No one missed the postcard he sent in 1953. Until some strangers cracked a mystery 72 years in the making

By Lily Hautau, CNN

(CNN) — A postcard mailed from the United Nations headquarters in New York arrived at the post office in Ottawa, Illinois, in August.

It would have been unremarkable, except it had been postmarked at 8 p.m. — on June 17, 1953.

Postal officials believed the postcard, addressed to “Rev. F.E. Ball and family,” had been lost at the UN for the past 72 years and was only recently found and mailed, according to The Times (Ottawa).

By the time it resurfaced, though, the Ball family no longer lived at that address.

But Ottawa’s postmaster, Mark Thompson, couldn’t just toss it aside: It deserved to find its way home to its original recipient or a descendant.

Determined, Thompson began asking around.

Word spread, and local reporters picked up the story, intrigued by the mysterious sender who had signed the card, simply, “Alan.”

For Terry Carbone, genealogy became a retirement passion — and a way to help others, he said. So when he read about the postcard in the local newspaper, he knew it was his call to action. He reached out to the reporter, saying he “may be able to help.”

The LaSalle County Genealogy Guild also joined the search. Volunteers sifted through old newspaper clippings and archives, looking for mentions of “Rev. F.E. Ball” and “Alan” from the time the postcard was sent. Using resources at the Reddick Public Library, they uncovered key pieces of this mystery surrounding “Alan Ball.”

The search eventually pointed west. It seemed “Alan” could be Dr. Alan Ball, now 88 and retired more than 1,700 miles away in Sandpoint, Idaho.

A quick stop at the UN in New York

It had all started in 1953 when Ball took a train from Ottawa to New York, where he planned to hop a plane for Puerto Rico to spend the summer with his Aunt Mary. His family didn’t have much money, so he had spent a couple of years mowing lawns and shoveling snow to save for the trip.

Ball was excited to “experience a different language” and new customs. He described that time as “becoming an adult.” He was also a little nervous — this would be his first time on a plane.

With time to spare in New York before heading to the airport, he stopped at the brand-new United Nations Secretariat Building. There, he put a two-cent stamp on a postcard of the building and mailed it to his parents to let them know, “I made it as far as New York.”

Still at 88, Ball recalled his experiences in Puerto Rico fondly. He described the “jungle in the mountains” at Aunt May’s coffee plantation and said the trip was a “totally new” and “expanding” experience for him.

What he didn’t know was that the card he had sent home never reached his parents, instead vanishing into postal limbo.

‘Sorry it’s so late’

Then, one day last week, Ball got a call from Tom Collins, a journalist from The Times, telling him a postcard he may have sent in 1953 had been recovered.

“When I first heard about it. I think I just started laughing,” Ball said, adding it was so bizarre and unexpected.

When the postcard finally arrived, a Sandpoint postal worker handed it to him with a smile, saying, “Sorry it’s so late.”

Ball chuckled as he recalled the encounter, still astonished a card he had written as a teenager had resurfaced.

By the time the postcard was officially returned to sender, it had traveled at least 2,500 miles across the country — thanks to a postmaster, reporters and a team of genealogists brought it back to him, closing the loop on a message no one knew was missing.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2025 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.