Night after night during World War II, Ruth Buchanan would leave her workplace at the University of Michigan and return home to her second job.

By the thousands and with clockwork precision, Buchanan wrote to U-M students, faculty, staff and alumni serving in the war. She mailed letters, greeting cards, and copies of The Michigan Daily. Whether they were stationed stateside, recuperating in hospitals, or seeing action in Europe and the Pacific, students could expect to hear news about Ann Arbor from Buchanan.

Her correspondence was staggering: 17,828 letters; 6,952 birthday cards; 7,398 get-well cards. Over the course of the war, she mailed more than 57,000 copies of the Daily to servicemen and women with U-M ties.

Insight into all aspects of the war

Their response was dramatic, and makes for one of the country's richest collections of wartime correspondence. Archived at the Bentley Historical Library, the Ruth B. Buchanan Papers provide insight into the mindset of U-M students encountering all aspects of war: camaraderie, loss, boredom, culture clash, and a deep longing for home.

In particular, students' reminiscences of U-M and Ann Arbor carry themes that resonate with generations of Michigan alumni.

"I wish I could be back at school right now. The spring at Ann Arbor is the highlight of the season to me," wrote Jim Baird, who interrupted his studies in1944 to join the Navy, from "somewhere in the Pacific."

"I imagine that the campus is now loaded with girls. It certainly is different than it was in peacetime. I wonder what it would be like if the war wasn't going? I think there would be just as many girls as there is now."

Regardless of the letterhead or return address, students' letters carry a consistent salutation: "Dear Aunt Ruth." Divorced with three adult stepsons, all of whom earned U-M degrees, Buchanan considered the students her family. She saw them as nieces and nephews and requested they call her Aunt Ruth. They obliged by the thousands.

"A remarkable record..."

U-M President Alexander Ruthven called Buchanan's work "a remarkable record of correspondence." Two wartime icons-Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower and Adm. Chester Nimitz-commended her support of U.S. troops.

Buchanan was an unassuming but dedicated receptionist at the Exhibit Museum, and most student-soldiers had no idea who she was when her letters arrived. But they were grateful that someone from Ann Arbor was reaching out to them, and in return they showered Buchanan with mail.

"Every night I have several fellows waiting at home to talk to," she told The Michigan Daily in 1944.

Throughout the war, she diligently tracked her correspondence-and maintained boxes of index cards filled with mailing addresses-penciling in information that constantly changed as students were shipped to all corners of the globe.

"I know somewhat how you feel now when the postman brings you in a batch of letters," wrote Richard C. Emery, a 1943 Engineering graduate and Navy officer. "I got 26 all in one sitting the other day, and it certainly made a marvelous day out of an otherwise dull one. Puts new life in the boys out here when we have a mail call."

Students' affection for Buchanan is abundant in their letters. They invited her to their weddings, and shared news of promotions, honors and broken hearts. Several sent small souvenirs-military patches, postcards, foreign currency and photographs. Others mailed dollar bills to help with paper and postage costs; after Buchanan's efforts drew national media attention, greeting card companies supplied her with stationery for her campaign. Still others said they heard from Buchanan more than from their own families.

"I couldn't let Mother's Day go by without sending you some sweetness. I know many of your boys have sent you their love on this day of days. Well, I want to be one of them, too," wrote one of her most faithful correspondents, Navy Lt. (j.g.) Arlie Reagan. He graduated in 1943 and served as a Navy Seabee in the Pacific Theatre.

"Aunt Ruth, you're one in a million and each of us has a warm spot in our heart for you and all you're doing. Your cheery letters never fail to bolster our spirits and keep us going so we can get this thing over in Japan-just as our brothers in arms did in Germany."

A treasured emblem

The Emblem of Honor Association, which typically recognized women with four or more sons in the military, awarded Buchanan its coveted Emblem of Honor pin. "After checking thousands of cases of those who are corresponding with the boys in the service we found that, as an individual, Mrs. Buchanan far outranks any other woman in the country." Buchanan regularly wore the pin over her heart.

"When the war started I wanted to help," she once told an Ann Arbor radio station. "It was hard to find how I could, though. I'm down here at the Museum six and a half days a week. I couldn't go to the Red Cross, for instance, so I did this instead. I decided to write to maybe 25 boys. In the end it was almost 2,200."

Story by Kim Clarke. Reprinted with permission of the University of Michigan Heritage Project. Read the full story.

All images published with permission of the Bentley Historical Library.