In this movie, Charles Bronson plays a man struggling with the death of his beloved wife. In real life, he himself was in mourning, having lost his wife, Jill Ireland, the year before in 1990.
The newspaper eventually gave the letter back to Virginia. She gave it to her granddaughter who put it in a scrapbook. It was thought lost in a house fire but discovered thirty years later. It was eventually brought on Antiques Roadshow (1979) where it appraised for around $50,000.
In the film, writer Francis Pharcellus Church's depression is attributed to having lost his wife and child. In reality, it was due to his being a war correspondent during the American Civil War and witnessing the tremendous suffering and misery.
Virginia's father, named Philip O'Hanlon, was a doctor and coroner's assistant. The family were actually well off.
When the father reads the newspaper at the end he is reading the actual article verbatim.