Posted on 01/04/2024 12:02:57 PM PST by Red Badger
Jan. 4 (UPI) -- A letter mailed to an Illinois couple in 1943 was finally delivered to a family member 80 years later after resurfacing at a post office.
The letter, addressed DeKalb residents Louis and Lavena George, resurfaced recently at the DeKalb Post Office, and a worker decided to try to track down family members.
The letter was finally delivered to Grace Salazar, a relative who lives in Portland, Ore., and she shared the piece of mail with Jeanette George, Louis and Lavena George's daughter.
"A message from the past, seemingly showing up out of nowhere, that's pretty incredible," Jeannette George told WIFR-TV. "Everybody was just like, 'My god,' you know? Gobsmacked. Just like, 'What is this?'"
The letter, mailed in 1943, was authored by a cousin expressing condolences to the Georges, whose first-born daughter, Evelyn, had died of cystic fibrosis.
"I got emotional about it. I mean, losing a child is always horrific," Jeannette George said. "It just sort of put me in touch with my parents' grief and the losses my family went through before I was even born."
The post office employee who tracked down the George family said the letter likely remained undelivered for so long because the mailing address had a street name, but no house number.
As of this new year the US Postal Service announced price increases and service reductions.
Then probably an expensive study by experts about reasons the competitors are doing better.
So they tossed it in the dead letter bin and figured George would get to it.
Then George quit and it was now Fred's responsibility. Fred got promoted and now Gertrude had to take care of it.
Gertrude moved away and Irene got the dead letter responsibility. It was now 1959.
Irene died and Nathan took over dead letters. Nathan was lazy dead didn't do anything for ten years. Then Nathan became postmaster and appointed
Cedric to handle it. By now it was 1971 and Cedric said "That ain't my job" and ignored it for another ten years.
In 1981, Cedric asked Gwendolyn to handle it and she told him "Get stuffed -- ain't my job."
That brought us to 2003 when Gwendolyn became Postmaster General of the USPS. By then, with a PO full generation of AA hires, nothing got done. Everybody just forgot about the letter.
But, who did they finally hire that went through the dead letter bin and found it? That's the big mystery.
Mad Magazine in the 1960s had a sketch about delayed US Post Office mail discovered and delivered.
One was a card to Abraham Lincoln: “Skip going to that play Our American Cousin. It’s a real dud.”
Government efficiency at its best.
A local Post Office was being remodeled and when they took out the old radiators they found letters behind them that had been lost for years.............
Decades ago, my family received (in June) a Christmas card from one of my aunts, which had been postmarked several years prior its arrival at our house.
The envelope was stamped “Found in Supposedly Empty Equipment”.
Stamped.
Not handwritten.
Let the implications of that sink in ...
At least it showed up.
I’ve lost count of how many pieces of mail I’ve sent that never reached its destination and vice versa.
And then there’s mail delivered to the wrong recipient that they were kind enough to bring to me.......no telling how much fell into a black hole never to be seen again.
That excuse is suspect because any letter carrier in 1943 would have known everyone on a street by name.
I live in a rural area, and my mail lady waves to me when we pass on the street. She calls me by name when coming to the house to deliver packages.
A neighbor down the street two houses brought us some mail that they delivered to her by mistake two or three months previous. Thank goodness it wasn’t important stuff.............
I told them the check was in the mail.
My credit union doesn’t honor checks older than 6 months!......................
Courtesy of “Old Mail Day” (Green Acres reference)...
A lot like the Hooterville post office.
Sam Drucker had “old mail day”.
“’Everybody was just like, ‘My god,’ you know? Gobsmacked. Just like, ‘What is this?’”
Can the recipients of said letter even READ it?
They don’t seem to have much grasp of the English language. *SMIRK*
Gobsmacked is a term used by Brits..............
We have some grandkids who live up there and our grandson still hasn’t gotten the birthday card we sent him at the beginning of December. Wonder if they’ll find it in fifty years. Good thing we didn’t put money in it.
All they had to do was give it to the postman who had that route. If it was a long street, cycle it down until a postman recognizes the name of their customer. Did no one have any sense of duty? This was a condolence letter. Imagine the family wondering why they didn’t get any sympathy from the sender.
During WWII, my grandfather was on a Navy ship when my uncle wrote and asked to be adopted. The letter got lost, and this poor kid thought he’d been rejected by a non-answer. My grandfather didn’t know for who knows how long, if ever. I’m not sure my uncle ever brought it up. At least these circumstances are understandable but not a stationary home on a regular route, that I don’t understand. The “not my job” mentality was at work for the people in the article.
What has changed with the PO?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.