A Post About Parcel Post January 11, 2017
Posted by nrhatch in Humor, People.trackback
Back in the early days of Parcel Post, people didn’t just mail their mail . . . they also mailed their children.
Nope. Not kidding.
I just read about it on Smithsonian and though you might want a peak too: Special Delivery
Aah . . . going by post is way better than going postal!
Comments
Sorry comments are closed for this entry
Spirit Lights The Way 
A old version of mail-order brides? 🙂
Haha, yes! The postal service soon realized that brides could be bulky and cumbersome . . . so they encouraged single men to mail the mail order form by mail while purchasing a one way plane/train ticket for the bride!
Probably safer than flying, eh? I loved that photo, Nancy!
That kid’s face is priceless . . . and to think it only cost $0.15 in stamps to mail him!
Happy to hear that they traveled with trusted postal workers… I think.
It was a different planet back then, eh?
Well, whatever works, works… I guess.
The Postmaster General did his best to outlaw the practice . . . but he couldn’t be everywhere at once.
When I worked for the postal service, if a kid wasn’t marked “Fragile” they got tossed to the bottoms of parcel bins, with more parcels piled on top of them. But if they were marked “Fragile”, they were gently lowered to the bottoms of parcel bins, with more parcels piled on top of them.
Ha! That reminds me of the scene in The Grinch (Jim Carey version) when poor Cindy Lou Who almost gets stamped by the stamp machine in the midst of the Holi-Who Rush!
Ha! I’m happy those ‘parcels’ had a better destiny that the Christmas cards found in a post pouch tossed into the snow in Sweden this year….my sister’s card – sent mid December – just arrived today 🙂
Good thing her card wasn’t a kid, she would have arrived half famished!
Imagine mailing a young male – if he had been a chimney sweep, would that have been blackmail?
I’m picturing the postman trying to get Dick Van Dyke (Bert the chimney sweep) to stand still long enough for the stamp application to take with Julie Andrews (Mary Poppins) sniffing in the background!
Or feeding him a spoonful of sugar!
Or getting him to stop laughing long enough to float down from the ceiling!
What an interesting piece of history. I had no idea … glad they came to their senses relatively early in the process!
Yes, the postmaster general had to stamp out the practice!
Common sense prevailed!
Great little story and a reminder, too, of a fascinating website. I’ll listen to the podcast later. The photo couldn’t be any cuter!
Smithsonian sends some great articles to my in box. This photo was too cute not to share.
Oh, how funny, Nancy! Thanks for the chuckle. Maybe that’s where Jeff Brown, the author of the Flat Stanley series got the idea for his books. 😉
I’ve never read anything from the Flat Stanley series . . . so I checked out its charming synopsis:
Stanley Lambchop and his younger brother Arthur are given a big bulletin board by their father to display pictures and posters. He hangs it on the wall over Stanley’s bed. During the night the board falls from the wall, flattening Stanley in his sleep. He survives and makes the best of his altered state, and soon he is entering locked rooms by sliding under the door, and playing with his younger brother by being used as a kite.
One special advantage is that Flat Stanley can now visit his friends by being mailed in an envelope. Stanley even helps catch some art museum thieves by posing as a painting on the wall. Eventually, Stanley is tired of being flat and Arthur changes him back to his proper shape with a bicycle pump.
Oh my goodness! That photo is hilarious. (The baby looks heavy.) I guess you really had to know and trust your postal carrier. I can’t imagine mailing a baby to anyone!
I agree about the baby . . . he’s a solid little thing!
My grandfather handled a rural route delivery in Vermont at the turn of the last century. I know he once delivered a jar of preserves to someone farther down his route . . . and got to keep a 2nd jar of preserves for his effort. But I don’t know that he ever got asked to “deliver a baby” (in either sense of that phrase).