Over 20-years ago Gladys Hankerson made a very common mistake when trying to call her sister in Maryland – she dialed the wrong number.
Gladys meant to dial a 410 area code, but she ended up dialing a 401 area code, which connected her with someone in Rhode Island. In most cases, dialing a wrong number is a quick mistake. Someone answers, tells the person who is calling that the have reached the wrong number and the situation is over. But that didn’t happen in Gladys’ case.
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Mike Moffit answered the wrong number and explained that when he answered, a very kind woman with a southern accent was on the other end. “At first, it was just like her saying, ‘Oh I’m sorry!’ and she’s really Southern, very hospitable, polite, very sweet, she’s like, ‘I’m so sorry, child!’ and then she hangs up real quick”.
This wasn’t the first time that Gladys has dialed the wrong number. She expressed this to Mike and it wasn’t long before they spoke again.
“I told him, ‘I’m sorry I was trying to call my sister,’ and he said, ‘This is Mike,’” Hankerson said. “I said my son passed away and he said I’m so sorry and he talked real nice to me and I talked real nice to him, and after that I had his phone number and I put it down on paper and I always called him,” says Gladys.
The unlikely pair began speaking on a regular basis. Gladys is a mother of ten children and Mike is a father of three, so many of their conversations revolved around parenting. Over the years, Mike and Gladys would often call each other to ‘check in’ and keep one another up to date on their family lives – both the good and the bad. After a decade, the pair finally met in person!