DALLAS — Have you ever mailed something, only to find out later that it never reached its destination?
We know mistakes happen; some are bigger than others.
But one North Texas family is finally getting an important piece of mail after waiting six decades.
"I do want to thank you for what you did. It's brought me into this house again. Thank you very very much," said Louis Guion III to his new friend, Sylvia LaRue.
"It wasn't a labor at all, but an adventure of love," she replied.
It's an adventure bringing two strangers together thanks to a Christmas card.
That card came in the mail to LaRue's Dallas home. "I thought, 'Wait a minute; something doesn't look right,' and it was the fact that it had a 3 cent stamp on it," she said.
Another clue: The card was sent to Mary Louis Guion, who used to live at LaRue's address.
The card was postmarked in New York on December 19, 1952 with the now-ironic slogan: "MAIL EARLY FOR CHRISTMAS."
"Anything that has been missing for 60 years deserves to get to the rightful addressee, sooner than later," LaRue said, so she went digging in the phone book to track down the family.
That's where Louis Guion III comes in.
"I called around to see if my sisters had told mother this information; they hadn't, so I did," Guion said.
At age 97, Mary Louis finally got the card from her dear friend Mattie Johnson. The letter said Mattie had been sick and in the hospital.
And now, that makes sense. Mary Louis said she only got a note that Mattie passed away, and wondered why she never learned she had been ill.
This long overdue letter would have done just that.
But had that letter not been lost, Guion and LaRue may never have met, and for this duo, that means something.
"I am most happy it put me in contact with Mrs. LaRue, because I'm in the very house I grew up in," Guion said.
"It is a completion for me to even get to meet the former owners of the house," LaRue added.
The postal service did apologize for the delay, and left a form letter explaining how it will review the process to improve in the future.
A lot has changed in the world since that card was mailed in 1952.
Dwight Eisenhower was president and Princess Elizabeth became queen of England.
Microwave ovens were first offered for sale, but they were the size of refrigerators and cost more than $1,200.
Also that year, the movie classic "Singin' in the Rain" made its theatrical debut.
E-mail sslater@wfaa.com
