Country mail routes in the 1930’s were designated RFD (Rural Free Delivery), but the “free” applied only to delivery. Postage cost two cents per letter, raised to three cents soon after our move. The post office became our lifeline, strengthening our family ties and supplying many of our physical needs.
Before leaving, Daddy had sharpened several pencils for us. He always followed the same method: Holding the end of the pencil against his right thumb — with deft precision, he guided the blade of his pearl-handled pocket knife, peeling off paper thin wood shavings and graphite powder, until it formed a perfect point. He made it look so easy. Part of his secret was keeping a razor sharp blade, which he pursued with the same rigor. Spitting on the whetstone, he held the blade at a low angle to the stone, and moved it slowly in a smooth circular motion on both sides, until it would easily slice through a piece of paper held upright.
We wrote our first letters the day after he left. As soon as the supper dishes were done, mother cleared the table, and set out our lined paper tablets and freshly sharpened pencils. John, at seven years, wrote the shortest letter. I was not only older, but talking and writing were my personal specialties (more appreciated at some times than others), so mine was considerably longer.
The next morning we walked out to meet the mailman — well ahead of the time we had been told he usually came by. Mother carried the envelope containing our three letters. Without a mailbox, the only way we could send or receive mail was to meet him. After what seemed like an interminable wait, we saw a cloud of dust, and heard the approaching sound of his car engine. We handed him our envelope — fervently hoping he would have something for us — but there was nothing.
We learned that there were actually two routes serving our stretch of road, one from Park Rapids, and the other from Nevis, a town of less than 300, which was about seven miles away. The routes went in opposite directions, and each served only mailboxes on one side of the road. We could choose either one, or both, depending on the placement of our boxes. The mailmen were very considerate, but had to follow strict regulations. They had two options for delivering mail — either deliver it to a post-office-approved box, or leave it with a family member. We had only a post — leaning at an angle — on which to mount a mailbox…
Undeterred, we were out with another set of letters the following day. John wrote of finding tiger lilies, a wild larkspur, and cat-tails; I told him about getting sunburned, and dressing the cat up in a doll’s dress. Mother described sawing wood with the bucksaw, and cleaning up the front yard. She also asked Daddy to send up a washboard and some gloves, and suggested mailing us fresh vegetables — except on the weekend when they would have to stay in the post office until Monday morning. Also John needed two new pairs of overalls… The mailman had nothing for us. Again.
In her next letter Mother wrote, “We are worried about you.” We had no way of knowing if he had even made the trip back to Minneapolis safely. After almost a week, we finally received three letters on the same day. We realized later that the delay was probably due to confusion over the two mail routes. Two of his letters were delivered by the Park Rapids postman, and the other came via Nevis.
The day after he wrote his first letters to us, Daddy addressed this note to the Nevis mailman:
Dear Friend,
I have my family staying at that little place between Mr. Martin Jenson and Shaws on your route…. I have sent them two letters and some magazines and a package and if it is against the rules to leave them at our place I wonder if you would please leave them at Mr. Martin Jenson’s for us. Please let me know what you can do about it.”
The mailman wrote back that our mail was being delivered….
We soon wore down all the beautifully pointed pencils he left us, and were forced to test our own skill — using the kitchen paring knife. Our points were hopelessly blunt and misshapen, difficult to use, and made our letters hard to decipher. Without commenting, my father soon mailed us a trio of mechanical pencils — a different color for each of us. He also sent up a large regulation rural mail box, (delivered RFD of course), and Mother managed to straighten the post and attach it well enough to hold, until he could mount it properly on his next visit.
A frequent part of our conversation every day was suggesting things to include in our next letters, which kept him an active part of our lives — even without a pencil in our hands. His affectionate letters and frequent packages, our connection to the outside world, were a constant reminder that we were always in his thoughts as well.
It took Mother only a few days to realize that our biggest challenge would be getting food and other supplies. Jensons were willing to shop for us when they went into town, but we didn’t feel we could ask them to make a special trip when we were running low. Fiercely independent, she had never been forced to rely on others before.
Daddy’s schedule of working split-day shifts, although highly inconvenient, did allow free midday hours, which provided a solution to our supply problem. Most of the larger stores in Minneapolis were open only during the day when he had time to shop, and, because he worked for the streetcar company, he had unlimited free transportation.
Postage on a twenty pound package was less than fifty cents, or about one hour’s wages. Most letters and parcels were delivered the next day, which meant he could send fresh fruit and vegetables and even some kinds of meat by mail. He regularly sent oranges, apples, bananas, potatoes, carrots — staples like flour, as well as sugar and rice that mother used for baking — and household supplies like soap.
Whenever possible, he sent all of the items we requested, but he also loved to surprise us, so package contents always varied. From his letters, it’s obvious that selecting footwear for us was probably the most difficult long-distance task. He had more trouble meeting one of my most unusual requests — shoes for my doll, Betty June. I sent him an outline of her foot, just as I had done for my own shoes. He would send comic pages from the newspaper, colored wrappers from rolls of coins that John and I used for various projects, crayons, treats like gum or candy, magazines that passengers left on the streetcar, or our own toys from home.
Books were a primary form of entertainment for all of us, and many that he sent came from the streetcar company’s employee library system, which had a branch at each station. These collections, reflecting the current interests of working class men, were heavy on stories of the Old West and frontier life, which was exactly what we were living. We relished every one.
The very first book he sent was, Thirty-one Years on the Plains and in the Mountains, an autobiographical account written in 1899 by Will Drannon. Drannon was an orphan who was taken in and raised by Kit Carson. Carson trained him to be a hunter, trapper, and later an Indian scout for wagon trains going to California and Oregon. His journeys had taken him to places few white men had ever seen, and the names he gave to many of them were still being used when he wrote the book decades later. Reading about his example inspired John and me as we explored our new territory, which why we coined our own monikers like “The Big Woods” and “Wild Horse Hill.”
My father enjoyed reading too, and often sent us books that especially appealed to him, such as Will James’ Smokey and They Also Serve, by Peter B. Kyne, which was about horses and mules in the First World War. It was written in a heavy Irish dialect, and when Mother read it to us, she followed the pronunciations faithfully with considerable dramatic flair — although omitting many a “hell” and “damn” as I found out later…
The story was my introduction to the concept of war, and left me with the searing mental picture of a mule getting its belly ripped open by a piece of shrapnel. I felt the terrible grief of his soldier master, who knew he had to shoot the animal to end its agony. It was the first time a book made me cry. Our insatiable consumption of reading material soon had daddy going to the public library as well, and to used book stores when he had a little extra spending money.
No doubt we received more mail than anyone else on the Nevis route. Our mailman hardly ever passed without stopping, either to leave a letter or package, or — when our red mailbox flag was raised — to pick up our letters. We seldom chatted with him, but from the care he took to make sure our packages of food arrived safely, even in the most extreme weather, it appeared that he took a special protective interest in our family.