Lost 80-Year-Old Letter Finally Delivered After Being Found at an Illinois Post Office: 'Gobsmacked'

The letter, from 1943, was addressed to a couple after they lost their daughter to cystic fibrosis

A letter that was lost in the mail in 1943 was finally delivered after an 80-year-long wait.

Last month, a letter addressed to Mr. and Mrs. George re-emerged at the post office in DeKalb, Illinois, according to local outlet WIFR.

One of the employees at the establishment tracked down the surviving members of the George family, the outlet said, and found Grace Salazar, the daughter of Louis and Lavena George, to whom the letter was addressed.

The letter, per WIFR, was from Louis' first cousin, who was sending condolences to the couple after they lost their daughter Evelyn to cystic fibrosis.

The post office employee who found the letter believed that it disappeared years ago due to the lack of a house number in the mailing address, the outlet reported.

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Not long after receiving the letter, Grace then sent it to another surviving daughter of the Georges — her sister, Jeannette.

“A message from the past, seemingly showing up out of nowhere, that’s pretty incredible,” Jeannette told WIFR. “Everybody was just like, ‘My God’, you know?’ Gobsmacked. Just like, ‘What is this?’ "

Noting that she was "emotional" to see the decades-old letter in her own hands, Jeannette added to the outlet, "Losing a child is always horrific, [and] it just sort of put me in touch with my parents’ grief and the losses my family went through before I was even born."

Related: Bride Says USPS Lost Almost All of Her Wedding Invitations: 'Seemed to Have Vanished into Thin Air'

Nowadays, Jeannette said she is grateful for and appreciates the family that she has.

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

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