Love on the line

Helen Slotwinski Fye looks over some of the many letters sent to her by her pen pal, and later husband, Gary Fye, during his service in the Vietnam war. [Photo by Andy Fillmore/Ocala Gazette]

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Posted January 19, 2026 | By Andy Fillmore, [email protected]

Helen Slotwinski’s patriotic urge to write a letter to a serviceman during the Vietnam War in 1966 led to a 55-year marriage to Gary Fye and a love that has extended to a second generation and beyond.

“War is terrible but some good came out of it,” Helen Fye said about her marriage to her U.S. Marine Corps “pen pal” and later husband during a recent interview at her home in Ocala.

Helen said there was an anticipation of getting a return letter from Gary on every trip to her mailbox. The letters were a tangible expression of the couple’s feelings for each other, which they could read over and over, she said.

She is the daughter of refugees who, as displaced persons during World War II, were transplanted from their native Ukraine to Haltern, Germany, where Helen Slotwinski was born in 1946. The family immigrated to the U.S. around 1950. Helen was raised in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. She graduated from high school in 1964 and went to work as a secretary. Friends at work were writing to servicemen in Vietnam and she decided it was her “patriotic duty” to do the same.

Helen’s first letter made its way to Gary, who served in the USMC from 1965 to 1969. He was stationed in Chu Lai with the Force Logistics Command when he received the missive.

Helen and Gary soon were exchanging letters “every day” in a series of hundreds of letters each. Her letters had to be destroyed when he moved around within Vietnam, but she saved most of his. She said his letters arrived to her in envelopes with a map of Vietnam on the front and marked “United States Armed Forces-Vietnam.” In the postage stamp area someone, likely Gary, wrote “free.”

She said his unit at one point received a Navy Unit Commendation for its support of the troops.

“It was a tough time. I think we were a comfort to each other,” Helen said.

Gary’s letters are filled with flowing prose and a yearning to meet Helen in person as soon as possible. One included the lines: “I can’t put in enough words to express my feelings for you… it’s no dream. It’s real, honest, sincere, true love. I will prove it to you that it is no dream when I come home.”

He wrote in the same letter that he knew her well enough to ask her to marry him and share their lives together and have children.

“I know you well enough to dedicate my entire life to giving you all the love I can,” he wrote.

Helen said Gary wrote some letters “during blackouts in candlelight.” She said at one point her letters were not delivered to Gary due to his changed location and he was concerned why they had stopped coming. He wrote to her asking what he’d done wrong to halt the letters.

Gary was on leave and sent a telegram to Helen to arrange their first in-person meeting in May of 1967. He drove 10 hours from his home in Erie, Pennsylvania, to Cherry Hill and proposed marriage “under an apple tree.”

“He was cute and a gentleman. It was wonderful to see him. I said, ‘Yes’,” Helen said, adding that they “bonded together.”

The couple had a favorite song “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You,” sung by Frankie Valli.

Helen said whenever Gary would drive to Cherry Hill to visit while he was on leave, she would look for the approaching yellow square parking lights on his 1967 Plymouth Barracuda. She has a small, framed portrait of the couple in the 1960s and a sweetheart pin with the Marine Corp globe, eagle and anchor emblem.

Gary returned to Vietnam before their marriage but reaffirmed their bond in a letter.

“It’s no dream; Its real, honest, sincere, true love,” he wrote.

The couple married on Oct. 17, 1970, and lived until 1983 in Erie and New Jersey. Their daughter Michele was born in 1976, and their daughter Diana was born in 1979. The Fye family moved to Pompano, Florida, in 1983, where Gary’s career included work in the construction industry.

Gary and Helen moved to the On Top of the World community in Ocala in 2013. He enjoyed building and flying remote controlled model airplanes at an OTOW field. He also became a talented and prolific pysanky artist. Pysanky is a Ukrainian art form that involves emptying natural eggs, such as chicken or ostrich eggs, and applying wax to the shell. The shells are then brightly hand painted with designs signifying various meanings like joy and hope using a small pen-like stylus. The eggs are typically given away as a gesture of love and friendship. Gary hand painted hundreds of eggs, and many are on display in the Fye residence.

Gary passed away on Aug. 21, 2025, following a year-long illness. He died after being under care for about three days in Empath Hospice of Marion County Cate’s House. Helen praised the work of Hospice of Marion County and support from the local veteran community.

Helen and her daughters gathered recently at the OTOW home to reminisce and look over the Vietnam War-era correspondence and photos. Diana Fye is a ninth-grade science teacher at West Port High School and Michele Fye Retter is an English teacher for the same grade at the same school.

Diana said written letters were all her parents had to communicate in the mid-1960s, but a letter has some special qualities compared to electronic communications. She said a letter is something one can hold in their hand and know the other person held the same letter, as opposed to a text message. She recalled how her father “was always there” at every event she participated in as a youth.

“It’s like the magic in his letters was in everything he did,” she said.

The trio recalled how Gary often would point to his eye and then to his heart and then to one of them while saying: “I love you.”

Michele said as a youngster her dad would give her a ride on a motorcycle decorated with Christmas lights and said she and her sister would get rides wearing a helmet decorated with lights.

Michele has a daughter, Kayleigh, 22, and son, Alexander, 19. She became emotional while describing how her father lovingly interacted with his grandchildren. She said she uses the story of her father’s letters to teach her students about written correspondence and that the letters have inspired several of her students — born in the digital age and a time of “instant gratification” — to write.

“I ask the students, ‘How will you communicate without technology?’” she said.

As she looked over a stack of her husband’s wartime correspondence, Helen said, “Gary brought love into our lives. He’s still alive