Also possible that there may have been multiple in the household if so many were printed and mailed out? Maybe they turned the real one in for the prize money and then kept a non-winning one in a scrap book? Memories over time are weird so they could’ve convinced themselves that they kept the real one
I mean, it’s pretty well documented how awful Christopher Columbus was. Even in the context of the time period: he was arrested in the new world and shipped back to Spain for a trial because he was so ruthless in his treatment of the native peoples. The myths about him being a ‘great man’ are all only like 100 years old.