Unopened WWII Letter Finally Heads Home

Michigan couple's granddaughter to get letter they never received
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted May 16, 2014 7:13 AM CDT
Unopened WWII Letter Finally Heads Home
This May 14, 2014 photo shows an unopened World-War-II era letter that turned up in the Muskegon, Mich. mail recently, addressed to a Mr. and Mrs. Sensabaugh.   (AP Photo/The Muskegon Chronicle, Stephen Kloosterman)

Just where a World War II letter has been for nearly 70 years is a mystery, but it's finally on its last journey home. The letter—sent by Army Sgt. Myron Cook to a Muskegon, Mich., address from an army base in Europe, WZZM reports—somehow re-entered the mail system last fall in Minneapolis, still unopened. Bearing a 1945 Army Post Office postmark, it was addressed to a Mr. and Mrs. Sensabaugh. The envelope has since been somewhat altered: a September 2013 Minneapolis postmark is now stamped on it, and someone added a zip code—something that didn't exist in 1945. But the Sensabaugh's former home is vacant, and the letter typically would have ended up in the "dead mail" pile. But as Michigan Live reports, a mail carrier noticed the unusual date, and a search for the letter's rightful owner was sparked.

Thanks to online researchers and some 400 tips, the couple's granddaughter, Nancy Sensabaugh Baker, has now been tracked down in Florida. "A friend contacted me through Facebook and asked if I had seen this," she told Michigan Live, adding she "could not believe it, actually." Baker, who lived with her grandparents in Muskegon for a time in the early 1960s, says she remembers they were friends with a man named Myron Cook, but she has "no idea" what the letter might say. "I'll just be anxious to see it," she says. "It's really a neat thing to see something from the past." The letter is expected to arrive next week. (More letter stories.)

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