Letter containing apology for not writing sooner eventually delivered after 83 years

A letter written in 1931 by a school teacher in Houlton, Maine, to her mother 150 miles away has finally been delivered 83 years later. The nine-page letter, written in ink in luxuriant cursive, was penned by then 23-year-old Miriam McMichael, a school teacher, to her mother, Dollena McMichael, who lived in Pittsfield, Maine. Miriam’s niece and Dollena’s granddaughter, Ann MacMichael, 69, said part of the irony of the mystery letter is her aunt’s apology for taking so long to write to her mother, with whom she was very close.



“One of the best parts for me of what she wrote was that she apologised for not writing sooner, as she knew her mother had been anxiously waiting all week for a letter - which, as we know, was never received,” Ann MacMichael said. “She said ‘I’m just getting around to write. I imagine you have been anxiously waiting for a letter all week. I have no excuses, but that I just didn’t get to it and there are lots of things to tell you, too.’” She said postal officials in Pittsfield found the letter in the morning mail and contacted Skowhegan Postmaster Bill Sylvain, knowing that McMichaels - and MacMichaels - had moved to Skowhegan some 40 years ago.

Sylvain delivered the letter by hand to Red MacMichael, a retired lawyer and District Court judge, who handed it over to his sister, Ann, who lives in Cornville. She noted that the spelling of the family surname had changed over the years. “Red called me and said the postmaster came to Red’s last week and he had this letter and he said ‘Do you know who this is?’” Ann said on Tuesday. “Red said ‘Sure, it’s my grandmother,’ so he left it with Red.” Both women - Miriam and Dollena - have since died.



Michelle Rowell, a clerk at the Pittsfield post office, said she found the letter in remarkably good shape while hand-sorting incoming mail. “As I was sorting I came across it - it appeared to be old, but it was in really good condition,” Rowell said. “It had a two-cent stamp on it. I knew it was old and the handwriting was old.” The price of a US Postal Service stamp went up to three cents in July 1932. Rowell said she can only guess how a letter mailed 83 years ago could suddenly turn up in her morning mail. She said it probably slipped “neatly” into some old sorting equipment somewhere along the line, but she does not know where. Neither does Ann MacMichael, who said it is a mystery how the letter finally made its way into circulation.