81-year-old postcard from Ida makes its way back to sender's family

Sally (Henry) Kamprath of Rochester, New York, got a memorable Christmas present this year.

Late last week, as she sometimes does, Kamprath was surfing eBay for Monroe memorabilia. Both she and her husband, David, grew up in Monroe and still have family in the county.

“I put in ‘Monroe, Michigan,’ and see what comes up,” Kamprath said. “I was enjoying reading the postcards.”

This time, she found one of special interest.

“This one popped up. This is crazy,” Kamprath said.

The 81-year-old postcard was sent in 1941 by Margaret Kamprath of Ida, her husband’s grandmother.

The seller, who lives in California, priced the card and shipping at around $8.

“I told him the story. He refunded my money and told me, ‘Merry Christmas.’ He said it needs to go back to the family. Too sweet,” Kamprath said. “He said he just buys lots and didn’t really remember (where he got it).”

Margaret, who died in 2007 at age 93, lived in Ida and Dundee all her life. Her home is still in the Kamprath family. A homemaker, she was an organist at her church, East Ida Immanuel Lutheran, and a substitute organist at the former Lutheran Home. She had four sons with husband, Wilbert. Corresponding was one of her hobbies.

“She wrote to everyone (and had) many ‘pen pals.’ She was a prolific writer,” Kamprath said. “When we moved to New York state (around 1982), she wrote to us often.”

In the newly found card, Margaret, then 27, wrote to Mrs. O.P. McCurdy of Grand Island, Nebraska.

“I couldn’t find anyone left from that family tree,” Kamprath said.

The front of the full-color card says, “Greetings from Monroe, Michigan.”

“We don’t have large letter cards of Ida, but here is one of Michigan. Hope you will like it,” Margaret wrote on the postcard.

She then told Mrs. McCurdy she was collecting items for her “what-not shelf.” She asked Mrs. McCurdy for a souvenir from her town and offered to send something in exchange.

“I don’t know if she got anything back,” Kamprath said. “She had a really nice, side-by-side cabinet with glass in it. (The what-not shelf) could have been in there. I asked my father-in-law, and he didn’t know.”

Kamprath plans to keep the card in her collection.

“I bought some other Monroe ones. I just like the coloring on them,” she said.

Kamprath owns ReHouse Architectural Salvage Co. in New York. She frequently gets boxes containing items wrapped in newspaper and enjoys looking at the papers. She has found issues of the Detroit Free Press. A couple of years ago, she even found items wrapped in the Saturday, June 21, 1958, issue of The Monroe Evening News.

“There was an ad for churches. My home church had an ad in there,” Kamprath said. “The one I attended as a child, met my husband and was married.”

This article originally appeared on The Monroe News: 81-year-old postcard from Ida makes its way back to sender's family