Heartwarming Stories in the COVID-19 Epidemic: A postcard 75 years late-BBC News

The recipient is: Miss F. Kay.

There was a neat line written on the postcard: To our lovely little granddaughter. I wish you a happy birthday. I wish happiness and peace in the future!

Stu Prince is 62 years old and lives with his wife Kim in the town of Crewe, Cheshire, south of Manchester City in central England. Since he started collecting postcards from auction sites, he has accumulated thousands of them. But this postcard made him feel special.

So he opened a page on Facebook, posted the picture of the postcard, and asked if anyone could help the postcard return to the owner who was only one year old. He was not so much expecting results at the time as he was holding a glimmer of hope. Then he didn’t think about it anymore.

But soon after, he received a message: “I found this child.”

In 2019, Situ was diagnosed with leukemia. He said: “That is to do high-dose chemotherapy.” He didn’t know whether the treatment was effective, and he didn’t expect that chemotherapy would have such a side effect and consume so much energy.

Before he became ill, he could walk eight kilometers a day. Since retiring, he has been enthusiastic about affairs in the community, arranging to organize carnivals in the town and so on. But the chemotherapy made him exhausted, and he didn’t have the strength to stand up while sitting on the sofa at home. In March 2020, the UK began its first round of isolation. Stu must be strictly isolated from the outside world at home because of his physical condition.

He knew he needed to distract his attention and do something that didn’t require physical strength but kept him busy. One day, while browsing old letters and items for sale on the Internet, he found a pile of old postcards on eBay. The earliest postcards were from 1900.

He said: “I think these are very wonderful, they are all kinds, and they are all left by someone’s ancestors.” Some postcards function like modern people’s mobile phone text messages, such as thanking the host for Sunday dinner or Let relatives know they will pass by the next day. More often, postcards express the affection between relatives and friends.

Stu has always been interested in genealogy, so he had an idea: why not find the owners of these postcards and their relatives, and let the postcards return to their original owners?

He said: “My family has handed down very few things to me, only a few photos. I think if I do this for others, I can’t imagine how they will feel.”

“These postcards can give you a deeper understanding of your loved ones, don’t they? Compared to those cold census data, we should know much more and deeper things from such a postcard.”

In this way, Stu established a group called “Postcards for Family Reunion” on Facebook, and began to take pictures of postcards and send them out, six at a time.

Soon, this page has accumulated a number of fans. At first, people will “like” this page, paying attention to whether any postcards he publishes are related to them.

Soon, Stu’s family collected more than 2,000 postcards. He said: “There are thousands of postcards on various auction websites, all with addresses and names.”

But finding the owner of these postcards is a very heavy task for him.

Stu said: “I don’t even have the strength to walk to the bright window to take pictures of postcards. In the early days, I myself needed someone to take care of it.”

However, Stu was lucky. In the fan team on his Facebook page, a small team of volunteers volunteered to help him.

He said: “These people in charge of research have shared a lot of work for me. I am very grateful for that. I can do it with these helpers.”

Christina Barrett, 70, was a former Royal Chartered Accountant. She lives in Bushey, Hertfordshire, and now she spends a lot of time singing and participating in amateur performances. Family tree has been a hobby of her for the past 20 years, so when she accidentally saw Stu’s Facebook page, she immediately paid special attention.

A few years ago, an unknown stranger suddenly contacted her and said that in their private collection of postcards, one of her postcards was sent to her mother by her late father in the 1980s.

She said: “I didn’t expect that someone would have worked so hard to find my contact information and email me to let me know about this. When I got this postcard, I really thought it was too precious.”

“I know how I feel, and I think this is my starting point and motivation to help others. That feeling is why I am willing to spend time looking for the descendants of the postcard recipient.”

Christina said that she must resist the temptation to not delve into every postcard she found. She tried to focus on the postcards that should not be too difficult to find the owner. Usually the names on these postcards are very special and the addresses are clear.

