4 Bottles Wash Up On LI Beach With Messages To Woman 'In Heaven'

EAST MARION, NY — A North Fork woman is searching for a family who sent messages in bottles, handwritten notes of love and loss, to mark what would have been a young woman's 30th birthday.

Rose Baker of East Marion said she found four bottles on the beach in East Marion on May 13, May 25, May 31 and June 3. "All were messages to a young woman that left this world too young," she said.

The letters speak of pain and eternal love.

For Baker, the bottles are a mystery, and she's hoping to find the woman's family so she can express her sorrow for their profound loss. "It's so beautiful and so sad at the same time," she said.

"I'm thinking that maybe they are from Connecticut," she said.

The bottles hold great significance to Baker, who has always been moved by the idea of a message cast into the sea. Her life has held a series of moments where messages in bottles held great significance.

Coincidentally, last year also on June 3, she found another bottle filled with colored sand and a message, but the note had washed away.

Years ago, she said, her cousin Sean was tragically killed when his boat, "The Alert," sank in a storm in Alaska. "My cousins, sisters and I went to the same beach in East Marion and put messages in bottles, but we never got any response," she said.

And even at her wedding to her husband Keith, guests were asked to write messages to be put in bottles; Baker ultimately ended up keeping those sentimental notes.

Her husband, she said, found the second bottle at the beach — on their wedding anniversary.
Baker plans to fill the bottles with tiny pieces of beach glass, or "mermaid's tears," and send them back into the water with a dated note, asking whoever finds them to do the same.

She wonders, too, if there are other bottles; she scours the beach every day now, hoping to find another.

Beach glass and treasures tossed onto the sand have always held a place in Baker's heart; she found a special, cornflower blue piece after losing a dear friend. Another time, she found a sterling silver spoon, dated 1863. Recently, she found a child's "Frozen" necklace and if she ever meets Ashley's niece Olivia, who sent a crayon-colored picture for the aunt she never met into the water, she plans to give it to her.

Finding the bottles now was particularly meaningful, Baker said. "I just lost my mother Helen last October. I'd call my mother five times a day, or she'd call me. And every day she'd ask me about the beach, 'Did you find any treasures? Did you find any beach glass?' When I found the bottle from Ashley's mother, I felt as though it were my mother, sending me another sign. My mother has constantly been giving me signs since she's been gone."

The signs were clear, she said: One day, her mother's name, "Helen", which was etched onto a metal Christmas ornament hung at the window, was clearly illuminated, inside her house.

The treasures from the sea tell stories, she said, tales of love and pain and days long gone. And the beach, she said, soothes.

One of her six sisters told Baker: "I've been going to the beach every day because I feel like I'm close to Mommy."

When her mother died, Baker said, she put a tiny bottle of "mermaid's tears" into the coffin, a final gift from the beach her mother loved so much.

"She would get so excited, asking me, 'What did you find today?'" Baker said.

Since their mother's death, even her sister has had signs, including a rare red piece of beach glass, one she'd given up hope of ever finding on the sand.

Just like the signs she has seen in her own life from her mother, the bottles found on the beach speak to the ties that live forever, even after loved ones are gone, Baker said.

One day, if she finds them and is able to speak with the woman's family, Baker said: "I just want them to know that somebody's going to think about her I'll think about her now, every time I go to the beach."

She added: "Happy heavenly 30th birthday. You are loved and missed by your family and friends."