As a young soldier and newlywed, in 1999 I boarded a C-130 out of Fort Benning, Georgia, with Bosnia as the ultimate destination. I left behind a letter to my husband that I prayed he would never have to open; fortunately, he returned the letter to me unopened. Fast forward to a deployment to Afghanistan, and now as the mother of four young children, I wrote five letters that I prayed would never have to be opened.

I was the blessed one that made it back, each and every time I was asked to get on a plane and serve where the military needed me most. An unfortunate number of those serving alongside me never did make it back, and some of them never wrote their letters.

When COVID ravished our country in 2020, and so many families and friends were unable to say goodbye, the vision to develop an integrated app to capture the voices, the faces, and the sentiments of our loved ones came into sight. Just as a service member’s letter would be opened only upon their death notification, the vision for the app was the letter embodied in a video.

In January of 2021, Sandy Wheeler and I were introduced by a mutual friend that heard both of our visions and who recognized the value of teaming together. With the added talent of our tech lead, James Donley, TimeCapsulesApp was born.