Sisters mail carriers retire

Violet "Vi" Griffiths and her husband Jim have been delivering mail to residents of Sisters' outlying areas since the early 1980s. Now they're winding up their routes and looking forward to some well-earned free time.

The Griffiths are independent contract mail carriers. They rise in the early hours of the morning, six days a week, to get mail mail in people's boxes from the rural sbdivisions of Indian Ford, Tollgate and Crossroads to the hinterlands of Dry Canyon.

But delivery is only part of the job. They must also sort the mail and load it up for delivery.

"There's hours (at the post office) before we get on the road," Vi said.

The delivery route has grown with the Sisters area; what was once a single route has been broken up into two. After the hours at the post office, the delivery itself takes about three hours, Vi estimated.

The Griffiths were builders when they came to Sisters for Eugene, but the building trades were in a slump during the recession of the early '80s.

"It was down time in building in the early '80s and (the contract) came up for bid," Vi recalled.

The Griffiths have been hard at work - delivering, as the clich has it, in a all kinds of weather, no matter what.

Vi said she and her husband won't miss the grind of working hard six days a week, but she will miss the people she has served.

"I like people," she said, "and (will miss) the contact with people."

Author Bio

Jim Cornelius, Editor in Chief

Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.

• Email: editor@nuggetnews.com
• Phone: 5415499941