dreamed up an elaborate story about being kidnapped by ruthless sponge fishermen and forced to dive in shark-infested waters. Allison, 16 at the time, did the actual writing since her younger sister wasn't a strong speller yet.

The girls included their full home address in Bernardsville, New Jersey, signed the note, and watched it disappear into the waves on August 20, 1973.

Fast forward to June 2024. John Kauterman was doing his regular cleanup work in the Cape May County wetlands through his nonprofit, The Tidelands Initiative. He pulls bottles from South Jersey marshes all the time, but this one caught his eye immediately.

Through the old glass, he could read the first line about the 1973 date. "I was like, oh my gosh, yeah, we got a good one here," Kauterman told CBC.

He posted photos to a local Ocean City Facebook page, thinking it was a charming kid's prank. Within 12 hours, internet sleuths had tracked down Allison Spencer, now living in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

The news came with bittersweet timing. Laurie had died of cancer in 2017 at age 52. The bottle had returned nine years too late for the creative girl who'd imagined the whole adventure.

Sunny's Take: Allison recognized her own teenage handwriting instantly, carrying her quirky little sister's wild imagination across five decades. "She was really confident at the time we wrote it that it was going to be found," Allison said, "so I think she would say, 'I told you so.'"

The story held one more perfect detail. Kauterman shares a birthday with Laurie, the girl whose message he rescued from the marsh all those years later.

Allison is placing the note in a shadow box, a tangible piece of a summer day with her sister and proof that sometimes the ocean keeps its promises, even if it takes half a century.