Holiday hubbub at the Lindsay post office

Just in Time local history series

This past summer, a friend from university days mailed me a postcard from Alaska, detailing the trip she took by train through that state’s majestic landscapes. Nearly two years ago, a friend from Alberta sent me a seven-page handwritten letter bringing me up to date on her various projects in the public history sector. And each year still other friends take the time to entrust lovely Christmas cards to the postal service, kindly inscribed with a note of warm wishes for the forthcoming year.

In this increasingly digital age, there is something quite heartwarming about receiving correspondence that has been carefully sealed into an envelope, stamped, and postmarked. Not only do cards and letters seem infinitely more personal and tangible than messages sent through computer screens, they carry on a tradition that, in Canada, stretches back to the 18th century.

And for generations of Canadians sending and receiving mail, the centre of action – particularly during the winter holidays – was the post office.

While the Christmas rush played out in general stores and even private homes-cum-post offices across rural communities, those living in towns and cities would wait with bated breath in majestic buildings designed expressly for the purpose of sending, receiving, and sorting mail. For a period of nearly 75 years, the Lindsay post office towered over Kent Street, becoming one of the town’s most recognizable landmarks – and annually contributing to the hubbub of the holiday season.

The building was designed by Thomas Fuller in what was called the Romanesque Revival style. Characterized by enormous stone foundations, imposing facades sporting generously-proportioned arched windows, and large towers anchoring a corner, Romanesque Revival visually conveyed the importance of federal institutions in small towns throughout the nation. Constructed of local materials (notably, Bobcaygeon-procured limestone) over the course of 1888-1889 under the supervision of Sarnia-based contractor P. Nevan, the Lindsay post office was finally ready for business by the opening days of 1890. Thanks to an ingenious method of laying the bricks from the inside out, local residents were able to appreciate the full scale of the structure without scaffolding blocking the view.

In addition to the post office, the building also housed customs offices, the inspector of weights and measures, and the collector of inland revenue. The vast second storey was fitted up for the caretaker and his family; eventually the tower was crowned with a working clock and a bell.

For local residents anxiously awaiting their mail in the days and weeks leading up to Dec. 25, though, the architecture was of secondary importance to customer service.

In 1912, a local newspaper cautioned readers to be patient with the harried postal clerks as they went about their tasks. A.F. Palen, appointed as postmaster only nine months before after some 20 years on staff, had his hands full. Some $250 worth of stamps were sold only a day before Christmas Eve, and the volume of mail surprised a reporter who was dispatched from the Evening Post to take stock of the situation. “All the tables were piled to overflowing, while piles of it were on the floor and in large baskets,” the reporter observed. “The post office staff were engaged sorting it out until a late hour and certainly showed the effects of a strenuous day’s work.”

And so went the same routine each year, as soon as the first snow fell and local merchants began wooing shoppers with the latest in consumer goods – goods that added to the burden of postal workers. “Last night’s mail was particularly heavy, being augmented by the arrival of Eaton’s and Simpson’s catalogues,” the Lindsay Daily Post reported on Dec. 21, 1923. “The members of the staff jumped into the pile with a do-or-die determination and had things cleaned up late in the evening.”

In 1947, postmaster Aubrey Warner announced that up to 17 additional letter carriers would be hired to aid in delivering mail during the festive season. Warner remarked at the time that the volume of mail sent and received by the citizens of Lindsay seemed to get heavier each year and admitted that he had no idea when it would abate. Statistics released by Warner and his staff in 1952 are staggering: over a period of two weeks in the middle of December, 293,000 cards and letters were processed by the Lindsay post office’s cancelling machine, while 3,740 bags of parcels were sent out. Residents were encouraged to help make the process more efficient by separating local mail from outgoing postage and ensuring that all packages had a stamp in the upper right-hand corner.

The Christmas rush at Lindsay’s post office saw a notable change in 1961, when nine women were hired to sort holiday mail overnight. They would be among the last to carry on this annual ritual in the venerable Romanesque Revival building. By the time Christmas of 1963 rolled around, the grand old landmark was gone – demolished to make way for a grocery store, while the post office relocated to its current location at the southeast corner of Cambridge and Russell Streets.

Though our streetscapes continue to change with the years, some things in life remain constant – as when the weather grows cold and hearts grow warm upon reading mail from old friends far and near.