I hope that someone gets my

September 5, 2023 7:34 AM

72 years ago in Iowa, a worker named Mary Foss wrote a message onto an egg. She put the egg into a carton and sent the carton out for distribution. Last month, someone responded.
posted by gauche (34 comments total)

An amazing story. How cool.
posted by Windopaene at 7:46 AM on September 5, 2023 [2 favorites]

What a lovely and cool story. The randomness of how we communicate through time and distance is always interesting to see. Leads to so many wonderful stories and connections.
posted by Fizz at 7:55 AM on September 5, 2023

Sweet story! Good title choice.
posted by praemunire at 8:00 AM on September 5, 2023 [9 favorites]

I did the same thing with a paper airplane that I threw out of the 23rd floor of the Chrysler Building in 1996. I don't live at that address anymore, so I doubt I'll hear back.
posted by grumpybear69 at 8:07 AM on September 5, 2023 [3 favorites]

Nthing great story. I wonder if the first person who got the egg tried to contact her. It's not mentioned, and it seems strange that they wouldn't have tried. Although I get finding people in 1951 was likely more challenging than in 2023.
posted by Gorgik at 8:28 AM on September 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

Nice story and glad she was still alive - that must of been quite the trip down memory lane. Seems like a good candidate story for Storycorps.

Also a future AskMeFi "can I still eat this?" post
posted by inflatablekiwi at 8:29 AM on September 5, 2023 [8 favorites]

I'll send an S.O.S to the world
I'll send an S.O.S to the world
I hope that someone gets my
I hope that someone gets my
I hope that someone gets my message on an eggo, yeah
posted by bigendian at 8:30 AM on September 5, 2023 [8 favorites]

posted by bigendian

eponysterical.
posted by moonmilk at 8:38 AM on September 5, 2023 [9 favorites]

In addition to the beautiful unlikeliness of the core story, I appreciated the brief aside about other antique eggs. I had never heard eggs could end up preserved through drying before.
posted by EvaDestruction at 8:43 AM on September 5, 2023 [4 favorites]

Ukrainian Easter eggs are so preserved.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 9:20 AM on September 5, 2023 [4 favorites]

Ah, the good old Facebook to WaPo content mill. Glad to see it's still chugging away.

(Kidding aside, that's a great story!)
posted by slogger at 9:25 AM on September 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

Beautiful!
posted by riverlife at 9:54 AM on September 5, 2023

Ukrainian Easter eggs are so preserved.

I took a class in making them from a Ukrainian elder in my hometown and she taught us to poke tiny holes in the egg and blow the insides out.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:18 AM on September 5, 2023 [4 favorites]

Egg shells are already porous so I think the Ukrainian hole-poking trick is just to speed up the drying process. Otherwise you have to wait for a few decades like the egg signed by Mary Foss.
posted by axiom at 10:20 AM on September 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

Entirely charming story, but did they really have to make her pose with a flat of eggs for her photo at the end of the article? Like, if she didn't have those eggs, we wouldn't know who she was?

Oh, and blowing eggs for decorating is totally easy. Two holes, one at either end, one hole slightly larger, blow into the small hole and the entire egg contents should come out the other hole. When I was a kid decorating easter eggs, we'd do special eggs for keeping that were blown. We'd often cover up the holes with the circles made by a paper hole punch, but that's not always necessary.
posted by hippybear at 10:36 AM on September 5, 2023 [5 favorites]

Although I get finding people in 1951 was likely more challenging than in 2023.

