DALTON, Ga. — Jason Holcomb said the “hair started standing up on the back of my neck” when he saw the names Max and Martha on his Facebook page.

Those were the names of his late and beloved grandparents, and he saw an article from Chattanooga television station WDEF-News 12 Now about a letter that was sent in 1954 from Max Holcomb, then serving in the U.S. Air Force in Alaska, to his sweetheart in South Carolina, Martha Young, having been found on the floor at the Walmart Neighborhood Market on Walnut Avenue.

It was a 64-year-old love letter from his grandfather to his grandmother that Jason Holcomb, a Chatsworth resident, said he never even knew about until reading that story just a few days ago.

“It just blew my mind,” he said.

Jennifer Hendrix, an accounting office associate at the store, said the letter was found a few weeks ago by another employee named Dakota Lovain.

She said Lovain is a member of the National Guard, so it was especially important to him to try to find the letter’s owner. He made some efforts to find the family. But he had to leave on a deployment, so he asked Hendrix to continue searching for the owner. She said after reading the letter she knew she had to help.

“I was immediately connected to this,” she said. “I knew I had to find the family.”

Members of the Holcomb family and Hendrix spoke Friday at the store.

Hendrix said Lovain has been informed she found the family and is very pleased.

Jason Holcomb said the letter — dated July 30, 1954 — was written just 15 days before his grandfather returned from Alaska and married his grandmother. It reads, in part:

“I ran out of paper and had to borrow some. Hope you read this. Take good care of yourself honey and stay sweet and remember I love you. Good night, sweetheart.”

After the story aired on TV, Hendrix said someone saw it and sent her a link to Max Holcomb’s obituary. Through it, she found Jason and reached out to him on Facebook.

Kristie Holcomb, Jason’s wife, said she was touched when she found out about the letter.

“Martha always was sweet and used to write letters,” she said. “It’s great to see this.”

Both the family members and Hendrix said they have no idea how the letter came to be on the floor of the store. Wherever the letter has been, it had clearly been well taken care of.

“I think God meant for us to have it,” Jason Holcomb said. “I know this is how he felt about her, but to read it in his own words is special.”

Jason said when he reads the letter he hears his grandfather’s voice saying the words.

“I spent a lot of my childhood on their farm in Sugar Valley. I learned a lot from them. They meant a lot to me,” he said. 

Jason Holcomb said his grandparents met in South Carolina.

“They actually met on my great-granddaddy’s front porch,” he said.

He said his grandfather and an Air Force friend later asked his great-grandfather for permission to take his grandmother and great-aunt out.

“They took them to a soda fountain for ice cream,” he said.

Jason said his grandparents modeled what true love is to him.

“They were inseparable. They always thought about each other before they did anything,” he said. “They were always together. They meant the world to me.”

“The definition of commitment,” said Kristie Holcomb.

They say they plan to put the letter in a “safe place.”