By Rennie Davis
VANDALIA, Mo.—If you go to the Vandalia Post Office there is a familiar face you will not see anymore. Linda Lower decided to retire from the Post Office on Wednesday, July 31, after more than 30 years of handling mail.
Linda Hanna graduated from Community R-VI high school in 1973, and shortly after graduation she married Bill Lower who was in the U.S. Army stationed in Arkansas. When Bill got out of the Army the couple moved back to Laddonia in 1976. Bill got a job at Harbison-Walker in Vandalia and Linda landed a job with Wetterau Foods in Mexico.
But she didn’t like the drive to Mexico each day, so they decided to move to Vandalia in 1978. She first got a job working at TexGas in Vandalia.
Bill took the test to be a clerk/carrier at the post office. Linda thought she could do that too, so she took the test. Bill stayed at Harbison-Walker and Linda applied for the clerk/carrier job at the post office.
Lee McDonald was the Postmaster at the time and she applied three different times for the job. Lee told her it takes time for all the paperwork to get through the system. In 1993, she was hired at the Vandalia Post Office and has been there until her retirement.
She said when she started everything was done by hand. Now it’s all computerized. It tells you all the buttons to push. There is always something new. She said she wasn’t sure it was for the best, but it’s easier.
“I have worked for several postmasters and they have all been great to work for,” Linda said.
She noted that she and the other letter carriers used to deliver mail every day except Sunday.
“Now we have missed several days of mail delivery because the mail truck from St. Louis didn’t arrive with the mail because of weather or mechanical problems. Snow has caused some problems over the years,” she said.
Linda remembers one time the snow was so deep and she couldn’t get to work. Rural carrier Bill Nation made it to town and was going to pick her up for work in his four-wheel drive pickup but he managed to get stuck in their driveway.
“Another thing that happens once in a while is that our current postmaster, Ryan Eskew, will stay late and rearrange the furniture here in the Post Office,” she said. “We come in in the morning and have to find where all the racks and bins have been moved to.”
Bill and Linda have two children, Hanna and Nick. Hanna and Clinton Schambach of Vandalia and have one son. Nick and Anna Lower of Centralia have a son and a daughter.
Linda said she and Bill plan to travel some and spend more time with their grandchildren.
“I’m really gonna’ miss all the people I see at the Post Office,” she said.