Christmas Day On A Mail Route
By J. Dickson Black
By J. Dickson Black
Christmas, the loneliest day of the year. Does this sound like Dickens' Mr. Scrooge talking? It wasn't. That is what almost any of the early day rural route mail carriers would tell you that it seemed like to them when everyone else was in the nice warm house having a good time, and they they were driving the mail wagon down the muddy roads.
"Of all the days that I delivered mail," said Fred Phinney of Bentonville , "those Christmas days on the mail route were the loneliest I ever spent."
Fred started driving route five out of Bentonville on the first day of October in 1914. At that time the route was 22 miles long and he drove it with a team and buggy. The pay for him and his team was $70 a month. The roads were really bad, no bridges across the small streams and mostly mud to drive in. He would leave town at about 9:30 and get home anywhere from 3:00 until after dark.
"Of all the days that I delivered mail," said Fred Phinney of Bentonville , "those Christmas days on the mail route were the loneliest I ever spent."
Fred started driving route five out of Bentonville on the first day of October in 1914. At that time the route was 22 miles long and he drove it with a team and buggy. The pay for him and his team was $70 a month. The roads were really bad, no bridges across the small streams and mostly mud to drive in. He would leave town at about 9:30 and get home anywhere from 3:00 until after dark.
Fred Phinney, as he sits back and thinks about the Christmas days he spent on the mail route.
He started delivering mail in 1914 and retired in 1951.
He started delivering mail in 1914 and retired in 1951.
The job didn't seem so bad until Christmas day then it was hard to have to work when all the rest of the people were eating a big dinner and having a lot of fun.
"The only thing that helped it out was the people on the route who came out with some part of a Christmas dinner or some other gift," said Fred. "In those days people did give us more gifts like meat, chicken, cake, pie cookies, or some little keepsake. But most of the gifts were given to me in the week before Christmas."
Christmas day of 1917 Fred had an unusually good Christmas dinner. He was driving along the route near Osage Mills, when a girl called to him from her house and said to wait a minute. When she came out of the house she had a large box in her hands.
"I could see the steam coming out from under the lid as she walked to the wagon," Fred said." I started feeling better about the day right then. The box was just the right size to set in the seat beside me. There was hot ham, sweet potatoes, corn, salad, hot rolls, cake, pie and coffee. I never did have a meal taste so good."
Fred got his first car in 1915, and it was a model T Ford. That October he took over what was called motor Rt. 1. It was 54 miles long, but the roads were so bad it couldn't be run by one man. Fred had to hire a man to drive one end of it. When the weather got bad he had to use his team again. This route was changed soon. It cost Fred $100 a month more to carry the mail than he was paid. He had to pay the extra man and the $2.50 a day rent on a team out of what he was paid.
After this changed Fred was on route one and kept that route the rest of his time, but there were soon changes made in it. At first it was just 30 miles round trip, with about 70 boxes to put mail in. By the time Fred stopped it was 54 miles with 230 boxes. But the roads were so much better that he was done by about 1:00.
The horses weren't as hard to drive as the car. As soon as they would learn the route then all you had to do was start out. They would know just where to pull over to a box and when to stop. He had to keep three horses all the time. This way each horse worked two days and was off one. Back in 1914 when Fred started on the mail route he paid 25 cents a bushel for oats and $7 a ton for good hay. It cost him about $400 for his horses, wagon, buggy, lap robe and carbon heater to warm the mail wagon. He also had a little two wheel cart that he used in the summertime with one horse.
The mail wagon had a closed in box that was about 2 1/2 feet by 4 1/2 feet. One year the day before Christmas he had so many boxes that he didn't know for sure if he could take all of them out in one load. He stacked in as many as he could, then got in the wagon and his father stacked the rest of the boxes all around him.
"I got them all in but I sure couldn't move much for the first few miles," said Fred, "But they were all small boxes. At that time you couldn't send anything bigger than a shoe box."
A year or so after the end of World War One, he got a motorcycle with a side car. This was the real way to get around (so the ad had said) and save money too. That was just fine until the first little rain. Then it picked up so much mud he couldn't go anyplace and had to turn around and go after the horses.
In the old days it was not unusual to have to dig out of the mud, cut a tree off the road, or break down and have to send back to town for some kind of help. Fred was lucky he never had any bad accident on the route at all. One time a rabbit ran out and scared his horse, and it ran up a bank and turned over the buggy but the horse stopped then. All he had to do was set it back up and pick up the mail that had spilled out.
"I sure was glad whenever Mrs. Maude Hoback mailed a cake to her daughter," Fred said, "For she would always bring me a lot of cookies. This was to keep me from eating the cake up before I got it to town."
