By DAVID HENCH
Staff Writer Saturday, April 7, 2007

Staff Writer

Cullen Fletcher spotted the mail carrier's puzzled expression and offered to help him find the right office for the yellowed envelope.

Then he noticed the metered postmark -- Sept. 1, 1943 -- and the postage - three cents.

The letter bore no addressee and was being returned to sender more than 63 years after it was mailed by the Maine Branch, New York Life, an insurance company that then occupied offices at 415 Congress St.

Fletcher, who manages the building for Harper's Development, was intrigued.

"It looked like it got stuck in a machine," he said, pointing out black scuff marks and the crumpled edge of the envelope.

It's not clear where the letter has been hiding since the days of World War II, Glenn Miller and Rosie the Riveter. Portland postal officials were unaware of the letter. But its return last month to the address from which it was sent six decades ago is sparking a degree of curiosity and nostalgia.

The letter may not have been inserted properly by the sender, since no name shows through the clear cellophane on the face of the envelope. It appears to have been part of a bulk mailing. Inside, is a brochure entitled "Important Life Insurance Needs," with a black and white image of a well-coiffed woman clutching an infant. The brochure encourages young men to provide for the financial security of their wives and young children by purchasing life insurance.

It was a topic that surely resonated with the legions of young men shipping off to fight in Europe or the Pacific.

Interested customers were to return the brochure, with the company paying the two cent return postage.

Mary McDonough, of Portland, was a teenager working at New York Life when the mailing would have gone out.

"New York Life was number one in the whole country," said McDonough, 82, who went to work as a secretary for the insurer at 415 Congress St. in 1942. "When the agents came to work there, they couldn't have a side job."

The mail carrier who showed up at 415 Congress with the letter two weeks ago had considered delivering it to the insurance company now in 415 Congress, a Fidelity Mutual Insurance office run by Bill Horner. Horner, 87 and in the process of retiring, remembers New York Life as one of three insurance companies that rented there when he opened his office 51 years ago.

"It was kind of a big operation," he said, noting that there was a lot of turnover in the sales force. "They hired guys and then they would leave."

The errant mail didn't apparently hurt the company's fortunes. New York Life remains an insurance fixture in Portland and it's offices have since moved to One City Center.