July 25, 2001
Postal history
Retired letter carrier likes people to look back
By Jefferson Wolfe
Staff Writer
Change was gradual during the career of Melvin Rinker, a lifelong Tiffinite and retired mail carrier who spent his whole career delivering mail in Tiffin.
It was not until after he returned from World War II that Rinker became a mail carrier. During the war, he worked for about a year in an Army post office in a military hospital outside of Danville, Ky.
When he returned to Tiffin, he decided to apply for a job at the post office.
"I went in the first week and I came back and I put my application in," Rinker said. That was in early June of 1946.
He was hired at the Tiffin post office Dec. 16, 1946, as a Christmas temporary employee. He retired Dec. 6, 1980.
"I was always glad, always happy, that when I was here I was able to get in because I had that experience in the Army post office and I loved it," he said. "I knew when I went in, you worked weekends and holidays. You worked when nobody else wanted to work."
He became a full-time employee of the post office Jan. 1, 1947, although he was still considered temporary.
May, 17 1948, a got his first regular route. At that time, Tiffin's post office had 15 foot routes and two parcel post routes. Rinker's route, route 15, was the newest and longest.
Rinker followed a long line of mail carriers in Tiffin. The first was H.A. Lautermilch, Rinker said.
The first day of mail delivery in Tiffin was July 1, 1887. There were three carriers that day, including Lautermilch. The papers of the day reported that it was very hot, Rinker said.
The early carriers walked an average of 22-24 miles delivering mail, and worked about 14 hours a day, Rinker said.
By 1895, there were nine carriers, seven regulars and two substitutes. Tiffin had seven clerks, a postmaster and an assistant postmaster.
Today, the post office has 17 city routes and eight rural routes, according to Robert O. Winebrener, Tiffin's 29th, and current, postmaster. There are 50 employees, including 32 carriers and 10 clerks.
When Rinker started, the carriers made two deliveries every day. The postmaster general reduced that to one delivery a day for residential customers April 18, 1950. With the reduced workload, two of the routes were abolished and the others were changed, Rinker said.
It took a few years, but Rinker eventually was able to get himself on route 2, which covered the area where he lived.
"I knew I could go home for dinner," he said. "I saved a lot of money over the years."
While his house was not always on his route, he tried to stay on nearby routes.
When he started, the post office was on Washington Street. The building is now the high school annex. It was built in 1915-1916, Rinker said.
When Rinker started, the carriers had a room on the first floor of the building.
"The old building had three little departments upstairs and in the front, and then the postmaster's room," he said. "We were crowded."
The carriers used a room on the building's main floor. Eventually, they realized they did not have enough space. There were 15 mail carriers and five parcel post carriers.
"We were all bunched up into one area," he said.
Rinker asked the supervisor if they could move to a room at the other end of the building. He was told no, because there was no electricity in that room. It could not be wired because the floors were all concrete.
Union leaders in Cleveland were contacted, and came to Tiffin. They measured the space in both rooms, and determined that the smaller room was not acceptable.
Shortly after, the carriers were moved to the larger room.
The parcel post carriers had worked out of the basement, and that space became too crowded, too. The post office started to use an annex in the Stacy Building. Soon, however, that was still too small.
In 1966, the post office on Monroe Street opened.
The new building was an improvement because it has a very large room for the carriers.
"We had a lot more room," Rinker said.
Rinker was a carrier during the postal strike in 1970. The reason for the strike was that workers did not want to lose their civil service benefits they had gotten since unionizing in 1889.
In the big cities, the carriers struck. In Tiffin, delivery continued.
"All over the country, mail was delivered in small towns," Rinker said. The strike in the small towns was still enough to disrupt the postal service, however, before it was settled.
Overall, there were gradual changes in Tiffin's post office while Rinker worked. One of the changes was the use of different types of vehicles.
"I believed in getting that bag off my shoulder," he said. "The last 14 years, I was mechanized."
The post office became motorized in the early 1900s, Rinker said. Early on, carriers tried to use motorcycles, but even with sidecars there was not enough room for all the mail.
Although it was before he was a mail carrier, Rinker can remember when mail was delivered by horse and buggy. This happened until about 1930, he said. The buggy had a little stove that burned corn cobs to keep the carrier warm. It also had a smoke stack, he said.
The traditional Jeep was the best vehicle, Rinker's said. Carriers also used a smaller three-wheeled cart-like vehicles called "Mailsters."
Carriers use a technique called "park and loop," in which they would park in one place and walk part of their routes so that when they were done, they would come back to the vehicles.