Man tracks down author of 37-year-old diaries in crawlspace of home

Dec. 29 (UPI) -- A Toronto man used social media to track down a woman whose childhood journals were found in the crawlspace of his parents' home 37 years after they were hidden.

Nick Gunz said his parents found the two notebooks, which bore dates from 1983, in the crawlspace of their home in the Etobicoke area of the city.

Gunz posted photos of the notebooks on Twitter, hoping to track down the Alison Jenkins whose thoughts filled the pages of the books when she was about 9 or 10 years old.

Gunz said he tried to respect Jenkins' privacy while searching through the notebooks for her information.

"Honestly, the intent of the author could not be clearer. This was a 9- to 10-year-old child who wants people to stay out of her writing," he told CTV News. "We didn't want this 10-year-old kid, across the gulf of decades, to feel pried in upon."

Gunz said his tweet quickly went viral and soon was spotted by people who knew Jenkins, a Vancouver music teacher with an active YouTube presence.

Jenkins said she was initially skeptical of the messages she received from strangers on Facebook.

"I thought it was a scam and then I looked at one of the links that they sent and it was a picture of the house that I lived in Toronto and my heart started beating fast," Jenkins said. "I still thought it might be just a weird scam thing so I Googled the story and as soon as I saw the writing on the diary, I was like, 'oh yeah. Yeah, that's me for sure.'"

Gunz and Jenkins are now coordinating to have the books returned to their owner. Jenkins praised Gunz for respecting the privacy of her childhood thoughts.

"I am really touched. I was so impressed. Nick was so respectful to not read them," she said. "I don't think I would have been that nice."