Letter mailed in 1943 finally gets delivered to surviving kin

Neither rain nor snow nor sleet or hail could keep this letter from being delivered — even if it took 80 years.

The letter penned in 1943 to Louis and Lavena George of DeKalb, Illinois, was lost in the mail for decades on end — until one conscientious local postal worker made it his mission to see that it was finally delivered.

The unnamed post office hero tracked down the only two surviving embers of the George family — their two daughters — and got the letter into their hands.

“A message from the past, seemingly showing up out of nowhere,” the George’s second daughter, Jeannette, told WIFR-TV News. That’s pretty incredible. Everybody was, ‘My God!’ You know? Gobsmacked.”

The letter was first delivered to one surviving daughter, Grace Salazar, who recently moved to Oregon and later shared it with her sister, the outlet said.

Their parents, who married in 1932, have since died — but the letter offered a glimpse into their lives.

It was written by the couple’s cousin offering condolences over the then-recent loss of another daughter, Evelyn, who suffered from Cystic Fibrosis.

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

“As I get older, I appreciate more and more the extended family, especially my nieces and nephews,” she added. “I just have more of a sense of continuity of life, of families.”

DeKalb postal officials believe the delayed delivery stems from the fact that the address the letter was sent to didn’t include a house number for the home on South Sixth Street.