
(BrightPress.org) – Mail sometimes gets lost, and it can take the Postal Service a few days or weeks to get it where it’s supposed to go. We might find it surprising to get a piece of mail a few months, or even a few years old — but what if it was over a century old?
Recently, Michigan woman Brittany Keech was thumbing through her customary bills and junk mail when something stood out to her, a postcard that looked unusually old. Was it a piece designed to get someone’s attention? No, it wasn’t.
Upon close inspection, she found the postcard carried a faded one-cent George Washington stamp, and it was dated October 29, 1920. On one side of the card was a cute Halloween pictorial. On the other was a personal note addressed to Mrs. Roy McQueen.
Michigan woman receives 100-year-old postcard in mail https://t.co/cY0O0oytLf
— The Independent (@Independent) September 17, 2020
A librarian and private citizen who saw a Facebook post by Keech took interest in the postcard. They decided to use their love of genealogy and research skills to help find a family member to reunite the card, and ultimately, they found a distant relative.
The real question is, how did a postcard end up lost for so long in the mail? The post office said it’s extraordinarily rare but not impossible for lost mail to find its way to a final destination. Mail can get stuck behind various objects, or it might get lost in a variety of other places. Still, a century is a long time for delivery.
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