By Thelma Hartman

We arrived in the Copper River Basin in May of 1963. We had picked out a nice looking piece of land, 160 acres at mile 14 on the Edgerton Highway. The road was all gravel, but in good shape. We came with four other families. They called themselves the four corners because their homesteads were all connected. Our little family consisted of Lennie, Thelma, Michael (7), Buddy (5), and Peggy (1). 

Lennie was working in Anchorage for Standard Oil. Our plan was the kids and I would live on the homestead and Lennie would come out on the weekends. Lennie stopped at the Bayless and Roberts bulk plant in Copper Center and asked about a job. Jack Goddard interviewed him and liked him right away. Jack said, “When you get all moved, stop in and let me know.” We started out with a 35-foot trailer we had pulled from Anchorage. We had a set of bunk beds in the bedroom for the boys, Peggy slept in the bathtub, and we had a hide-a-bed couch in the front. Very cozy and kept us out of the rain. 

Once we were all moved, Lennie stopped back in at Bayless and Roberts. Jack hired him that very day, and he became the fuel truck driver for the Copper River Basin. He also went to Valdez and brought products that came in on the ships at the Valdez dock. His area was half way to Tok, up the Richardson halfway to Big Delta, Sheep Mountain on the Glenn Highway and Ernestine on the Richardson. 

Every now and again he would make trips to Fairbanks and Tok. Also all of the Denali Highway. He worked overtime a lot. 

That first year we put in a foundation for the cabin and started putting up rows of logs. Lennie made a deal with Al Taylor that he would bring in logs on the half. We were using two-sided logs. The kids and I would use draw knives to remove the bark, and then help put the logs up on the house. The first winter we had about seven rows of logs completed. Our nearest neighbors, Sunny and Jack Rogers, had a power wagon. They let us use it to bring in logs to take to Al’s and to get them from Al’s wood yard. 

In 1964 Lennie stopped in the post office in Copper Center to collect the mail and saw a post they were looking for a mail carrier for the Kenny Lake area. The route started at Copper Center, down the Richardson to Pippin Lake, and along the Edgerton to the cutoff of the old Edgerton Road. It traveled along to Bells’ and Lincolns’ then returned to the main Edgerton Cutoff, where it continued to Lower Tonsina. It was three days a week. He thought it would be good for me to have something to do, plus I would have some social security. He bid it in my name. 

We had to have some surety. Some very nice folks on the Tok Cutoff signed for him. A month went by, and we received notice that we had been the second lowest bidder, but the lowest bidder’s surety was not sure, so we got the contract for three years. We were very excited and went to Anchorage and purchased two new vehicles: a Dodge truck and a station wagon for the mail run. 

On July 1 we started our first mail delivery. Our attitude was: The mail was important. If the people on the route were not there, we wouldn’t have a route. But the folks were nice to us, too. Once in a while I would open a mailbox and there would be a hot cup of coffee with a freshly made doughnut. Or there would be a bag of cookies for the kids and me. 

Some of our experiences we encountered on the route: A neighbor’s wife was making a garment; he asked me to purchase a spool of thread so she could finish. When some of the high school girls missed the bus they would hitch a ride to school. At Christmas, if we arrived back at the Post Office to find that Emil Wagner, the carrier from Palmer, had made another run with more packages, we made a second run. Ho ho ho!

It worked out I would run the mail in the summer, and the kids went with me and helped. We had quite a problem with flat tires. Some route days we had three! Mike, Buddy and I had a system worked out where we had it changed in a matter of minutes. Bayless and Roberts started making bandag tires in their shop in Copper Center. Lennie put those tires on the van; we had no more flat tires. 

We never missed a run. The winter was cold: Forty below and some days even colder. We would put the car to bed, blanket over the front, plug in the head bolt heater. Lennie ran the route in the winter. There were 34 mailboxes on our route that first year.

After three years, they renewed our contract. We had a four-year commitment. The route went all the way to Chitina and on our return trip we traveled the Old Edgerton Highway. It was three days a week, plus they changed the delivery time to the afternoon.  

Thank you so much to Thelma Hartman for submitting this story from the 1960s. We are always excited to hear stories from past decades in the Copper Valley. Do you have one? You can write it down and send it to us, or you can tell it to one of our staff orally. Please contact us at contact@copperriverrecord.net.