Letter mailed in 1945 finally makes it to soldier's family

It took 76 years for Army Sgt. John Gonsalves' letter to his mother to arrive, yet it seemed to show up at just the right time for the rest of his family.

Gonsalves penned the note on Dec. 6, 1945, while stationed in Germany after World War II. The 22-year-old wrote that he was doing "fine and getting along okay. But as far as the food, it's pretty lousy most of the time." The letter was supposed to go to his mother's house in Woburn, Massachusetts, but it got lost on the way, and was found last year at a U.S. Postal Service distribution facility in Pittsburgh. Workers there vowed to track down the Gonsalves family and finally deliver the letter.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.