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Every weekday morning, Feldmann does her online exercise class, sits down with her breakfast and coffee and pulls out her iPad to start typing. Her first notes, to no one in particular, were

met with confusion and emailed questions from the employees who opened them: “Do you know anybody that lives here?” “Do you live in this town?” “Why are you writing?” Feldmann's

answers were always the same: “Nope. Nope. It just seems like a fun thing to do.” It didn't take long for staff members to start sharing her letters. She writes about her husband, John,

and shares pictures of the two of them, including one from Halloween, when she dressed up as Betty Crocker and he as the Pillsbury Doughboy. She and John have conjured up weekly

competitions to keep homebound pandemic life and her letters interesting. They've gone head-to-head decorating pumpkins, making Valentines and inventing variations of s'mores, all

of which she's chronicled. Chamberlain, 73, the Iowa resident, doesn't have a lot of contact from family members, so staff began bringing her Feldmann's notes. She saves them

all, filling three binders that she revisits. She gets teary-eyed describing Feldmann, whom she calls “a sister." Feldmann's fans also include long-term care staff. Jennifer

Batesel, the director of marketing and sales at a Good Samaritan Society site in Mountain Home, Arkansas, says Feldmann has emerged as an “icon,” a celebrity columnist of sorts renowned for

her humor and inspiring words amid pandemic times: “It means so much to them to hear from the outside." Sometimes Feldmann writes about her own mother for added motivation. “I did my

online exercise class as usual. My mom and I will do her exercises early this afternoon,” she wrote a while back. "She has decided her favorite number is ‘one’ because when we do our

reps, we count backward so that the last rep is always number one,” Feldmann wrote. “I hope you are able to get some exercise in today too!" _Jessica Ravitz is a contributing writer who

covers nursing homes and human-interest stories. She previously wrote for CNN Digital and _The Salt Lake Tribune_, and her work has also appeared in _Smithsonian _magazine, _The Washington

Post_ and _The Atlanta Journal-Constitution_._