Excerpt: 'The Red Leather Diary'

June 30, 2008— -- Lily Koppel, a writer for The New York Times, found a young woman's diary in a Dumpster on New York's Upper West Side. Upon opening the journal, kept in 1930s New York, Koppel dicovered the world of Florence Wolfson Howitt, now in her 90s.

Koppel located Howitt, reunited her with her diary, and turned the experience into a book: "The Red Leather Diary: Reclaiming a Life Through the Pages of a Lost Journal."

Please find an excerpt from the book below:

At ninety, having survived a car crash and E. coli, I was living what can only be called a bland life. Mobility was low—no golf, no tennis, no long walks—but curiosity about people and politics was high. And there were such activities as practicing scales on the piano, playing bridge, reading, and agonizing with friends over America's current quagmire. Not too bad a life for a nonagenarian.

What was missing were expectations. Everything was going to be the same until the final downhill slide. My beloved husband, Nat, was already on that slide. What was there to expect?

What, indeed! In my most cloud-nine dreams I could never have imagined what awaited me. I was sitting on my patio in Florida one glorious April afternoon when the phone rang. An unknown voice greeted me when I answered. "Hello, my name is Lily Koppel. Are you by any chance Florence Wolfson—now Howitt?"

I thought, Do I want to admit that I am? Was this going to be some marketing nuisance I regretted ever saying hello to? Well, I was a little curious, so I owned up to being me. Said Lily, "I have some old things belonging to you that I picked up at 98 Riverside Drive, and I thought you might want them back." "What things?" I asked. "An old red leather diary, short stories you wrote when you were fifteen, and your master's thesis from Columbia. I'll be happy to send them to you."

Those words changed my life. I told her not to bother sending them because my daughters would pick them up on one of their many trips to New York. So, waiting to hear from Valerie or Karen, she didn't send them. She read the diary. I had totally forgotten about it and couldn't imagine anyone finding it of interest.