Lost letter arrives 42 years late in Sonoma

Correspondence sent sizzling over WiFi is routine, but in a time not too far gone people sent something else: letters.

Originally, mail crossed over land in satchels by horseback, and traversed oceans in the damp holds of ships. These methods were inconsistent and took many months: news from distant places was never fresh.

But even the Pony Express was speedy compared to how long it took one letter to arrive in Sonoma recently. Last month, Janet Alexander found among the bills and advertisements in her mailbox a letter postmarked Nov. 15, 1977.

That’s a 42-year delivery timeline, an interval that begins with Jimmy Carter’s cardigans and stretches all the way to Donald Trump’s winter spray tan. For 42 years the letter had been lost in a mysterious and far place where time, apparently, stood still.

Postmarked from Port Clinton, Ohio, the letter originated from the local post on Rattlesnake Island, a curiously named vacation destination situated in the middle of Lake Erie.

“It’s my street address - Andrieux Street - but addressed to someone I don’t know,” Alexander said. “It’s not the person we bought this house from, I know that much.”

She had held the thin envelope up to the light, reluctant to simply tear the thing open. “I’d really like to find the person it’s addressed to, or their relatives, at least,” Alexander said.

The letter is addressed in elegant cursive (a style of writing likewise gone the way of old things) to: Standeven, Andrieux Street, Sonoma, Ca.

In the bottom left quadrant a trio of triangular stamps are clustered together in a loose pyramid, each featuring a different bird. The 20-cent stamp has a goldfinch at its center, the 30-cent stamp features an indigo bunting, and the 50-cent stamp is graced with a bright red cardinal, all standing on slim boughs as if poised for flight. The stamps are overlayed with a local post inkmark, and identified as a first day cover (FDC) – a significant designation for stamp collectors.

Stamp collecting, like snail mail and cursive handwriting, is rarely a young man’s game these days. But for those who pursue it, it’s a singular pleasure, governed by a lot of strange and arcane rules. So-called First Day Covers are more desirable than ordinary used covers, for instance, and First Day of Issue’s (FDOI’s) are better still.

Rare stamps can fetch astonishing sums, treasured for scarcity, printing snafus or innovation. The very first adhesive stamp, printed in 1840 and known as Penny Black, is valued today at $3,320. And the most valuable stamp in the world - the British Guiana 1C Magenta - was crafted when delivery of official stamps was delayed. That stamp, of which there is thought to be but one, is valued at nearly $10 million.

Several weeks after the letter’s delivery, in a display of restraint as uncommon today as real letters in mailboxes, Alexander still had not opened the envelope. “I’m pretty sure the envelope is empty, and the stamps belong to a collector,” she explained. “It just doesn’t feel like my place to open it.”

She tracked down her mail carrier, who remembered delivering the letter, but was otherwise unimpressed by the story. “She didn’t really have an opinion on where the letter had been for 42 years,” Alexander said.

An investigation by the Index-Tribune led to one Mario Gotelli, son of Verda Gotelli, nee Standeven, of Napa. “Yes, we lived on Andrieux Street,” Gotelli confirmed to the I-T by telephone. “But we moved from there in ’69.”

Was anyone in his family tree a stamp collector, by chance?

“Not as far as I know,” Gotelli said. Verda passed away at age 88, he explained, and he was now the last of his tribe.

He didn’t know anything about Rattlesnake Island, hadn’t been to Lake Erie, and was decidedly unmoved by the whole concept of stamp collection. And if the lost letter with the old stamps proved to be worth, as the Internet suggests, as much as $2,000?

“Welp,” Gotelli said cheerfully, “finders keepers, I guess.”

Alexander was out of town on vacation last week, and had not yet heard that a person with the same surname as the addressee had been found. Given her steadfast intention to track down its rightful heir, it’s a safe bet to assume Alexander will make contact with Gotelli.

Maybe she’ll even send him a letter.

Contact Kate at kate.williams@sonomnews.com.