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KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A holiday postcard is making its way to the family of its rightful owner after more than 70 years.
Right address, but wrong date, it’s postmarked 1950.
The holiday postcard showed up at Claire Badgett’s house in Kansas City’s Brookside neighborhood. But it wasn’t addressed to anyone in her family. On it, a postmark reading 1950.
“I was just kind of in shock,” Badgett said.
The postcard arrived this week, addressed to Martha Stubbs. It was from Roy, in California, writing to his mother in Kansas City, in 1950.
Badgett made it her mission to find family of the rightful owner.
She asked neighbors who’ve lived on the street for decades, near 58th and Wornall. Then she remembered years ago meeting a parent in her child’s class with the last name Stubbs.
“I remember her saying, my grandfather lived in your house I think and just all the dots started connecting,” she said.
Badgett messaged that mom, Phoebe Stubbs, on social media, who lives just across state line in Prairie Village.
“My kids thought that something terrible had happened because I jumped up from the dining room table and was like, oh my gosh, oh my gosh like this is crazy how does this happen,” Stubbs said.
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Roy was Stubbs’ grandfather. She said they were close.
After the postcard news, her dad and aunt broke out old photos to find a teenaged Roy standing outside the Brookside home where he grew up.
Stubbs’ grandparents moved to California where Roy studies at Berkley and wrote this postcard. He passed away in 1993.
“He was so very loved and has been missed like so much over the last 30 years,” Stubbs said. “It was just so meaningful to get this little piece of him like so many years later.”
The postcard has a one cent stamp in the corner. On the other side, a recent postmark, December 22, 2023, from Milwaukee.
So why did it turn up now? People posted ideas online.
“Well maybe it just got lost in a post office and someone found it cleaning,” Stubbs said.
Mark Inglett with the U.S. Postal Service tells FOX4 mail that old likely wasn’t lost but picked up by someone at a flea market or antique shop and put back into the system. If there’s an address and postage, it’ll get delivered.
“It’s just fun realizing the families that have come before us and the history of this area and it gives it new meaning and it makes me happy to be able to give it to her,” Badgett said.
Badgett said they were originally going to frame the postcard and put in on the wall. Now, she hopes to give it to Stubbs in a few days.