Article published July 18, 2007
It's a red-letter day for sender as mail from 1981 returns home
Julie Foster sent this letter to her brother in Brooklyn, N.Y., in 1981. It was returned to her former address several weeks ago.
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THE BLADE/AMY E. VOIGT
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By MAGGIE REID
BLADE STAFF WRITER
Snail mail? Think again. Even snails don't move this slowly.
In September, 1981, then-15-year-old Julie Williams was planning a little surprise for her older brother, Steve Williams, who was away at college and living in Brooklyn.
Back home on Grantwood Drive in Toledo, she wrote him a letter, had her two younger sisters sign it, and stuck it in the mailbox. The letter - complete with X's and O's from his adoring little sisters - was soon forgotten by the teenage girl after she sent it on its way to New York.
Almost 26 years later, the letter has reappeared.
The letter was returned to sender on June 29, 2007, marked "not deliverable as addressed."
But Julie Williams, who is now Julie Foster, had moved out of the home on Grantwood Drive about 18 years ago. Instead, it was delivered to Crystal Jozsa, who had recently moved into Mrs. Foster's childhood home.As fate would have it, Ms. Jozsa works with Mrs. Foster at a Fifth Third Bank branch in Sylvania, although they did not know each other when Ms. Jozsa bought the house.
Julie Williams affixed only a few cents in postage on this letter in 1981, but that was enough to take it to Brooklyn and bring it back. The Postal Service always tries to return such lost items.
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THE BLADE/AMY E. VOIGT
)
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Sifting through her mail last week, Ms. Jozsa said this handwritten letter stood out like a sore thumb.
"You could tell just by looking at the envelope how old it was," she said, laughing. "The stamps were only 15 cents."
Although it was sent by a Julie Williams, which is Mrs. Foster's maiden name, Ms. Jozsa said she recognized her co-worker's writing after reading only the first few lines.
"I could just tell it was her," she said. "What a small world, that after so long it would come back, and I happen to know Julie."
But the mystery of the lost letter was not solved.
Mrs. Foster of Whitehouse still wonders what happened to the letter during those 26 years en route to Brooklyn.
When she told her brother the story a few days ago, he said it was amazing - as if the letter had been put into a time capsule.
Both Mr. Williams and his sister believe the letter probably got lost in New York. He said it would not be his first unusual experience with the Brooklyn post office.
Mr. Williams recalled one Christmas when his mother sent him a box of chocolate chip cookies. Because he was not home when the package was delivered, and it was too large to fit in his mailbox, Mr. Williams said the mailman left the package with his elderly neighbor.
Later that day, he said the old woman died mysteriously.
"There was a whole crime investigation going on, and police tape up around the door," he remembered.
"I had to talk to all these police officers and detectives before I could get my Christmas cookies," he said.
Craig Cummings, customer relations coordinator for the U.S. Postal Service in Toledo, said letters can sometimes fall in cracks behind the mailboxes or end up behind walls, especially in apartment buildings and post office boxes.
When the letters are discovered, either through cleaning or renovations, it can be many years later, as in Mrs. Foster's case.
He said the post office will always try to return letters to the sender, no matter how much time has passed.
But they make no guarantees that coincidence will help it reach the right hands as it did with Mrs. Foster.
Contact Maggie Reid at:
mreid@theblade.com
or 419-724-6050.
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