Years Later, He Brought Her Passport Back

Courtesy Betty Werther
Betty Werther's passport photo from 60 years ago.

Part I ?

Part II?

（文本為音頻大致內(nèi)容，可能與音頻并非完全一致，歡迎大家貢獻(xiàn)聽(tīng)寫(xiě)稿^^）

GUY RAZ, HOST:?To another drama now, certainly a story Nora Ephron might want to hear because this one could easily be made into a Nora Ephron film. It came to us by way of an article in the U.C. Berkeley newsletter.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

RAZ: There are two parallel stories, actually, one that begins in 1949, the other in 2011, and yes, those stories eventually intersect. Let's start in 1949.

BETTY WERTHER: My name is Betty Werther. I'm originally from the U.S., from Westchester County in New York, and I've been living in Paris for over 60 years.

RAZ: In 1949, Betty graduated from U.C. Berkeley, and her grandmother wanted to buy her a gift.

WERTHER: My grandmother gave me the choice of joining a sorority or taking a European trip after my studies, and I chose the European trip.

RAZ: Paris, to be precise. The journey across the Atlantic took 10 days by ship, and Betty went with a friend.

WERTHER: Coming to Europe was a proper thing to do. A proper European trip was fun. You know, we had a place to stay in Paris. We were supposed to be studying a course at the Sorbonne.

RAZ: But the studying part didn't last very long. Betty and a friend strapped on their backpacks and headed first to Morocco, and then...

WERTHER: Almost to the Arctic Circle, over to Berlin and up to Denmark and up to Sweden and Norway...

RAZ: And then, in the autumn, she and another young woman decided to go to the Middle East.

WERTHER: We started out in Switzerland over a mountain pass, and then we went through Italy to Trieste and down through Yugoslavia, Greece and over to Turkey. And this was in almost the middle of winter because we wanted to be in Bethlehem for Christmas.

RAZ: And to get there, they stuck out their thumbs all through Syria.

WERTHER: That was very unusual. Two women hitchhiking down through an Arab country was very unusual. I think people were so stunned. They didn't know what kind of animal this was, you know, girls in pants and...

RAZ: At some point, Betty's not sure when, her passport from that adventure was lost. And that's where our second story begins, last year, May 2011.

NUNO FONSECA: My name Nuno Fonseca, I'm an ed student. I'm from Portugal.

RAZ: Nuno spent the previous years studying medicine in Paris.

FONSECA: The school year was just ending, and I wanted to take something from Paris that would remind me of the good time I spent there.

RAZ: So he headed to a flea market to look around, but he wasn't having any luck.

FONSECA: When I was just about to leave and get to the last vendors, I found this passport, this old passport. It was full of visas from the first page to the last one.

RAZ: And the name inside: Elizabeth Hatfield. She was around the same age as Nuno at the time it was issued. And then there was the address inside.

FONSECA: But finally, when I looked at the address and I saw that she lived in the same student housing complex where I used to live...

RAZ: It was the student dorm Betty stayed at when she arrived to Paris in 1949, and it still houses students to this day. So Nuno Fonseca decided he had to track her down. And the first thing he did was to check Facebook.

FONSECA: Just to look for Elizabeth Hatfield.

RAZ: No luck, so he went to Google.

FONSECA: There was an Elizabeth Hatfield who graduated from Berkeley University in '49.

RAZ: And it also mentioned she was from a place called Ardsley Village in New York. So Nuno sent an email to the Ardsley Village manager.

FONSECA: He forwarded the email to the Historical Society. And through the connections they had established, they found an old high school mate of Betty, and she had an address in Paris, and that was my main lead.

RAZ: And a few days later, Nuno got a phone number and a name. Elizabeth Hatfield was now Betty Werther.

FONSECA: I was very nervous. I didn't know if I was going to find the person. I didn't know in which language I should be addressing, French or English, and I didn't know if I did find this person, how would she react, if she would be interested or not at all.

WERTHER: I thought it was like a crank call. I'm used to having people phone me for money or to belong to something or to sign a petition. And so I almost hung up.

FONSECA: She was very surprised. And she asked me, how is it possible that it ended up in a flea market? But I had no answer to give whatsoever.

RAZ: By that point, Nuno was already back in Portugal. But a few weeks ago, he decided he'd return to Paris to deliver the passport directly to Betty, 60 years after it went missing.

WERTHER: There was such a build up to this that I was, you know, kind of palpitating. And when the door bell rang...

FONSECA: It was fantastic. Betty is a very welcoming person, and she has lived a remarkable life, and she has many stories to tell.

WERTHER: The experience was to meet this person who'd gone to so much trouble. That was more important than the passport. It's the whole experience, which is extraordinary.

FONSECA: If I got the chance to find the person, for sure, it would be someone amazing, and it would rewarding. And it was, indeed.

RAZ: Nuno Fonseca. He's a med student in Portugal who found Betty Werther's lost passport in a Paris flea market 60 years after it went missing. The story came to us by way of U.C. Berkeley's news center. To see photos of the passport and of Nuno and Betty's first meeting, head to .

聲明：音視頻均來(lái)自互聯(lián)網(wǎng)鏈接，僅供學(xué)習(xí)使用。本網(wǎng)站自身不存儲(chǔ)、控制、修改被鏈接的內(nèi)容。"滬江英語(yǔ)"高度重視知識(shí)產(chǎn)權(quán)保護(hù)。當(dāng)如發(fā)現(xiàn)本網(wǎng)站發(fā)布的信息包含有侵犯其著作權(quán)的鏈接內(nèi)容時(shí)，請(qǐng)聯(lián)系我們，我們將依法采取措施移除相關(guān)內(nèi)容或屏蔽相關(guān)鏈接。