When a Georgia woman found a letter in her mailbox dating back to 1967, she immediately jumped online to track down the family.
“Y’all…. This crazy/beautiful thing just happened today,” wrote Tene Tucker on Facebook. “I got home after vacation going through my mail and saw this letter that was ‘Returned to sender’… had my address (I have marked out), and it was postmarked from Aug 15, 1967!!!!! 1967!?!?”
The letter, written by Mrs. Betty Hayes of Scottsdale, GA, was addressed to Marvin Armistead, who had been stationed at the Air Force base in New Jersey.
“Hi son, how are you today?” wrote Hayes. “I got your letter and was glad to get it.”
The letter goes on to say how proud she is of her “son” and that she plans to save the money he has been sending so he has a cushion when he gets home.
“And remember,” she concluded, “nobody can be more proud of you. My little boy, who is making himself into a great man.”
After sharing the story online, Tucker soon learned that the woman who wrote the letter was still alive.
“She took the time to tell her son she loves him, she was proud of him and what was going on in their lives,” she told WSB-TV2. You can’t get those memories all the time, especially in writing.”
In an update on Facebook, Tucker wrote that Betty Hayes was the first owner of the house where she raised her children as well as her sister’s son, Marvin Armstead, who was only three-years-old when his mother passed away.
“Mrs. Hays and Marvin both have Alzheimer’s and Marvin has been missing for about 10 years now,” she added, sharing a screen-shot of her first meeting with the daughter of Mrs. Hayes after WSB-TV aired the story. “They do not know where he is. So they would love to continue the search to find him.”
Though Tucker is hopeful that finding and sharing this letter may be the key to locating Armstead, a private investigator has offered to help track him down.
“He’s been lost/missing, and the family has been searching on their own for years,” she wrote. “Please keep this family in your thoughts and pray that he is found. That would be the best ending to this story.”