Then, she went to find the census records, as well as birth and marriage registration. She said that these are important sources of information, and the British Library is another important source of information, where there are digital editions of local newspapers.

“The daily column in the local newspapers is to record births, marriages, deaths, weddings and funerals, telling you who attended the wedding, what is the relationship between them, and maybe even what they do. These are what local newspapers like to publish. thing.”

She said: “Now, you won’t see these anymore. This is a loss for the local newspapers, and perhaps also a loss for future historians, because this type of record will no longer appear. “

However, Christina was not the only one who helped Stu find someone related to the postcard.

There are often hundreds of replies under each postcard that Stu posts on Facebook. He said: “It gives people a sense of prosperity in the community, and people support each other.”

Stu said that he has about six volunteers who are very active in helping, and there are more new enthusiasts. He estimates that since he opened his Facebook page in 2020, hundreds of postcards have found their homes.

Every time I find the recipient of the postcard, the result is very satisfying.

Stu first contacted a volunteer who helped with the research and said that she had found Miss F. Kaye from London, who was the one-year-old baby whom the postcard was sent to in 1946; Stu received another email shortly after. , Which read: “That postcard is for me, and I am the baby.”

Frimet Carr, formerly named Kay. When she saw this postcard, her face was full of smiles. The postcard was wrapped in plastic by Stu and sandwiched between the cardboard, looking like new.

Before London’s lockdown, 75-year-old Flimett lived in the Eggville area of ​​North London. Every week she plays bridge with her husband and friends, and many old friends around her often get together.

During the epidemic, she had to face the cruel reality that her old friends died one after another. During the lockdown period, the number of funerals was limited, and she could not even attend the funerals of many old friends.

It was in such sadness that she received good news. “I received a text message from my daughter-in-law, saying that someone had contacted her and asked her if she knew me.”

The contact person is the volunteer helper of Stu’s Facebook page. The volunteer said that once it was confirmed that the F on the postcard was Flimet, it would be easier to find it, because this name is rare in the UK. They told her that Stu had a postcard sent to her.

She said: “This is simply amazing.”

This postcard was sent by her grandparents. At that time, she lived with her parents at her grandparents’ home.

Frimet’s grandparents were Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe, and they could not write English. Flimett could tell that grandparents must have asked someone for help to write such a postcard. “Obviously my aunt wrote it, and I recognize her handwriting very accurately.”

This postcard awakens the memory of a distant era. Flimett’s grandparents passed away about 50 years ago.

Frimet recalled: “My grandmother was very skilled in cooking. I remember she was always busy at the stove. She could put three dishes on the dinner table when others made a cup of tea.”

“My grandma is more like a lady and noblewoman. She is more educated and smarter, but she doesn’t know how to cook at all. Grandma’s home is much richer, and the two families are quite different.”

Flimett wanted to know how this postcard came to the online auction from her family. She remembers that when her grandparents died, she helped clean their house.

“We were thinking about whether or not to keep this, but I don’t remember any of these things in her house. It’s amazing, this postcard is like passing time.”

I found that this postcard is more meaningful to her because she has very little record of her family history.

She said: “I can’t even check their genealogy. They are from Eastern Europe, but many of the records there have been erased.”

She told the younger generation to take advantage of the older relatives who are still asking more about their previous stories.

Stu is still recovering, and he said that his physical strength is gradually recovering. He is particularly proud of this achievement on the Facebook page.

He said: “I just want to do something. Someone will come in and do it together. I am very grateful for that and thank them for supporting me.”

He said: “This is also part of my physical recovery. It really makes me feel useful. For anyone recovering from leukemia or cancer, it is important to feel useful. I don’t know how to describe this important. Sex is good.”

“I’m in a great mood. I feel that I am amazing. I have done very good things and very valuable things from the predicament. I feel very good about this. I feel very good about myself. It has been a long time. For the first time since.”