Sandpoint, Idaho, mail carrier Ben with Alan Ball. Chole Cochran/Bonner County Daily Bee

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.

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