Millstone Times August 2022

Baby Mail By Pam Teel It’s hard to believe it, for a brief period of four years, it was possible and legal to mail a baby or small child through the U.S. Postal Service. In 1913, The United States Postal Service intro duced parcel posts. Before then, all packages sent by mail had to weigh 4 pounds or under. With parcel post, people could now ship anything below 50 pounds, but almost immediately, it had some unintended consequences, as Americans took advantage of this great opportunity to gain access to all kinds of goods and services; even leading to some parents succeeding to sending their children through the mail. Indeed, the post office’s decision to begin the shipment of large packages and parcels was one that millions of Americans appreciated, particularly people who lived in rural communities. All kinds of goods showed up in the mail stream including dogs, eggs, and so on. Back then, there were no clear guidelines that stipulated what one could and couldn’t mail. While the rules stated the only parcels of 50 pounds and below could be mailed, it didn’t exclude the possibility of mailing human beings. Babies! This one particular class of item stood out from the rest. With this new leverage, peo ple began to send their babies and small children through the mail. They did so because they considered it a cheaper option, in comparison to getting train tickets. The mail carriers gave a special name to this practice of mailing babies. They called it “Baby mail.” Sending children through the mail simply involved carrying or walking them through the route, nothing else. It seems laughable now that babies were actually sent as mail, but then it was perceived as a mere logical exercise that many people embraced. Parents who did this were mostly concerned about how economically advantageous it was. Sending a child through the post was cheaper than buying a train ticket for him. According to National Postal Museum historian Nancy Pope, the first known case of a mailed baby was in 1913 when Mr. and Mrs. Jesse Beauge of Glen Este, Ohio, shipped their 10-pound infant son to his grandmother’s home about a mile away, paying 15 cents in postage and spring ing for $50 in insurance (just in case something bad happened). The story soon made newspa pers, and for the next several years, similar stories would occasionally surface as other parents followed. One child who did make the trip in a railway mail car was 5-year-old May Pierstorff who was sent from Grangeville to Lewiston, Idaho, to visit her grandmother on February 19, 1914. She was just under the weight limit at 48.5 pounds, and her parents realized that sending her by

mail would be cheaper than buying her a train ticket. They attached the postage, which was 53 cents in parcel post stamps to May’s coat, and she rode in the train’s mail compartment all the way to Lewiston. She was personally delivered to her grandmother’s home by the mail clerk. Luckily, little May wasn’t shoved into a canvas sack along with the other packages. As it turns out, she was accompanied on her trip by her mother’s cousin, who worked as a clerk for the railway mail service. It’s likely that his influence (and his willingness to chaperone his young cousin) is what convinced local officials to send the little girl along with the mail. Another child, Edna Neff, 6, was sent 720 miles from Pensacola, Florida to Christiansburg, Virginia, where her father lived. Finally, in 1915, several newspapers including the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times all ran stories stating the postmaster had officially decreed that children could no longer be sent through the mail, but from time to time these stories continued to pop up, as parents occasion ally managed to slip their children through the mail thanks to rural workers willing to let it slide. While the odd practice of mailing out kids might be seen as incompetence or negligence on the part of the mail carriers, it was more as an example of just how much rural communities relied on and trusted local postal workers. Mail carriers were trusted servants. People didn’t worry back then about their children being kidnapped or abused. Still, even back then, they took a chance on their children being hurt, or frightened, or stuck in a dark damp box car overnight along with the daily mail. Who was responsible for changing the diapers and feeding the child, especially on the longer trips, since postmasters’ task was to simply carry or walk them through their route and nothing else? Would be nice to find a journal written by the such postmasters in charge of the mail babies to describe what other duties they had to take on during that time.

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