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.
They can lose a letter faster and in greater numbers than ever before...............
My license plates got delivered to the wrong house in my neighborhood once.....all the way on the other side of 300+ homes. SMH
I know an odd man who would send me mail with just a house number and street address. No city, state or zip, and it would arrive at my home OK.
Maybe thought you were Santa.
But usually they refuse to deliver at least in my experience.
Unless “or current occupant.” As for Dem mail in ballots to long deceased people at that old address.
This is why they have “Forever” stamps. To cover the cost of postage even 50-100 years later.
Would it have hurt anyone to disclose the text of the letter?
The United States Postal Services have never, to my memory, been so expensive or unreliable.
By fdad, who was born in 1920, marveled about how a letter sent in New York City would often arrive anywhere in the 5 boroughs the same day.
NY-CA? Two or three days, but certainly under a week.
Soon we’ll be like Mexico, where 50% of packages and almost as many letters never even arrive.
I love that show. Arnold Ziffel is the star of that show.
Sounds like a typical experience with the USPS.
Back in around 1971, my father got a letter addressed to him -—simply his name and the name of the County we lived in (population then around 20,000). I cannot imagine such a thing happening today. People don’t take pleasure in solving problems/figuring things out.
No surprise. Address is in cursive script!
“lost”
Heh, heh...sure. End of shift and George is just too tired. Tossed letters behind the radiator where nobody would ever find them.
-PJ
Train taking up mail bag, U.S.P.O.
I had a friend whose father worked for the USPS in KC back in the 40s and 50s. His job was to ride the train from KC to Denver at night and sort the Denver mail on the way. He did the turnnaround trip from Denver to KC and sorted for Kansas City. All the mail was in bags and that is how they would pick up the mail along the way.
I once mailed a letter to my sister who at the time was 40 miles away in Minnesota. It ended up in San Diego then mailed back.
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