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Nearly a Century Old Message in Bottle Retrieved by Diver in Michigan, Reaches Its Right Destination

In 2021, a diver while clearing windows of a boat, finds a glass bottle containing a century-old message from a World War II veteran.
PUBLISHED 1 DAY AGO
A man picking up a message in a bottle lying on the beach. (Representative Cover Image Source: Getty Images | Photo by Burazin)
A man picking up a message in a bottle lying on the beach. (Representative Cover Image Source: Getty Images | Photo by Burazin)

Some messages can't stay buried, no matter how much time passes by. It is what happened back in June 2021, when, after around 95 years, a message locked in a bottle surfaced in front of everyone, according to My Modern Met. Jennifer Dowker, a boat captain and scuba diving instructor, who runs Nautical North Family Adventures in Michigan, discovered the message in a bottle. As soon as she opened it, she knew that the note was written around a century ago. Dowker was surprised and immediately decided to fulfill the writer's wish. She followed the instructions mentioned in the note, which took her to surprising conclusions. 

Selective Focus Photo Of Bottle Floating On Body Of Water (Representative Image Source: Pexels | Photo by Maria Tyutina)
Selective Focus Photo Of Bottle Floating On Body Of Water (Representative Image Source: Pexels | Photo by Maria Tyutina)

Discovery of the Bottle

Dowker saw the bottle while cleaning the windows of her glass-bottom boat on the Cheboygan River. She glanced at the small green bottle placed on the nearby seabed and couldn't resist the urge to open it. The boat captain has a penchant for collecting bottles, which further attracted her towards the object, according to CNN. "At first I thought it was just a cool bottle, and then when I picked it up, when I was still under the water, I could read the word 'this' in the paper," she said. "It was kind of like 'Holy Smokes! We've got a message in a bottle here. Cool!'" After finishing her work, Dowker showed the bottle to her first mate and a diving client. They noted that the bottle was filled 2/3rd with water, and still contained part of a cork. However, its seal had been destroyed over the years.

Reading the Message

Dowker took a tool and pulled the note out of the bottle, and was stunned after seeing its contents. It was dated November 1926. It meant that it was a message from a faraway past that had landed in the hands of Dowker by a twist of fate. The message in the note was simple: "Will the person who finds this bottle return this paper to George Morrow, Cheboygan, Michigan, and tell where it was found?" Her first mate, who also worked in a museum, suggested she keep the letter in a freezer, so that it would dry out. After the letter was in an optimal condition, she clicked pictures and uploaded them to her company's Facebook Page. The next day, her post went viral.


 
 
 
 
 
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A post shared by Nautical North Family Adventures (@nauticalnorth.familyadventures)


 

Dowker was overwhelmed with all the attention and did not understand how she would be able to fulfill the writer's wish. "What was going through my mind was, where am I even going to find the time to do the research to find the person," Dowker said. "I'm a single mom running a small business with three teenage boys." Luckily, she did not need to worry for long, as in the same month, on Father's Day, she received a call from Michele Primeau, George Morrow's daughter. 

Who Wrote the Message?

Primeau was not on Facebook, and was actually reached out to by someone else who knew her father's name and about the letter. She immediately recognized her father's writing and deduced that he wrote it. She did not quite understand why Morrow would do that, but she was not surprised by his behavior. In the past, he had also left messages for her in bottles and on walls. "I can just see him going out and doing that because it was his birthday," Primeau said. "I don't know for sure. But it just sounds like something he would have done." Morrow had taken his last breath in 1995.

Message Bottle on Sand (Representative Image Source: Pexels | Photo by Snapwire)
Message Bottle on Sand (Representative Image Source: Pexels | Photo by Snapwire)

Primeau and Dowker met on the boat in September 2021. Primeau showed the diving instructor her father's old journals, filled with his memories as a soldier in World War II. Primeau requested that Dowker keep the message and display it for tourists. "Michele told us she would love if we displayed her father's note and bottle for all our passengers to see," revealed Dowker. "So this is exactly what we plan to do. The name 'George Morrow' will live on in the shop of Yankee Sunshine."

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