Barbara Goralski and Orville Schumacher have known each since 1951, when she was an 11-year-old Catholic-school girl in Brooklyn and he was a 21-year-old soldier from Nebraska stationed in Korea.

But until last week, their 59-year friendship was confined to their letters.

“I’m getting past 80 now and I figured if there was a time I was ever going to meet her, it’s now,” Schumacher said of finally meeting his longtime pen pal.

“I can’t even explain how I feel about this whole thing,” said Goralski, now Barbara Rohl, 69, who first began writing to Schumacher as a class assignment. “It’s a beautiful thing.”