Mother’s Day card arrives 38 years late

by Dennis Dalman

editor@thenewsleaders.com

Ann Janski of Rice would have been so happy to receive a Mother’s Day card from Jeannie, one of her daughters, but the sad fact is the card arrived 38 years after the day it was sent, 23 year’s after Ann’s passing.

While sorting mail, postal worker Lori Wolf came across a bright buttercup-yellow envelope addressed simply to:

Mrs. Ann Janski

Rice, Minnesota 56367

Also on the card was a quickly scrawled question mark by the address.

That day, when Crash Janski popped in to pick up his daily mail, Wolf asked him if he knew which Janski the letter was meant for. He said he’d ask his sister; she’d know. His sister did. Yes, Ann was Steve Janski’s mother.

Crash, a long-time Rice auto mechanic, is a first cousin of the Delmer and Ann Janski family.

The post office called Steve Janski, who then came to the post office.

He was startled when he picked up the envelope. On the upper left was the return address: Urbandale, Ill.

A stamp was on the upper right.

Janski did a quick double-take after he saw the stamp – a 15-cent stamp depicting renowned Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. It was then he realized just how old the piece of mail must be.

Opening the envelope, he discovered a bright fold-out card all gussied up with butterflies and daisies. The card said, “For You on Mother’s Day.” It was signed “Jeannie, Paul, Gigi, Cindy, Tom, Scott.”

Janski then knew it was a card from one of his older sisters, Jeannie, who had passed on in 2010. Inside the card was a letter from Jeannie, telling about the nasty ear infections the two boys, Tom and Scott, had been suffering. The words to her mother hint of homesickness, and Jeannie mentions how loved ones can become so out-of-touch due to long distance.

Janski is eager to photocopy the contents and send them to Jeannie’s husband, Paul, who, Janski is certain, will be just as amazed as he is.

Rice Postmaster Matt Fountain also shares Janski’s sense of wonder at such an old card come to light after so many years. Fountain has two theories about the late delivery. The card, he said, might have become stuck in or behind a machine or other object in transit, possibly at the Minneapolis Processing Facility and then found years later when the machine or object was moved.

Fountain recalled how, when he was a mail deliverer in Elk River, he found a five-year-old Christmas card that had been stuck behind a communal mail box in an apartment building.

Another theory, Fountain surmised, is the card might have been delivered to some other address and was put aside, forgotten, until recently when someone in that house found it in a pile of saved items, realized it wasn’t meant for anybody there, then put it in a postal box.

The answer, of course, will forever remain a mystery.

Janski was so intrigued that, back home, he decided to do some sleuthing of his own. Online, he learned the 15-cent U.S. stamp was initiated May 29, 1978, after that year’s Mother’s Day. So Janski knew sister Jeannie must have sent the card in mid-May 1979 or maybe mid-May 1980. That’s because the cost of a U.S. postage stamp increased to 18 cents in March 1981. Thus, the card was sent from Urbandale, Ill. 37 or 38 years ago.

“Well, better late than never,” Janski quipped, grinning.

Janski is the owner of Janski’s Grocery in downtown Rice, one of the oldest – if not the oldest – family-owned groceries in Minnesota. His father, Delmer, bought if from its owner in 1952. Delmer also ran the printing press for the St. Cloud Daily Times, and so his wife, Ann, ran the store in his absence. When Delmer passed on in 1977, Steve Janski bought the store from his mother. Steve’s brother, Joe, is still the manager of the old-fashioned wood-floored store, which gives off the nostalgic vibes of yesteryears – just like the haunting vibes emitted from a 38-year-old Mother’s Day card, so late delivered.