Beginning when he was just nineteen years old in 1929, a new graduate of Troy High School, he began carrying the mail for Walter and Effie White. He drove a Ford Model A Coupe which was quite something for a young man in those days but probably was a big plus in getting the appointment. It also was just before the great depression, so this job meant far more to Russell than just a way to earn a living, and he took it extremely serious. Even many years later he never took for granted that it wasn’t the most important part of his workday. All else was secondary to “Delivering the Mail” His dedication to his patrons was boundless. Anyone familiar with the cold, snowy Pennsylvania winters knows how many of the families who lived back off of the dirt roads during the 40’s could only get out if those roads had been plowed and during the war years many did not have gasoline to spare for trips to the store, so they would ask their mailman to pick up some of their most needed items from the store that housed the Post Office. Of course, they also remembered him at the different Holiday seasons with surprise goodies in the mail box for their “Rut.” In the late 40’s along cam the Jeep station wagon which made the going a lot easier for getting around deep snowy winter and so he inherited the job of picking u several families of school children that lived in close proximity to their farm at the bottom of Coryland hill. This he did before and after carrying the day’s mail. Russell did all these things along with chicken farming and then purebred Jersey dairy farming until 1961 when he became ill and passed away in a very short time. The rural route continued for a short time and then moved to Columbia Cross Roads. But we will never forget our “Mail Man.”
Picture and Text by Gaylord Grinnell, presented to Martha White.
Anyone who is familiar with Snedekerville will recognize Russell Grinnell and the White Grocery Store in the back ground. The White grandchildren and neighbors would wait here for the school bus that took them to Columbia Cross Roads for elementary school and on to Troy for High School. The store closed after the death of Effie White in 1963. This was the hub of activity in Snedekerville, once being a train station for the trains running between Elmira NY and Williamsport PA. Snedekerville being at the top of the “grade” trains needed extra engines to get them this far, then the extra engines turned around at the “Y” and headed back south.
