Joy Doevendans and Diane Hatt are an unlikely pair of best friends, having lived their entire lives on opposite sides of the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Despite being separated by almost 12,000 kilometres \u2014 Ms Doevendans in Renmark, South Australia, and Ms Hatt in Enderby, Canada \u2014 the pair have maintained a friendship that has lasted for more than half a century.<\/p>\n
“I think Diane knows more about me than my family,” Ms Doevendans said.<\/p>\n
“We consider each other family. If we don’t hear from each other in a couple of days, we write and say, ‘is everything OK?'” Ms Hatt said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Diane and Joy inspect the first letter Diane ever sent, more than 50 years ago. (ABC Riverland: Matt Stephens)<\/p>\n
The pair’s connection began when, at the age of 12, Ms Hatt reached out to a friend of Ms Doevendans’s, in search of an Australian pen pal.<\/p>\n
“There was a newspaper called the Vancouver Sun and they had [an ad] where people could write in and just ask for pen pals,” Ms Hatt said.<\/p>\n
At the time, Ms Doevendans’s friend had “too many pen pals” and decided to pass Ms Hatt’s letter on to her instead.<\/p>\n
“She said, ‘I’ve got too many, would you like one?’ and I said, ‘Sure!’ And I just happened to get Diane’s,” Ms Doevendans said.<\/p>\n
What began as a letter sent on a whim in 1965 sparked the beginning of a 60-year friendship.<\/p>\n
But it would take 15 years before the pair would meet the person on the other end of the pen.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Joy met Diane, and her husband Roger, for the first time in 1980, 15 years after Joy and Diane first began writing to each other. (Supplied: Diane Hatt)<\/p>\n
Multi-generation affair<\/p>\n
Always fascinated by Australia, Ms Hatt’s mother, Ina, wanted to learn more about the country and decided to write to Ms Doevendans’s mother, Florence.<\/p>\n
Florence, a prolific letter writer in her own right, was thrilled to have someone to write to.<\/p>\n
The mothers also went on to become long-time pen pals, creating a generational connection between the two families.<\/p>\n
“I think if [our mothers] hadn’t become pen pals, we would’ve lost touch,” Ms Hatt said.<\/p>\n
Diane and her mother, Ina, first met Joy and her mother, Florence, in Australia in 1980. (Supplied: Diane Hatt)<\/p>\n
“I had seven pen pals, and I’ve only kept in contact with two.”<\/p>\n
The two families met in 1980 in the South Australian town of Renmark, marking a turning point in their relationship.<\/p>\n
“My mum, my husband and I came over here to meet Joy and the rest of the family, and I remember thinking, ‘I’m really nervous about meeting her,'” Ms Hatt said.<\/p>\n
“The visit cemented our relationship again.”<\/p>\n
Joy Doevendans and Diane Hatt have been best friends for 60 years. (ABC Riverland: Matt Stephens)<\/p>\n
Technological advancements<\/p>\n
While Ms Doevendans and Ms Hatt initially bonded over a shared love of writing, their mode of communicating eventually had to change with the times.<\/p>\n
When they began writing to each other, they had to wait two weeks for a response, which made keeping up-to-date difficult.<\/p>\n
“We would write at Christmas and maybe one other time, but we weren’t really communicating all that much,” Ms Hatt recalls.<\/p>\n
But innovation in technology over the past 60 years has made things a lot easier, from email to messaging and even FaceTime.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ms Doevendans and her husband have also visited Canada three times, including a trip in 2000. (Supplied: Diane Hatt)<\/p>\n
“One time I got confused with the time zone and I phoned her at two in the morning,” Ms Hatt said.<\/p>\n
Ms Doevendans still has every letter Ms Hatt has written her, but had no choice but to switch from hard copy to online records as they switched to the digital world.<\/p>\n
“I was actually printing [the letters] but then I had folders and folders full and I thought, ‘nah, I’ve got to stop,'” she said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Joy has kept every letter Diane has ever written to her. (ABC Riverland: Matt Stephens)<\/p>\n
Final farewell<\/p>\n
One of the benefits of living so far away from each other is the discretion that comes with it, something Ms Hatt cannot always rely on back home.<\/p>\n
“You can tell each other secrets and know very well they’re not going to get out in the community,” she said.<\/p>\n
Ms Hatt and her husband, Roger, just spent the past month visiting Ms Doevendans’s family in South Australia.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Diane and Roger have visited much of South Australia, including Kangaroo Island. (Supplied: Diane Hatt)<\/p>\n
While the pair made magical memories, Ms Hatt decided it was the last time they would visit Down Under.<\/p>\n
“In an ideal world we would live six months here and six months in Canada,” Ms Hatt said.<\/p>\n
“How many people can say they have one of their best friends on the other side of the world?<\/p>\n
“I do consider Joy one of my best friends \u2026 I consider her a sister.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Joy Doevendans and Diane Hatt are an unlikely pair of best friends, having lived their entire lives on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254299,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[64,63,3795,2065,150272,150274,2582,9368,22103,33479,150273,150269,150268,150270,49910,6878,1124,105,3926,150271,13681],"class_list":{"0":"post-254298","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-british-columbia","11":"tag-canada","12":"tag-diane-hatt","13":"tag-enderby","14":"tag-family","15":"tag-friendship","16":"tag-good-news","17":"tag-goodnews","18":"tag-joy-doevendans","19":"tag-pen-pal","20":"tag-pen-pals","21":"tag-pen-pals-australia","22":"tag-renmark","23":"tag-riverland","24":"tag-south-australia","25":"tag-technology","26":"tag-vancouver","27":"tag-vancouver-sun","28":"tag-writing"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}