After leaving junior high school that was in the present Federal Street North building, I moved on to high school. That school was located at the present Greenfield Middle School on Federal Street. I took college prep courses. Realizing that I would never go to college, I wound up graduating in 1945 with honors.
During the early 1940s, I had a part-time job after school and on Saturdays to earn a little bit of money. I was paid 30 cents an hour working at C.H. Demond Co. — a stationary picture framing/typewriter repair and art supply store. There, I met and waited on many of the counties well-known artists including Robert Strong Woodward, Stephen Maniatty and William Stevens, to name a few. I remember Woodward’s beautiful limousine and him being in his wheelchair.
The store had a gallery for artists to bring in their paintings to be shown to everyone that came into the store. I did just about everything for Mr. Demond.
After graduation and being drafted, I came home thinking about getting a job. My father told me to go down to the Greenfield Post Office and talk with J.B. Kennedy — the postmaster at that time. He was a plumber prior to his job as postmaster. His office and shop was located in the back of the Second Congressional Church on Bank Row. I ended up getting a job there that paid me 67 cents an hour. A raise from my high school years.
Back then, a disabled veteran has a ten point advantage in getting a forty hour a week job there. I passed the civil service exam and worked nine years as a substitute before getting a regular full-time job. During the holidays, I had to work 12-hour days sorting thousands of Christmas cards by hand in large cases as well as First Class mail and packages.
Christmas cards unsealed were two cents to mail. A sealed one cost only three cents back then. Christmas cards were very popular to everyone; on certain days, thousands of them went through the cancellation machine, where a postal marking is applied on a postage stamp or postal stationery to deface the stamp and prevent its re-use. Overwhelming, but they were sorted and sent on their way. Bundles of letters after being sorted were tied up with hemp rope and slapped with a slip on top telling the contents. Later on, we had a tying machine to help speed the process.
Mail was placed in heavy canvas bags, or pouches, with a locking device and straps on the top. They were brought to the railroad station to be loaded on trains going in all directions. Mail was also sorted on mail cars which were part of each train.
I made a career of this job, working in the Greenfield office for 44 years, retiring in 1990. I worked with some very fine people, mentors and I have a lot of memories regarding my time there. Although it was not an easy job — standing for hours and always meeting deadlines for dispatching the mail every day — it was rewarding to me in many other ways. I have no regrets about making a post office job my career.