Special Delivery: Morgan Park Community Tracks Down Recipient of Letter Which Arrived 68 Years Late

The 68-year journey of a letter from Copenhagen, to Duluth and soon to its intended recipient's family in Ohio.

DULUTH, Minn.- With the help of social media and the community, one Morgan Park resident was able to learn more about the history of her house, while helping the previous residents reconnect with a lost loved one.

“Tuesday night I was making dinner, the mail arrived as usual,” said Susan Nordin.

After just moving to Morgan Park in October Nordin found new meaning to the neighborhood’s slogan “Historic Past, Bright Future.”

“And I looked at it just like this and I said oh, it’s from Copenhagen, and it’s from 1953!” she said.

A nearly 70-year-old letter showed up in her mailbox addressed to Mr. And Mrs. Ed Nelson. “And so the date was only 5 years after the house was built, it was built in 1948,” said Nordin.

To find out more about this old form of communication she went to the tool people use nowadays — the Facebook page of the Morgan Park Community.

“Being able to use the communication we have now, we were able to track it down within two days, where it should go,” Susan said.

With the help of fellow Morgan Park residents, Susan got in touch with Ed Nelson’s granddaughter.

“The rallying of the community and their excitement and enthusiasm and collaboration on this, it was like a community puzzle to figure out,” she said, “and we did.”

Taking Connie Anderholm by surprise — who didn’t think anything would bring her back to Morgan Park from her home in Ohio.

“It was kinda nice I remember when my Grandmother passed my mother inherited the house, she sold it, and then I thought well, that’s the end of an era,” she said.

So, what’s the letter about?

Connie explained it announced the birth of her brother Jim, when her father was deployed in Germany and on a trip with her mother in Copenhagen.

“She went into premature labor and she delivered my brother in a post-WWII civilian Danish hospital. I understand he weighed 4 lbs. at the time that was in 1953,” said Anderholm, “and he survived.”

Thanks to the miraculous birth, the siblings shared quite a few memories at their grandparents’ home in Duluth.

It also provided Susan with an explanation as to why “Jim and Connie” were engraved on her back steps.

“My grandpa Ed did that I’m pretty sure,” Connie said, “he was paving, he did, he made, he did everything on that house he built the house himself.”

It means even more to her to get the letter back about her brother’s birth — after his recent death.

“He did pass away last August,” she said. “I’ve just had a real strong urge to call him about this and I know he’d get a kick of out of it.”

“I messaged his daughter, my niece, and she called me and said I can’t stop crying,” said Anderholm.

When speaking to us Sunday, Susan said she planned on sending the letter to Connie within a day or so.

She says she couldn’t have made the reunion happen without the help of her new community.

“I think just again a dark time of the year and brightening people’s days of giving all of us in the community something to focus on that’s positive that we know would uplift another person,” said Nordin. “And all of us, we all were uplifted by this.”

And to Connie, it’s a delivery that will make her holidays very happy. “It’s a pretty good Christmas gift.”

“We were still licking our wounds from his loss and it’ll be a nice piece of family history. I’m sure the letter won’t get lost again,” she said.