The Rural Letter Carrier~Sherri Easley

 When I was growing up on the farm back in east Texas, many years ago, entertainment was in short supply. Because of this, I searched for it in unusual places. 

One of my favorite people was Mr. Purcell, who delivered mail on our rural route. I often waited for him in our front yard. Nothing was more exciting than seeing his little blue Volkswagen bug coming down the blacktop. 

Occasionally, my anticipation was rewarded when he called me over to his car, face beaming with his gap tooth grin and gray hair, just to show me a box of strawberry plants or baby chicks or something else out of the norm that he was delivering to someone in our community. 

Because of this special bond with our letter carrier, it was not shocking when I read a story recently about children being sent through the mail system in the early 1900s. 

When Parcel Post began on January 1, 1913, regulations about what you could and couldn’t send through the mail were vague. People immediately started testing its limits by mailing eggs, bricks, snakes and other unusual “packages.” 

In a few documented cases, those unusual “packages” were children. With stamps attached to their clothing, they rode trains to their destinations, accompanied by letter carriers. 

In one article: Vernon O. Lytle, mail carrier on rural route No. 5, is the first man to accept and deliver under parcel post conditions a live baby. The baby, a boy weighing 10-3/4 pounds, just within the 11 pound weight limit, is the child of Mr. and Mrs. Jesse Beagle of Glen Este. The boy was well wrapped and ready for “mailing” when the carrier received him to-day. Mr. Lytle delivered the boy safely at the address on the card attached, that of the boy’s grandmother, Mrs. Louis Beagle, who lives about a mile distant. The postage was fifteen cents and the parcel was insured for $50.

A year later, the Times reported a similar instance of a small boy’s being shipped by his grandmother from Stratford, Oklahoma, to an aunt in Wellington, Kansas, via Parcel Post:

Mrs. E. H. Staley of this city received her two-year-old nephew by parcel post to-day from his grandmother in Stratford, Okla., where he had been left for a visit three weeks ago. The boy wore a tag about his neck showing it had cost 18 cents to send him through the mails. He was transported 25 miles by rural route before reaching the railroad. He rode with the mail clerks, shared his lunch with them and arrived here in good condition.

After several instances of children being transported by Parcel Post were reported in the press, the Post Office finally clamped down on such occurrences for good, with the Times reporting that:

“Children may not be transported as parcel post, First Assistant Postmaster General Koons has ruled in passing upon two applications received at the Washington City Post Office for the transportation of children through the mails.Mr. Koons said children did not come within the classification of harmless live animals which do not require food or water while in transit.” 

Most people reading this story will not understand the context that letter carriers were well-known and beloved friends in our community and not strangers like many are today. 

Even though the postal service rules changed long before I was born, I have to admit it would have been great to see a baby or two in the front seat of that VW bug.