Postcard bearing 1920 date finally delivered to home
The postcard, faded and weathered, has a postmark dated Oct. 29, 1920, and a green stampofGeorgeWashington, priced 1 cent.
Its message is written in cursive, its front shows a witch and a goose wearing a pumpkin on its head, and its address is to a Mrs. Roy McQueen in Belding, Michigan. It took almost a century to be delivered.
The postcard’s arrival last week has baffled Brittany Keech, the Belding resident who found it in her mailbox with some bills and junk mail, and set her off on a new mystery — how to find the intended recipient or any of the person’s living relatives.
“When I first saw it, I thought, ‘ This is old,’” recalled Keech, 30. “I was shocked. Why is this here all of a sudden?”
She added, “I would love to be able to get it to a relative who is alive.”
The postcard is a personal family letter, providing the kind of quick update one might send in a text message or in a social media post today. It has a Halloween theme, featuring the gray-haired witch, the goose, an owl, a bat and cat with a broom. It also has a pun: “‘Witch’ would you rather be … a goose or a pumpkin head?”
The letter itself begins, “Dear Cousins,” and details howthe writer’s mother has “awful lame knees.”
It continues, “I just finished my history lesson and am going to bed pretty soon. My father is shaving and mother is telling me your address.”
A small signature is written on the side of the card and is difficult to read. It may say “Flossie Burgess.”
According to the 1920census, a RoyMcQueen, of Canada, and his wife, Nora, lived at the addresswhere Keech nowlives with her husband and two children.
It’s not clear where the postcard has been or why it took so long to reach the address. Letters from decades past do sometimes turnupin mailboxes, though the Postal Service said it’s rarely because they became lost in the system.