For several years he didn't have even one daily paper to deliver, and he last year he drove he carried at least 250 dailies.
In the wintertime the carbon heater would keep the closed in wagon very warm. The stick of carbon had to be put in the fire at home until it was cherry red, then put into the little heater which was wrapped in a burlap sack and set in the wagon.
Even after Christmas the rules had been changed, and they didn't have to make a Christmas delivery, Fred would go to the post office and pick out mail for those people on the route that he knew would be home and take it out.
"At Christmastime some packages are always late," said Fred. "And I know that a lot of these, that I took out on Christmas day, did a lot to make a happier day for those who got them."
Fred retired on October 1, 1951. From then until he died he tried always to have his Christmas dinner at home.
"The only thing that helped it out was the people on the route who came out with some part of a Christmas dinner or some other gift," said Fred. "In those days people did give us more gifts like meat, chicken, cake, pie cookies, or some little keepsake. But most of the gifts were given to me in the week before Christmas."
Christmas day of 1917 Fred had an unusually good Christmas dinner. He was driving along the route near Osage Mills, when a girl called to him from her house and said to wait a minute. When she came out of the house she had a large box in her hands.
"I could see the steam coming out from under the lid as she walked to the wagon," Fred said." I started feeling better about the day right then. The box was just the right size to set in the seat beside me. There was hot ham, sweet potatoes, corn, salad, hot rolls, cake, pie and coffee. I never did have a meal taste so good."
Fred got his first car in 1915, and it was a model T Ford. That October he took over what was called motor Rt. 1. It was 54 miles long, but the roads were so bad it couldn't be run by one man. Fred had to hire a man to drive one end of it. When the weather got bad he had to use his team again. This route was changed soon. It cost Fred $100 a month more to carry the mail than he was paid. He had to pay the extra man and the $2.50 a day rent on a team out of what he was paid.
After this changed Fred was on route one and kept that route the rest of his time, but there were soon changes made in it. At first it was just 30 miles round trip, with about 70 boxes to put mail in. By the time Fred stopped it was 54 miles with 230 boxes. But the roads were so much better that he was done by about 1:00.
The horses weren't as hard to drive as the car. As soon as they would learn the route then all you had to do was start out. They would know just where to pull over to a box and when to stop. He had to keep three horses all the time. This way each horse worked two days and was off one. Back in 1914 when Fred started on the mail route he paid 25 cents a bushel for oats and $7 a ton for good hay. It cost him about $400 for his horses, wagon, buggy, lap robe and carbon heater to warm the mail wagon. He also had a little two wheel cart that he used in the summertime with one horse.
The mail wagon had a closed in box that was about 2 1/2 feet by 4 1/2 feet. One year the day before Christmas he had so many boxes that he didn't know for sure if he could take all of them out in one load. He stacked in as many as he could, then got in the wagon and his father stacked the rest of the boxes all around him.
"I got them all in but I sure couldn't move much for the first few miles," said Fred, "But they were all small boxes. At that time you couldn't send anything bigger than a shoe box."
A year or so after the end of World War One, he got a motorcycle with a side car. This was the real way to get around (so the ad had said) and save money too. That was just fine until the first little rain. Then it picked up so much mud he couldn't go anyplace and had to turn around and go after the horses.
In the old days it was not unusual to have to dig out of the mud, cut a tree off the road, or break down and have to send back to town for some kind of help. Fred was lucky he never had any bad accident on the route at all. One time a rabbit ran out and scared his horse, and it ran up a bank and turned over the buggy but the horse stopped then. All he had to do was set it back up and pick up the mail that had spilled out.
"I sure was glad whenever Mrs. Maude Hoback mailed a cake to her daughter," Fred said, "For she would always bring me a lot of cookies. This was to keep me from eating the cake up before I got it to town."
For several years he didn't have even one daily paper to deliver, and he last year he drove he carried at least 250 dailies.
In the wintertime the carbon heater would keep the closed in wagon very warm. The stick of carbon had to be put in the fire at home until it was cherry red, then put into the little heater which was wrapped in a burlap sack and set in the wagon.
Even after Christmas the rules had been changed, and they didn't have to make a Christmas delivery, Fred would go to the post office and pick out mail for those people on the route that he knew would be home and take it out.
"At Christmastime some packages are always late," said Fred. "And I know that a lot of these, that I took out on Christmas day, did a lot to make a happier day for those who got them."
Fred retired on October 1, 1951. From then until he died he tried always to have his Christmas dinner at home.