Metro

Long-lost WWII love letter discovered in Greenwich Village finds rightful family at last

Scott Matthews

Scott Matthews

TOUCHING: This 70-year-old letter, only recently delivered, was sent by New Yorker Scott Matthews’ (left) dad, Joe, to Scott’s mom, Barlow (right, on their wedding day). (
)

A long-lost love letter finally found its home.

A woman who discovered a mysterious World War II letter in her Greenwich Village mailbox managed to track down the author’s only son — right here in the Big Apple.

The faded note, penned in 1944 by a soldier to his wife, was delivered to aspiring actress Abbi Jacobson, 27, in February, inspiring her to find the couple.

Instead, she found their only son — Scott Matthews, a 67-year-old Manhattan architect, who will now get a rare peek into his late-parents’ relationship.

“It’s very interesting. I don’t know much about my dad’s life before I was born — I wonder what he was feeling about shipping out [for war],” Matthews said.

“He was a stiff-upper-lip type of guy, not very demonstrative. So I really have no idea what might be in that letter,” he said.

Matthews said he also wants to know where the note has been for the past 40 years.

“You wonder what happened to it and what did the Postal Service did with it,” he said.

He plans to meet up with Jacobson in the city to get the letter.

Jacobson found Matthews on Twitter with the help of online sleuths after launching her mission via The Lost Letter Project.

The letter was sent from Lt. Joseph O. Matthews — from Camp Lejeune in North Carolina in November 1944 — to his wife, Barlow.

In it, the soldier writes romantic lines, signing off “God is with you. I love you.”

Matthews said his dad was badly injured by machine-gun fire while fighting in Okinawa, not long after writing the letter.

His mom, who died recently, was working in the city at the time, he said. He was born two years after the note was written.

Matthews said his dad was a Marine who attended Yale then became a CIA officer. He also had two daughters, Marna and Maeve Matthews.

He was a private man who was warm with friends and died of cancer in 1999, Matthews said. He was buried in Virginia.

His mom attended Vassar College and loved gardening. The couple divorced 35 years before his death.

His letter was delivered to Jacobson’s mailbox, inside a new envelope, postmarked from Seattle.

Jacobson couldn’t be reached for comment by press time.

But she tweeted that she plans to hand over the letter soon.

“Scott!!” she wrote. “This is amazing that we found you!”

She had found the letter in a stack of mail that was waiting for her after a two-week trip.

She said she wanted to keep the contents of the letter private.