Cummings Retires From USPS after 42 Years of Service

On March 31, 2021, Gail Cummings retired from the United States Postal service where she had been a mail carrier for 42 years. She had been through five different Post Masters, a lot of vehicles, and a lot of miles. She has a couple of million mile plaques to prove that.

She started carrying the mail in 1979. She didn't have a contract at that time, but things were a little different back then. She got into the mail carrying business after her father-in-law had been carrying it since 1954. She said he had a shorter route but had been doing it a long time.

When asked if she had seen much change over the 42 years, she said, "Everything has gone up! The price of gas, the price of vehicles. Everything."

She delivered three days a week. Her route was south of town on a 181 mile loop on Content Road, Sun Prairie, Regina Road and Highway 191. Mostly gravel, mud, whatever the case, or weather, may be. She said she had seen her fair share of deep snow as well. "At least I didn't have to do it on horseback!" She said laughing.

Another thing she said had changed was that it used to be if a person knew the route, they were good to go. They could take it for you if it needed to happen. Now they have to have the background checks, drug tests, driving records and fingerprints. Ever since 9/11 happened, there is much more in-depth checks.

When asked if she had any favorite memories, she said, "All of the people out there, and the treats she got from them. They were always so good to me. If something broke down, they would offer me a vehicle to use. Or a few times they would take me on my route." She remembers Junior Blunt doing that a couple of times for her. "Lots of people out there helped me get out of tight spots. I didn't get stuck that many times though."

She said she also saw a lot of turnover in the people on her route. "Some people moved to town, some passed away." She went on, "Some of them moved away, grew up, and came back with families of their own."

When she started, there were three country schools on her route. Now there are none. There was Tallow Creek School, Sun Prairie School and Second Creek School.

She said, "Only delivering the mail three days a week, those schools got a lot of mail."

She did get a 10 year break from the south route when she and her husband, Clark, switched. From 2003-2013, she took the north and he took the south. "But 10 years of doing the south route was enough for Clark and we switched back." She said laughing.

When asked what she was going to miss the most, she said, "I'm going to miss all of the people out there the most. And my co-workers, I'll have to check in on them from time to time. And the money! I don't think I'd have done it for nothing, but if I had to have a job, that's a good job to have. I didn't mind it at all most of the time. There were 20 or 30 days out of the year that were a little bit trying."

Cummings said she has done all of the routes around Malta, and the south route is the toughest one to learn if you're only doing it every once and awhile. Because of all of the people on it and the length of the route.

"You have to know who has the mean dogs and who doesn't and stuff like that." She said.

When asked if there was anything that she wasn't going to miss, she said two words that came out very quickly and believable, "The mud!" She went on, "I'm not going to miss the mud!"

As for her retirement plans, she said they are planning to move to Glasgow. "We'll probably be back and forth for a while, at least until Clark gets used to living in Glasgow." She went on to say, "We've got three little grand boys down there that we want to watch play. Our Whitewater girls are just about finished with school, and we can watch them just as easy from Glasgow as we can from Malta."