A fall back alarm clock service was part of the deal
To the Expositor:
A recent ,very interesting, article in The Expositor highlighted 150 years of the Providence Bay Post Office.
Long term rural mail man Andrew Beaudin was my uncle. Before him my Grandfather Humphrey Beaudin was the rural postal delivery person.
They served when the mail indeed “must go through”-rain, snow or shine.
In the early days my uncle, and my grandfather before him, used a horse and buggy in the spring, summer and fall, and horse and cutter in the winter—and often in the winter some sections of the rural delivery route were serviced by “walking in” when the roads were blocked in snow drifts.
Uncle Andrew tried a few innovative ways to speed up the process. He once experimented with an early version of a snowmobile—with poor results as I recall. So it was that even up to his retirement in the early 60s there were several winter days when walking through the snow was the most reliable delivery method.
Another “service” that the rural mailman occasionally provided was to reset wind up alarm clocks with the correct time! The farm family would put the clock in the mailbox, sometimes with a piece of pie or cake, and a request that it be set to the correct time.
As many older readers will recall, Uncle Andrew Beaudin was a very positive and active force in the Community–Minister, Master of Ceremonies, Raconteur, Adviser– in addition to being a most persistent and reliable rurarl mail deliverer.
Gordon Sterling
The Woodlands
Texas
