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Her last cancelled stamp
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| Phyllis Hill |
BY BILL HARVEY
There was no question about the fact that someday she would be a postmaster. The daughter and granddaughter of postmasters, Phyllis Hill was a “Post Office Brat.” Raised in Seadrift, she began her career with the U.S. Postal Service in 1966 as a clerk in her hometown and will end her 42 year career at the end of December.
“The Seadrift Post Office was in the back of my father’s store,” she laughed. “From the very beginning I knew that I wanted to someday be the Postmaster in my home town. I began as a part-time clerk in Seadrift and then transferred to Port Lavaca in 1973. I was the first woman to actually deliver mail on a route here.”
Hill’s first appointment as Postmaster came in 1984, but it required a move to Goliad. In 1992 she moved to Refugio to assume the Postmaster job. Following a circuitous route home, she was the officer-in-charge in San Juan, Cuero, Rockport and La Grange before returning to Port Lavaca as Postmaster in 2001. “When I got the job in Port Lavaca I was a very happy person. It was an opportunity to come back and take care of the people in my town.”
As Postmaster, Hill has been responsible for every aspect of the mail service in Port Lavaca. “I am ultimately responsible for the security, accuracy and delivery of the mail. Anything that goes wrong comes to me and I oversee every operational detail of the office.”
Reflecting on four decades of service, Hill talked about those parts of the business that have changed and those that remain the same. “By far, the biggest and most important change that took place in my career was the computerization and mechanization of mail handling,” she said. “When I began, every piece of mail was sorted by hand and today, over 90 percent of mail handling is done by machine. Most of our carriers do not even see the mail they will deliver until they pick it up and walk out the door.”
But despite the enormity of change within the system, there are things which have not changed at all. “We still deliver the mail and that comes down to the individual clerk or carrier. It is still about knowing the community and the people in the community. Sometimes a piece of mail will arrive and there is not a correct address and someone will hold it up and ask around the room if anyone knows the recipient. Probably 75 percent of the time one of us will know the person and we can get that mail to the right place.”
What will she miss? “I will miss the people in the community and the people with whom I have worked. But I will not miss the pressure that comes with the job. Retiring from a career of 42 years is not an easy thing to do, but it will give me a chance to spend more time with my family. ”
Behind us, her husband Glendon nervously looked at his watch and reminded her that if they were going to make the tip-off for their granddaughter’s basketball game they would have to get moving. We walked back into the sorting area to take a photograph or two and then she ushered me back out to the front of the post office where clerks were dispensing stamps, querying patrons as to contents of packages and questioning as to who was next in line. All the while, the magnitude and complexity of their jobs are hidden from view, except perhaps those who sneak a look through their emptied post office boxes.
When I arrived back at my studio, the mail carrier (his name is Michael and for my money is the best mail carrier I have ever had) had placed a piece of mail in my door that had been addressed incorrectly. But he knew that my address had changed and so slipped it safely into place with assurance of its correct destination. Machines won’t do that, only people can do that.
I suspect that the delivery of mail in Port Lavaca will run as smoothly as it has over the last years despite the departure of Phyllis Hill because one gets the sense that she will leave the Postmaster position in better shape than when she assumed the job. So the next time I go there and open my post office box, I will bend ever so slightly to peek back into the inner workings of the Port Lavaca Branch of the U.S. Postal Service to see if she is still there.
Now, I know she won’t be, but her presence will remain. She is just that kind of person.
“The Seadrift Post Office was in the back of my father’s store,” she laughed. “From the very beginning I knew that I wanted to someday be the Postmaster in my home town. I began as a part-time clerk in Seadrift and then transferred to Port Lavaca in 1973. I was the first woman to actually deliver mail on a route here.”
Hill’s first appointment as Postmaster came in 1984, but it required a move to Goliad. In 1992 she moved to Refugio to assume the Postmaster job. Following a circuitous route home, she was the officer-in-charge in San Juan, Cuero, Rockport and La Grange before returning to Port Lavaca as Postmaster in 2001. “When I got the job in Port Lavaca I was a very happy person. It was an opportunity to come back and take care of the people in my town.”
As Postmaster, Hill has been responsible for every aspect of the mail service in Port Lavaca. “I am ultimately responsible for the security, accuracy and delivery of the mail. Anything that goes wrong comes to me and I oversee every operational detail of the office.”
Reflecting on four decades of service, Hill talked about those parts of the business that have changed and those that remain the same. “By far, the biggest and most important change that took place in my career was the computerization and mechanization of mail handling,” she said. “When I began, every piece of mail was sorted by hand and today, over 90 percent of mail handling is done by machine. Most of our carriers do not even see the mail they will deliver until they pick it up and walk out the door.”
But despite the enormity of change within the system, there are things which have not changed at all. “We still deliver the mail and that comes down to the individual clerk or carrier. It is still about knowing the community and the people in the community. Sometimes a piece of mail will arrive and there is not a correct address and someone will hold it up and ask around the room if anyone knows the recipient. Probably 75 percent of the time one of us will know the person and we can get that mail to the right place.”
What will she miss? “I will miss the people in the community and the people with whom I have worked. But I will not miss the pressure that comes with the job. Retiring from a career of 42 years is not an easy thing to do, but it will give me a chance to spend more time with my family. ”
Behind us, her husband Glendon nervously looked at his watch and reminded her that if they were going to make the tip-off for their granddaughter’s basketball game they would have to get moving. We walked back into the sorting area to take a photograph or two and then she ushered me back out to the front of the post office where clerks were dispensing stamps, querying patrons as to contents of packages and questioning as to who was next in line. All the while, the magnitude and complexity of their jobs are hidden from view, except perhaps those who sneak a look through their emptied post office boxes.
When I arrived back at my studio, the mail carrier (his name is Michael and for my money is the best mail carrier I have ever had) had placed a piece of mail in my door that had been addressed incorrectly. But he knew that my address had changed and so slipped it safely into place with assurance of its correct destination. Machines won’t do that, only people can do that.
I suspect that the delivery of mail in Port Lavaca will run as smoothly as it has over the last years despite the departure of Phyllis Hill because one gets the sense that she will leave the Postmaster position in better shape than when she assumed the job. So the next time I go there and open my post office box, I will bend ever so slightly to peek back into the inner workings of the Port Lavaca Branch of the U.S. Postal Service to see if she is still there.
Now, I know she won’t be, but her presence will remain. She is just that kind of person.
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