LEXINGTON - Merlynne Culbertson and Lynne Clarke have been friends through the good and the bad, the births of grandchildren and the loss of a son.

Their friendship might seem ordinary, except they never saw each other in person.

Culbertson, of Lexington, and Clarke, of Oatley, Australia, have been pen pals for seven years. In today's digital world, they communicate mainly with postal letters or - as Clarke calls it -"snail mail."

"It's so good to hold something that someone has actually written," said Clarke, as the women shared lunch in Chenoa on Sunday.

Clarke and her husband Garry are visiting the United States for the first time. Part of their trip included a trip to Branson, Mo., with an Ogle County couple they met on a previous trip to England. When Clarke realized the short distance between Monroe Center and Lexington, she saw the obvious opportunity to meet her pen pal.

Both women have kept all of the letters they have received. Clarke likes to reread them; Culbertson describes their lengthy early letters as more like books.

It was technology, though, that helped them connect.

A magic tool

Culbertson's husband, Richard, met Clarke in Sydney 38 years ago while the soldier was on leave from Vietnam. Clarke's father had died earlier that year; her mother tried to brighten the holiday by inviting servicemen for dinner.

The other soldiers were nice, Clarke recalled, but Richard Culbertson just "fit into our family." Clarke's brother, also named Richard, was the same age as Culbertson.

Culbertson visited again the next year and wrote to Clarke's brother, but lost touch with the family after he returned to the United States.

Almost 30 years went by before Clarke's mother asked her to find their "other Richard."

"My Mum thought the Internet was a magic tool, and you could just press a button and find someone," said Clarke, a New South Wales police sergeant who eventually found the Culbertsons' phone number.

After an initial phone call ("What took you so long to find me?" Richard Culbertson asked), Clarke and Merlynne Culbertson struck up a friendship and began writing letters, punctuated by the occasional overseas phone call.

Sunday's get-together had been planned for several months and the wait was like "Christmas morning" for an anxious Merlynne Culbertson. She sliced tomatoes Saturday to make sure she was ready for Sunday dinner and kept her Richard busy with chores and painting the house.

She recently had stopped writing letters to Clarke, fearing the women wouldn't have anything to talk about when the Australian couple arrived.

Her fears, it seemed, were for naught.

"Those women are doing a good job of talking," Richard joked to Garry as they shared stories of children and grandchildren as only good friends can. The rest of the afternoon included a ride in a grain combine and a semi-truck trip to the grain elevator.