Williams reflects on 34 years with the U.S. Postal Service

Marion Williams retired Monday.

Williams had been postmaster, the individual tasked with overseeing the Havre post office since December 2013.

Before becoming postmaster, Williams served as the supervisor of customer services starting in 1997 However, Williams has worked with the Havre post office for the past 34 years.

she began working with the postal service after serving in the U.S. Army.

"It was one of the better-paying jobs here in town," Williams said, adding that it was a job with good pay and benefits that was dependable.

Now, as she looks toward her retirement, a time of traveling and visiting with her grandson, she said she is worried about the future of the institution she has spent so much time working for.

"I am concerned if we will even have a post office 10, 15 years from now," Williams said. "I hope that is not true. I hope we have a post office forever, because it's part of America."

When Williams started, the post office was housed in a building on 3rd Avenue, now a registered historic landmark, rather than at its larger current location, which opened in 1995.

Back then, the post office operated much different than it does today, one of less automation, no large mailing centers and when "snail mail" was just mail.

"We did everything by hand," Williams said. "We sorted everything by hand."

Williams said there were about 35 employees back then who did the work.

"The truck would back up to the dock in the morning," Williams said. "We would open the door, and the truck would be packed full of mail and it would fall out onto the dock."

Now, rather than 35 employees, the current post office in Havre has only 17.

The mail from the smaller post offices such as that in Havre and surrounding communities, is instead sorted at large mail-sorting facilities in Great Falls by large machines.

It is then delivered from Great Falls to the Havre post office. That mail is marked not only for Havre, but communities about as far east as Malta and about as far west as Chester.

Williams said Havre also drops off mail to post offices in Big Sandy and Box Elder.

Williams said the U.S. Postal Service as a whole views these mailing facilities as more cost-effective and efficient, but those consolidations come at a price.

Because those facilities now do the bulk of the sorting, Williams said, smaller post offices now operate with fewer workers.

"Unfortunately, it takes away from us and it takes away from our employees and that is what we hate to see," Williams said.

The Internet has had an effect on traditional mail service, too.

"As far as writing letters and stuff, it's hurt us tremendously," Williams said.

According to the U.S. Postal Service website, the postal service is funded by the sale of stamps and other products and services.

With fewer people sending letters and buying stamps, the post office is bringing in less revenue.

Years back there was discussion from congress and the U.S Postal Service about potentially halting mail delivery on Saturdays. Much of that talk has died down, and Williams hopes that it stays that way.

She said that doing away with Saturday deliveries, it would just increase the volume on Monday.

However, its package service is growing, as people are ordering and sending items from online vendors. Packages will sometimes be shipped through other private carriers such as UPS and dropped off with the post office who will deliver it the last mile or so.

Williams said these private delivery services often don't like to go too far into rural areas, so the post office works with them in that regard.

Many small town post offices especially in rural areas now face uncertain futures.

Talk about potentially closing post offices has died down in recent years, but strains remain on some, such as the post office in nearby Kremlin, which Williams says now operates only four hours a day.

Nonetheless, even in the age of the Internet, Williams said Post offices are an integral part of a community's fabric.

She said that a post office isn't only a place where people go to get mail, but where people can visit and get information on community events from their town bulletin boards.

"It important to their identity, I think. That's what most of them think," Williams said.