Frank Hayostek

Who is Frank Hayostek?

Frank Hayostek was an American veteran of World War II who gained international notoriety for his attempts to spark a relationship with an Irish milkmaid met through a message in a bottle. The event became a media circus on both sides of the Atlantic.

On Christmas, 1945, Medical Corpsman Frank Hayostek returned by sea from military duty in France. Feeling lonesome, he stuffed a note into an aspirin bottle, corked it and tossed it over the side of the SS James Ford Rhodes. The note read: "Dear Finder, I am an American soldier . .. 21 years old . . . just a plain American of no wealth, but just enough to get along with. This is my third Christmas from home . . . God bless you."

Eight months later Hayostek received a response from Breda O'Sullivan, 18-year-old resident of Lispole. The pair became pen pals and over the course of the next seven years they exchanged 70 letters. In the summer of 1952 Hayostek traveled to County Kerry to finally meet O'Sullivan. His two-week stay was shadowed by a flock of reporters and photographers who "tried to fan the romance into flame."

The publicity was too much for the shy O'Sullivan who would later describe the notoriety as "gruelling" and Hayostek returned to Pennsylvania without her. In 1958 he married a local girl and the following year received his last letter from Breda. His wife, however, died in 1965 and Hayostek continued to wonder about his Irish romance that never was.