MILFORD - A pair of postcards addressed to a girl at Camp Mack arrived at the Milford Post Office Monday, 71 years late.
Camp employee Lana Kauffman said when she arrived at the post office to pick up the camp's mail as usual, post office workers said they had something unusual for her - two postcards postmarked 1937."They had saved them for me at the window," Kauffman said. "I turned them over and I saw who they were from, and it was just really exciting."
Both cards were addressed to Betty Schultz. One was from her father, Lawrence "L.W." Shultz, the first director of Camp Mack from 1925 to 1956. The second was from Delbert, possibly a camper at Camp Mack in the late 1930s.
Shultz, whose last name is now Kilinski, is a retired teacher who lives in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. Reached by telephone today, Kilinski said she is excited to read the messages her father and her friend wrote to her when she was 13 years old. In those days, Kilinski said, she spent her summers helping her family run Camp Mack.
Camp Mack Office Manager Phyllis Leininger mailed the cards (in an envelope this time) to Kilinski Tuesday and hopes they will arrive by Thursday, Kilinski's 84th birthday.
The postcard from Shultz is postmarked from Hershey, Pa. Kilinski said her father regularly left Camp Mack for a week each summer to attend an annual church conference. She said she suspects he was there when he sent her the card. She said she often received postcards from her father who traveled often in the U.S. and leading tours in Europe.
"He would always send me cards," she said. "He was a writer."
Shultz died in 1982. The postcard he sent his daughter has a picture of Hershey Park and carries a short message asking how his daughter and family are doing, and sharing an experience he had while traveling.
Kilinski said she knew a camper at Camp Mack named Delbert. The card signed "Delbert" is postmarked from Denver, Colo., and has a picture of Rocky Mountain National Park. Kilinski said Delbert may be the same one she knew at Camp Mack.
"I have no idea until I actually see them," she said. "I'll be eager to see what comes in the mail tomorrow."
Milford Acting Postmaster Mike Hawkins said he can't remember his office ever receiving an item as late as the two post cards.
"My clerk was sorting mail and she said, 'Look at the postmark on this.' You don't see that kind of mail come into your post office very often," Hawkins said. "That was kind of neat. I'm glad we got them delivered."
Hawkins said he is not sure what took the cards so long to arrive at Milford. He said they may have gotten lost somewhere in a larger post office.
Hawkins said he waived the postage due on the tardy cards. "The one-penny stamps on them are enough," he said. "In 1937, that's all it cost."
Kauffman said, when she returned to Camp Mack from the post office Monday, her co-workers were as excited as she was.
"Their eyes just got huge as I was explaining what had happened at the post office," she said.
Kauffman said she is especially excited that Kilinski may get the cards in time for her birthday.
"I think what made it really exciting was that we knew the people involved and their connection to Camp Mack," Kauffman said. "That was just icing on the cake."
