If They Fit They Ship

by Tony Niccoli

Its that time of year again. We start off by planning trips to see friends and family. For many that will mean crossing the country or even the world by plane. But far more often, it will simply entail crossing the town or county by car. From Thanksgiving tables, to Christmas Eve parties, and near countless social gatherings in between, we take extra time to come together and share the holiday spirit. We enjoy the company of our favorite people, and reminisce on the highlights of another year gone by.

And for those whom we love, but are unable to arrange a visit, myriad packages are carefully wrapped and dispatched for shipping directly to our intended recipients. Closer and closer to the end of the year, the crowds swell on the last of the shopping days, and the lines begin to snake across the entire post office. Packages are weighed and measured, often condensed to find a better rate, and even double boxed into the now all too familiar “if it fits it ships” option sizes. Dates are carefully checked, and specific timing arrangements made, with ever increasing alacrity. Right up to that last minute we shop, wrap, and post – trusting in the efficiency of an incredible system to deliver our holiday wishes via card, and our Christmas cheer via parcel. Knowing that while we can’t be there in person, at least our family and closest friends will know that we took a little extra time to think of them again this year.

And for us, in the blinding convenience of modern travel made easy, and guaranteed overnight air shipping, most of the stress and difficulty that remains is self-imposed. Additionally, its trivial to quickly decide if someone special is too far to get to, or just a hop and skip away and therefore simple to drop in upon in person for a warm hung instead of just a note. While we may balk at packing our bags to cross the entire nation, something shorter – like say a 75 mile jaunt – is taken on without so much as a single hesitation.

But not that long ago, and even in the well-traversed area where we currently live, the decision wasn’t always so easy. As near back as just over 100 years ago, travel through the mountains here in Northern Idaho was an unbelievably daunting task. With few, and remarkably crude, roads cutting back and forth up and down canyon sides, deep and entirely unplowed snow clogging narrow passes, and hardly any options to aid in travel outside of the diminished hours of winter’s scant daylight. If you were wealthy in the early 1900’s you might own a car, and even have a set of oil lanterns mounted to the front – but that certainly didn’t mean you could just choose to pass through snowy mountains at night. And for most people, with the car not appearing as a household option yet, it meant several days on a horse in bitter weather just to make it as far as we could go in a couple of hours today.

When grandma’s house was farther afield than the proverbial over the river and through the woods, it normally meant that you just didn’t go. And if you did, it could be an enormous undertaking. That is, unless you could afford to travel by train, and were lucky enough to have two stations near the departure and destination. But the cost of even a one-way ticket on a short jaunt was often as dear as an entire day’s earnings for many families. So for the most part, you just hunkered down where you were for the winter. The traveling would have to wait until the thaws in the spring, and the Post Office would have to be trusted to get a holiday card out to any relatives that were beyond what you could manage on foot, or in a sleigh pulled behind a horse or two.

That is, until the US Postal Department made some major changes to parcel post in the beginning of 1913. For the first time ever, you could mail something that weighed over four pounds. In fact, you could go all the way up to 50 pounds on a single item. And while there were already some restrictions in place, they were nothing like the limits we are used to today. Most restrictions were vague, and before they had a chance to be revised and settled, there was a little bit of chaos, with the-postmen in different towns treating packages in unique ways. What might ship at one office, would be totally off limits in another town. This ability to sneak a few unconventional items between the rules gave some enterprising families a great idea!

Between 1913 and 1914 there are several records of families actually shipping children. All they had to do was weight them to certify that they were under 50lbs (including the weight of any items the child might be carrying with them) and then buy the proper number of stamps. Postmen labeled them as various different items on these journeys – but since it was already an established category and relatively close in definition, several went with “baby chick” when sending a child.

The first known transport like this was a baby that was mailed approximately one mile to his grandmother’s house in Ohio. That family only had to pay $0.15 for the stamps, owing to the light weight of an infant, and it is recorded that they also opted for $50 worth of insurance. Gotta make sure Jr. gets safely to his end destination, right?

While there are some pretty fantastic photos online, most are thought to be a hoax, with mailmen posing with a baby in a mail sack after the fad had become known. In fact, most were just walking alongside the children during their route, carrying a baby a short distance, or helping the child onto a mail car rather than the more expensive passenger car that would be heading to the same location. And since so many people in small towns knew their mail carrier very well, it wasn’t such a scary proposition to consider asking them to escort your child to a relative’s house if you weren’t available to take them or couldn’t afford the standard ticket for the passenger train.

Here in Northern Idaho, in the winter of 1914, there was a young girl named Charlotte May Pierstorff that wanted to make the arduous trek from her parent’s house in Grangeville to visit her grandmother Mary Vennigerholz who lived in Lewistion. Remember that 75 miles I mentioned – today Heather and I love the view on that drive between Lewiston and Grangeville. We pass that way as we head down to McCall or Boise, making the journey at least once or twice most years. And the 75 miles of Lewiston to Grangeville is just once small scenic part of what we generally consider an easy drive to knock out in a day. But in 1914 it was something else entirely.

The only reliable way to make it across that distance was the set of train tracks that ran across the deep ravines-

and canyons up on giant trestle pilings. So when little May wanted to make the trip to see her beloved grandmother that cold and snowy February, the train was the only possible solution. But with a passenger ticket costing more than her family could afford at the time, and the fortuitous situation of having her mother’s cousin as the mail carrier assigned to the train, her parents decided to just rely on the postal service.

May was weighed and found to be under the 50 pound limit even with the bag of clothes that she traveled with. The postmaster in Grangeville agreed to class her a baby chick and $.53 cents worth of stamps were stuck to the back of her coat. With Lewiston being the final stop for that set of tracks, her uncle was even free to walk her to grandma’s house before starting on the rest of his deliveries.

After hearing about May, and having just answered another request for mailing a child that someone had sent him a few weeks before, the head postmaster decided to officially change the rules. So as of early 1914 the loophole was shut and children were once again not allowed to be sent by US post.

It did however take quite a while for the regulation to spread and become properly enforced, and several more accounts of shipping children popped up in the next few years after his decree. Carriers might know that it was no longer allowed, but when presented with a stamped child they were left will little choice but to complete the delivery as requested to get the “package” there safely.

As for May, they say it was a complete surprise for her grandmother. She didn’t even know that May would be coming, and the two got to enjoy a wonderful visit. Most of the old trestle bridges and train tracks she crossed can still be seen today between Lewiston and Grangeville – especially in the section that crosses the Lapwai Canyon region. They offer an incredible view into a mode of transportation that was so vital just a few generations back.

The post office still has parcel post, and accepts even heavier loads these days. Just remember, that even if you can get your children stuffed into the “if it fits it ships” boxes, the modern postmasters are never going to fall for it. Better get out your snow chains if the kids want to travel 75 miles to see grandma this winter.