So we bought an old magazine rack off Craigslist in Virginia three years ago. It came with a bunch of old files and folders that the seller was going to throw away, but I stopped him because they looked so old and I didn't want to throw away history without reading it.

It turns out they're personal papers and records from WWII for two different people, a man and a woman who later married. I've been meaning to trace down their children, but then I wonder how these papers got into strangers' hands to begin with. They have been living in the magazine rack since we got it and I'm sure they are valuable to somebody -- historians, history buffs, I don't know. I just know I can't throw them away, nor do I have the time to do some reporting and find these people's kids. Please help me figure out what to do with these gems.

The guy, John R. Mueller, studied engineering at Johns Hopkins in the early 1940s and served with the State Department in Manila during WWII. He used to live at 6703 Holabird Avenue (Google Maps says that's in Dundalk, Md.). I have a whole thick folder of his notes from a course called Precision Aircraft Inspection Instruction from 1942. There's also a note to his kids dated 1976 that tells a couple of anecdotes of his life around that time and includes a black and white photograph of him with his schoolmates at Johns Hopkins in 1941, standing in front of a blackboard that says, "Crew of the U.S.S. Eutectic." The handwritten note to his kids explains: "That's a kind of metal and we picked that name as a gag -- we were kidding of course -- we thought it sounded nice for a Navy ship that we might all be assigned to -- (there was a war going on remember? and we had all tried to enlist -- One of the guys was named Meyer and years later in 1947 I heard somebody say to me in an Air Force C46 taking off from Manila --, 'Hey Mueller, what in a H--- are you doing here?' I was State Dept (on my way to Tokio) -- I almost fell over -- It was him. -- Dad 9/3/76"

There's also a folder of his correspondence and notes from his time with the State Department in Manila in 1946, including ads that he wrote to sell surplus aircraft in Manila and typewritten letters that give incredible glimpses into life then. Here's an excerpt from a letter he wrote from Manila to a friend in 1946 (he maintained a copy for his own records, apparently):

"If only you could make some big shot in the State Department get wise to the score out here in the East. These people place a heluva lot of value on the thing called "face", and to send a State Department official out here in a packet of the "Marine Lynx" type where we were crammed, 38 men in one sticking cesspool called a "state room" 1st Class at that, is one sure way to make us lose face before we even get to where we are going to carry out our duties as State Department officials. In other words, picture 38 Chinese, Indians, Filipinos, Siamese and Americans of other agencies stuck in the B-48 compartment. When they find out your (sic) from the State Department of the United States of America they look at your cot and you standing there sweating, stripped to the waist in the heat of this room filled with big steam pipes of various types and sizes and no portholes -- and they say, 'Is this the way an American State Department official travels when on official duty' -- They just don't get it and I felt ashamed and must have looked like a damn fool, but there it is."

Isn't that an incredible letter? Surely someone somewhere must need it for research.

Then I have records for his wife, Regina M. Hunkele, also known as Rae, who served as a nurse in the Army during WWII and then became an air hostess with Pan Am in the 1950s. Her papers include her original junior high school and high school diplomas from North Dakota in 1933 and 1937, her original nursing diploma from St. Johns Hospital in North Dakota, the original typewritten letter on really thin paper from the "War Department" calling her to duty at Fort George Wright in Washington state in 1943. It's still in its original air mail envelope, postmarked Washington, D.C. There are lots of other war records and handwritten letters, including a xeroxed copy of her certificate of service with the 807th Medical Air Evacuation Squadron in the Army from 1943 to 1946.

So there you have it.

I welcome advice and suggestions -- what do I do with these papers?