The Mystery Of The Missing Postmaster

I’m thankful for long-time, loyal readers like Mary Lou Greene Perry of Ashland, who just wrote in with a correction to our April 1961 issue.

She was responding to the “50 Years ago in Kentucky Living” column we printed last April.

When I rewrote the old photo caption about Elliott County mail carrier Arlie Robinson for the April 2011 column, I named him and his mule, Kate, but not the three women in the background. I didn’t include them because they were hard to see in our digital scan of the black and white photo. Also, the woman in the center was identified as “unidentified.”

Well, she’s no longer unidentified.

Mary Lou tells us that the woman on the left in the picture is a neighbor, Mae Frazier. Postmaster Sara Rose Greene is in the doorway, and Sara’s sister, Lizzie Fraley, is on the right.

“It’s a little late to be correcting names, I guess,” she writes. “But I thought it strange my mother, being the postmaster, was unidentified at the time 50 years ago.”

She continues: “The Bruin post office was in the Greene family for five generations. My father, John Greene, was appointed in August 1934 (Mary Lou says her great-great-grandfather became postmaster in 1870) and served as postmaster until his death in June 1956. My mom, Sara Rose Greene, was appointed after his death, and my sister, Norieta Dickenson, served after Mom’s retirement until 1997 when the office was closed.”

And concludes: “John and Sara Greene ran the little country store and post office from 1934 until the Corps of Engineers bought the property for Grayson Lake. The post office was then moved to Dickenson & Sons Garage up the road about a mile. The store and post office was the hub of the community and served many people through the years. Thanks for the memory.”

And thank you, Mary Lou Greene Perry, for yours.