A woman in Michigan receives a postcard sent two days before Halloween in 1920 to her mailbox.
Brittany Keech, the woman who received this heavily delayed postcard, found it sitting in a pile of the usual bills and junk mail in her mailbox one day. At first, as she tells CNN, she paid no mind to it because she was caught up in the hustle and bustle of her day. Then, she explains, she thought it was “peculiar that [she] was receiving a postcard because nobody sends postcards anymore nowadays”.
When she looked at the postcard properly, she noticed it was postmarked October 29, 2020. Though it had her current home address on it, it was addressed to somebody called Roy McQueen.
The card reads:
Dear Cousins,
Hope this will find you all well. We are quite well but mother has awful lame knees. It is awful cold here. I just finished my history lesson and am going to bed pretty soon.
My Father is shaving and my mother is telling me your address. I will have to close for a night. Hope grandma and grandpa are well. Don’t forget to write us- Roy get his pants fixed yet.
Flossie Burgess
The reverse side of the card is Halloween themed, portraying a black cat holding a broom, several jack-o-lanterns, a bat, an owl, and an old woman with a cane. The postmark indicates it was sent from Jamestown, but the state is covered by a sticker.
Keech shared her discovery on Facebook in hopes of finding the intended recipient’s family. With the help of all the journalism on the incident, a family member may have been found.
A spokesperson for the postal service explained to CNN that typically such a long delay isn’t a fault of their system. What usually happens is these old postcards will be bought at flea markets, antique shops, or even online, and then sent again.
Flossie, the sender, could never have suspected that 100 years on, her description of the day-to-day to her cousins would be generating such a buzz. If you’d like to read more about history appearing in the present, read about how the oldest surviving film is being upscaled here.