In 1950, Forest City had a population of 2,545. I bet if he had simply addressed his letter to “Mary Foss, Forest City, IA” she would have received it!
posted by ejs at 10:40 AM on September 5, 2023 [10 favorites]

Goodness knows, I think you can just write "jessamyn, VT" and it will get to her.
posted by hippybear at 10:41 AM on September 5, 2023 [8 favorites]

My mom was a small town postmaster when I was a kid, and she sorted mail by name without ever looking at the addresses. Our town was considerably smaller than Forest City, but absent a clash of names -- which is fairly likely even in a small town because Mary is such a common name and families often stayed put -- there's a very good chance it would have gotten to her assuming the USPS got it to the right post office in the first place. We had the problem that there was more than one Bear Lake to go around and we sometimes got mail meant for the other ones.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:45 AM on September 5, 2023 [8 favorites]

Stories like this make me wonder whatever happened to that glove from the intro to Laverne & Shirley….
posted by kimota at 11:00 AM on September 5, 2023 [7 favorites]

The egg, a symbol of life
posted by Saxon Kane at 11:13 AM on September 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

I took a class in making them from a Ukrainian elder in my hometown and she taught us to poke tiny holes in the egg and blow the insides out.

I have a Ukranian egg that I made in grade 6 that is completely dried out now - the lady who taught me learned from her mother in law to dye them full. And I have a few that I've made recently in the intervening years that are on their way to successfully drying out. However, I have had more than a few leak, and some even pop themselves open (and since I keep them contained, the mess was minimal... the smell not so great though).

Now I take a page from a lady I've watched on TikTok and I cover the finished egg completely with wax (from beeswax candle leftovers) before blowing the insides out. Then I melt the wax off. Dying them full is just easier because you don't have to rig up some contraption to hold them down in the dye.
posted by eekernohan at 11:38 AM on September 5, 2023 [2 favorites]

I took a class in making them from a Ukrainian elder in my hometown and she taught us to poke tiny holes in the egg and blow the insides out.

Yes, this is what I remember learning about from a picture book, maybe? A kids' craft book? Something like that, when I was young. Blowing out the eggs to keep the shell.
posted by EvaDestruction at 12:01 PM on September 5, 2023

Yeah, which part of "Please write me" was confusing
posted by tigrrrlily at 1:03 PM on September 5, 2023 [5 favorites]

I never bothered to poke holes in my Ukrainian eggs in case I broke any, I was told they would just dry out inside naturally.

That said, it's impressive it lasted THIS long, too.
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:05 PM on September 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

Beats Markle and the notes on bananas
posted by Ideefixe at 3:17 PM on September 5, 2023

Someone needs to buy her this hat
posted by boilermonster at 4:33 PM on September 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

I'm having trouble fathoming the thought processes of somebody who would respond to finding an egg with a contact request on it by putting it away in a box.

Does that behaviour strike anybody else as deeply weird?
posted by flabdablet at 10:21 PM on September 5, 2023 [4 favorites]

Yes, that bothers me, as does the hole it leaves in the story by remaining unaddressed.
posted by tovarisch at 12:30 AM on September 6, 2023

I'm getting the vibe that Miller Richardson thought the egg-o-gram was cute and corny, but didn't actually want to take it any further by following up.
posted by Scram at 12:40 AM on September 6, 2023

HELP
I AM BEING HELD PRISONER
INSIDE THIS CHICKEN
posted by flabdablet at 12:52 AM on September 6, 2023 [9 favorites]

I'm having trouble fathoming the thought processes of somebody who would respond to finding an egg with a contact request on it by putting it away in a box.

I'm not. Writing to a stranger was unappealing to the guy so he skipped it. That seems fair to me. One is not obligated to become a penpal because someone has made that request. The baffling thing to me is that someone kept the egg at all and then passed it along. In any care, nice post gauche. Thank you!
posted by Bella Donna at 2:42 AM on September 6, 2023 [2 favorites]

I'm having trouble fathoming the thought processes of somebody who would respond to finding an egg with a contact request on it by putting it away in a box.

This may sound flippant, but it ended up on Staten Island. Staten Island is weird. My wife is from there.
posted by mikelieman at 8:04 AM on September 6, 2023 [1 favorite]

Goodness knows, I think you can just write "jessamyn, VT" and it will get to her.

Try it and see!
posted by jgirl at 1:07 PM on September 7, 2023

Mod note: [btw, this post has been added to the sidebar and Best Of blog]
posted by taz (staff) at 11:27 PM on September 9, 2023 [2 favorites]