Iowa man receives postcard mailed 33 years earlier

May 7 (UPI) -- An Iowa man who received a postcard from his sister said he was surprised to note the card had been mailed in 1987.

Paul Willis, a hog farmer in Thornton, said a postcard appeared in his mailbox recently from his sister, Annie Lovell, and he soon noticed the card bore a picture of Lovell on a Grand Canyon hike in 1987 -- and a San Francisco postmark from December of that same year.

Willis said the postcard bore a second postmark from April 29 of this year in Des Moines, so he called the post office to see if they had any explanation for the postcard's tardiness.

"She said, 'Well, the post offices are all going through deep cleaning because of COVID-19,' " Willis told the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat.

The employee said the postcard may have been discovered while furniture and machines were being moved for cleaning.

An Illinois woman experienced a similar incident in July 2019, when a postcard showed up at her home that had been mailed 26 years earlier. Kim Draper said the card was addressed to the previous residents of her Springfield home and recounted the residents' father's travels in Hong Kong.