In the spring of 1973, 14-year-old Diane Madden took her first big trip, to Washington, D.C., with her aunt, uncle and cousin. While she was there, Madden mailed a postcard to her grandparents, Byron and Katherine Abbott, who lived with Madden and her parents, Rocky and Carolyn Ferrante, on Parrott Street in South Portland.

Madden wrote about visiting the Washington Monument, the National Museum of Natural History and Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, and her plans to tour the White House and FBI headquarters.

“It was sort of like what a typical 14-year-old would write about,” said Madden.

Her grandparents never received the postcard, which depicted tourist spots around the nation’s capital, along with its famous cherry blossoms, and Madden forgot all about it. “I never knew they didn’t get it,” she said.

That is, until last week.

That’s when Chelsea Kearns, who now lives in the Parrott Street house where Madden’s grandparents lived, received the long-lost postcard in the mail.

“I haven’t had a postcard in years,” said Kearns.

Kearns pieced together who the sender, “Diane,” was with the help of her next-door neighbor Bruce Timberlake, who grew up on Parrott Street with Madden. Kearns and her husband Seth bought the house from the Ferrantes in 2013.

She sent Madden a message on Facebook, telling her that the postcard had finally been delivered.

For Kearns, receiving the postcard was exciting. “The journey in finding Diane, to return this piece of family history, was a special moment,” she said. “It reminds you of the importance of connection and the unexpected ways that the past can touch our present.”

Madden, a children’s book author and executive director of the Cancer Resource Center in Norway, said she was “completely floored” when she read Kearns’ Facebook message. Last week, she returned to her childhood home in South Portland to meet Kearns in person and collect the postcard.

The postcard had a Boston postmark dated May 12, 2025. It’s still unknown where it had been for 52 years.

Madden speculates it likely was forgotten in a dead letter office somewhere. But she is delighted to finally have it back, and said it now lives on her mantel. “It’s kind of surreal and kind of crazy,” she said.

Madden’s grandparents and parents have since died, but her uncle Charlie, who accompanied her to Washington 52 years ago, is in his 90s and lives in Kittery, as does Madden’s cousin Stephen Abbott, who also was on the D.C. trip. She said she can’t wait to share the story with them.