Peering at the Past Daytime Mail Miles, Nighttime Music Miles

Second of a two-part series

Roy Hanke was said to have traveled the equivalent of 19 trips around the world, about 450,000 miles, but all not far from home. He delivered rural mail two months short of 44 years from the Brownsville Post Office before retiring in 1963. He began September 10, 1918, as substitute for Matt Roster and took over a permanent appointment when Roster retired a year later. At first, he traveled 24 miles a day, but due to road conditions and vehicles, he said that seemed much longer than the 43 miles a day he drove close to retirement. He began with horses pulling a buggy or a sleigh (see last week’s photo) before later driving a Jeep. In the early years, it was an arduous journey on often very muddy or snow-covered roads. Later, things improved with gravel roads and then again with the first hard-surfaced roads. Hanke received an award from the post office department for 33 consecutive years without an accident.

Like all conscientious carriers, Hanke investigated when he noticed that patrons hadn’t picked up mail for a few days. Had there been misfortune or illness? He once organized a search party of neighbors who found the missing man up on a bluff, still suffering following a stroke. They got him to a hospital, but he did not survive.

In addition to those mail “delivery” miles, there were also music miles with his trumpet and widely-popular orchestra, Hanke’s Harmonizers, which “delivered” dance music throughout the area during the “big band era.”

Harold Missell of Houston, who retired after 28 years of rural mail service in 1978, recalled one lady on his route wanting to mail a letter but did not have a stamp. She bought some stamps from him and paid with a check for 58 cents. Another lady needed an 8-cent stamp and to pay for it, asked him to cash a check for $560.

It took the post office staff two and a half months before Harold and his wife Avis could be scheduled for a retirement banquet. Almost immediately after retiring, Harold and Avis left on a three-week trip to Hawaii, which was closely followed by a second trip. While Postmaster Anthony Foss was presenting a plaque to Missell at the banquet, he joked that delivery of the plaque was not similar to the usual speedy U. S. Mail delivery.

Gale Buxengard, who retired in 1980 after more than 30 years of service with the Caledonia Post Office, said he began on April 1, 1942, when part of his responsibility was delivering parcel post (mail too heavy for regular delivery). The post office rented a truck owned by Eden Clothiers. Buxengard did not have a driver’s license and scant driving experience, but he was told to take the truck and deliver the mail. He surmised that they weren’t as “fussy” back then.

Buxengard recalled a man entering the back door of the Caledonia Post Office and the temporary officer-in-charge Charlie Dorival asking him who the ”bleep” he was. When the visitor replied that he was a postal inspector, Dorival asked to see his credentials. When the man said he had forgotten his credentials on his dresser back in St. Paul, Dorival told him to go back to St. Paul and get them.

That same year Buxengard began postal work, he left for a four-year stint with the U.S. Army in Europe during World War II. He would return to the Caledonia Post Office in 1946. Thirty years later in 1976, he was promoted to postmaster. He was known for long hours; his old white Chrysler was seen parked behind the post office when the office was closed. Although he worked 50 to 60 hours a week, he never officially reported more than 40 hours. The long hours did not figure into his decision to retire. He claimed they were worth his time in order to be his own boss as postmaster.

Joe Rostvold delivered rural mail out of the Caledonia Post Office for over 34 years before retiring in 1983. He began with 150 mailboxes on a 43-mile route and ended with 285 boxes while traveling 72 miles a day. He started as a substitute carrier and clerk during the Christmas holidays of 1949 and 1950. He recalled using 12 different automobiles on his routes and the winters of 1959 and 1969 being two of the worst. In 1959, he wore out two sets of grip tires and two sets of chains. But what he referred to as his “downfall” was the winter of 1982, the only time he had a serious accident on his route. He was grateful when boxholders would help when the weather was challenging and when they offered him coffee or lunch.

It was a family tradition for Doris Webbles, who came from a long line of postal workers. Her father delivered mail with a horse and buggy, even during inclement weather, and her grandfather was postmaster at Money Creek for many years. And for several decades before that, her great-grandfather operated the post office out of his log cabin home in the Corey Valley. 

Webbles began by sorting mail for two hours on Saturdays, an assignment that disrupted her weekends. About the time when she was going to quit, she “stumbled into a full-time position” and eventually became postmaster in Houston in 1977, a position she held for seven years. She retired after 18 years of postal duties in 1984.

An enduring memory was her first Christmas season at the post office. “I’ll never forget all those Christmas cards,” she told the Houston County News. “We sorted for hours and hours through those things. I had to force myself to write one after that.” In later years, there were not as many holiday cards.

“It was a good job, though. There were days when I would go home so tired I was sick, but it was a good job.” However, the work load was the primary reason for her retirement.

Sources: “Rural Carrier Ends Career of 44 Years,” Winona Daily News, May 2, 1963; “Rural Mail Carrier Honored,” Houston Gazette, 1978; “Rostvold Retires After 34 Years with Post Office,” Caledonia Argus, Oct. 20, 1983; “Webbles Resigns as Postmaster,” by Dan Day, Houston County News, 1984; “Postmaster Gale Buxengard Retires,” newspaper clipping, Feb. 1980.