Family receives letter that was originally sent to relatives in 1943

A letter mailed over 80 years ago has finally been delivered to its rightful family in Illinois, and it all happened by chance.

The letter resurfaced at the DeKalb Post Office, about 70 miles west of Chicago, reported television station WIFR. 

It was mailed in June 1943 and addressed to the late Louis and Lavena George. The address was listed with a Dekalb street name, but no house number.

The family patriarch's first cousin mailed the letter, waiting to send comforting words to the couple after losing their daughter, Evelyn, to Cystic Fibrosis, WIFR reported.

A post office employee began searching for the family and eventually, delivered it to Grace Salazar, one of their daughters. Her sister, Jeannette, also read the letter.

According to WIFR, Jeannette and Grace are the only two surviving children of Louis and Lavena George. The couple married on April 14, 1932 and had eight children altogether, an online obituary shows.

Louis died at 74 years old on Sept. 16, 1986. His wife, Lavena, lived to be 98 and died on March 13, 2012.

Daughter of late couple moved by recovered letter

When their daughter Jeannette found out about the newly recovered letter, she called it “incredible” and said it moved her.

“I mean, losing a child is always horrific,” she told the outlet. “It just sort of put me in touch with my parents’ grief and the losses my family went through before I was even born.”

According to WIFR, the post office employee who found the letter said it likely got lost because there was no house number in the mailing address.

How did a letter get delivered 80 years late?

In a statement to USA TODAY, the U.S. Postal Service said most cases do not involve mail that was lost. Instead, old letters and postcards are sometimes purchased at flea markets, antique shops and online, then re-entered into the USPS system. 

“The end result is what we do best – as long as there is a deliverable address and postage, the card or letter gets delivered,” wrote Tim Norman of USPS Strategic Communications.

He said the USPS processes 160 billion pieces of mail each year, averaging more than 5 million pieces per business day.  

“Based on that figure we can estimate that since 1943 there (have) been trillions of pieces of mail processed and ultimately delivered,” he wrote.

Jeannette, the couple’s daughter who read the letter, told WIFR the experience has made her even more grateful for her family, especially her nieces and nephews.

“I just have more of a sense of continuity of life, of families,” Jeannette told the television station.