Evening star., 1947-03-01
Horse Taught Him First Route, Vienna Postnun Recalls
By StonIey Buitz

By StonIey Baitz
Life is much easier today for Fred
H. Dyer, fact which doesn't elate|
him one bit.
It's hard to discard the routine
Of Al years and take it easy when
he could very well be out there:
making his rounds through the
north Virginia hills as rural mail
carrier. He says he'll know better
whether he likes retirement when
he gets used to it.
Friday was Mr.. Dyer's last day
at work. The tiny post office ct
Vienna, Va, out of which he work
ed, was like a morgue. His co.
workers plainly were distressed
about his leaving.
Mr.. Dyer, now 66, could have re-
tired four years ago but couldn't
bfing himself to quit. Now, how
ever, he has given in to the requests
of his family and will devote the
rest of his days to mild farming
and pleasant recollection, such as,
for instance, the time he learned
his first route from a horse.
Substituted for Regular Man
That was around 1907. The
regular carrier was called for jury
duty and the postmaster asked Mr..
Dyer If he would handle the route
during the carriers absence.
II told him I didn't know the
route" says Mr.. Dyer. But they
told me not to let that worry me.
The regular carrier fixed up all
the mail, wrote down the names,
and turned me loose with the horse
and buggy. That horse just carried
me right around the route and I
didn't have to do a thing except
put the mail in the box"
Things have changed. His route
has grown, the roads are better,
and he uses an automobile. Vienna
is some Is miles west of Washing
ton. His route covered slightly
more than 80 miles. He served 1886
rural mail boxes covering 1,840
persons, all of them his good
friends. He covered the route in
an old Ford which his neighbors
say, was the only thing short Of a
tractor or. jeep that could have
gone over the country bogs.~
AS he pointed out, on the day
he quit he was carrying more mail
in one day than he carried in a
week back in his horse and buggy
days.
Winter or summer, always strap
ped to the rear of his Ford was a
shovel, to be used for digging him.
self out of either snow or mud.
Before he took to driving an auto
in 1916, Mr.. Dyer wore out six
horses and four buggies. AS late
as 1890 he was still using horse
and wagon for three months out
of the year, because the winter
time going was too tough for any
thing else.
On the day of the recent big
snow. Mr.. Dyer couldn't push his
car through the drifted back roads.
But that didn't keep him from
walking more than a mile from his |
home to the post Office and dis
tributing mail on foot to neighbors |
within a fair radius of his house.
They will always remember him
for things like that.
Delivered Mail on Holidays.
Mrs. Russell Niche, who lives on
Beulah Road not far from the
Dyers, says he would do the same
on holidays.
He'd go into town, and bring
the mail out to those of us who
lived nearby, even though there
wasn't regular mail that day."
She says.
IT never saw anybody who loved
his work the way he did," says
Mrs. Lillian c. Ruth, the Vienna
postmaster, the fourth under whom
he has served. "The people along
his route are devoted to him"
In all Mr.. Dyer,s Al years on the
job he has missed no more than
five or six days for illness.
'In the II years have been post
master he hasn't missed one day."
says Mrs. Ruth.
Mr.. Dyer's wife and daughter, Mrs. |
Frances Young, a teller in the |
Vienna Trust Co., persuaded him to |
retire. Now, he says, he will "just
Knock around" in his vegetable gar
len and raise chickens.