Donna Reed used to get letters from WWII soldiers, reveals daughter Mary Owen

Mary Owen, the daughter of Hollywood star Donna Reed, said in a recent interview that her mother had kept several letters from World War II servicemen for decades, according to Fox News.

Mary shared that she found over 350 letters from World War II soldiers in a trunk stored in the garage of her Beverly Hills, California, home in 2003 which is 17 years after the death of her mother. She shared that the trunk with the letters had been stored in their home for more than 40 years.

Mary said, "I didn’t know anything about these letters. So she started getting these letters right around 1940, 1941, but really closer to the end of the war during the last two to three years. And she responded to them."

She further added, "I still have my mother’s ration cards. She went on bond drives. Whenever she visited her parents in Iowa, she sold bonds. She danced with the guys at the Hollywood Canteen and so on. Several of her movies … were shown at base camps."

Donna Reed was best known for her role of a loving wife Mary Hatch Bailey in the film It’s a Wonderful Life.