REACHED FOR COMMENT...:

The postcard, faded and weathered, has a postmark dated Oct. 29, 1920, and a green stamp of George Washington, priced 1 cent.

Its message is written in cursive, its front shows a witch and a goose wearing a pumpkin on its head, and its address is to a Mrs. Roy McQueen in Belding, Mich. It took almost a century to be delivered.

The postcard's arrival this week has baffled Brittany Keech, the Belding resident who found it in her mailbox with some bills and junk mail, and set her off on a new mystery -- how to find the intended recipient, or any of the person's living relatives.

"When I first saw it, I thought, 'This is old,'" recalled Ms. Keech, 30, in an interview Thursday. "I was shocked. Why is this here all of the sudden?"

She added, "I would love to be able to get it to a relative who is alive."

The postcard is a personal family letter, providing the kind of quick update one might send in a text message or in a social media post today. It has a Halloween theme, featuring the gray-haired witch, the goose, an owl, a bat and cat with a broom. It also has a pun: "'Witch' would you rather be ... a goose or a pumpkin head?"

Tweet   @brothersjudd