Delivering Local Stories Garfield Postmaster Publishes Recollections Of The Depression By Local Residents

Postmaster Richard Landers is helping this tiny farm town put its stamp on history.

One hard memory at a time.

What started out as an effort to lend a little local flavor to a new line of stamps issued by the U.S. Postal Service has turned into a popular community project.

Landers, 39, is preparing the second printing of a booklet his post office has published on the Depression-era stories of two dozen elderly Garfield residents.

“I guess that’s the nice thing about a small-town post office, you can do things like this,” Landers said Tuesday.

A former letter carrier in Moses Lake and Colfax, Landers took his first postmaster position in Garfield three years ago. He is a Whitman County native.

He was slow in the beginning, Landers recalled, sometimes putting mail in the wrong boxes or having to look up regulations in the thick Postal Service guides. But residents in Garfield remained kind, despite his foibles.

“It was a whole new job and people were patient,” Landers said. “I wanted to do something nice for Garfield.”

So last fall, when the U.S. Postal Service issued its 1930s stamps - part of a limited-edition series commemorating the events and accomplishments of the 20th century - Landers decided to collect a few local stories to go with them.

Tales of Eastern Washington in the 1930s began to roll in - stories of farm families bartering for fruit, grain, eggs and livestock, and of the grange organizations that kept farmers and social circles intact during hard times.

Garfield residents Louise Kriebel, 82, and her husband, Mahlon, 88, wrote a poem about houses that rented for $2.50 a month and a local doctor’s friend who furnished medicine - bootleg whiskey - during the tough winter of ‘29.

Robert Wride, 81, and his brother, Don, 72, recounted how the Garfield Bank was one of the few that stayed open while others around the region closed during the Depression, and how hobos often came to town for farm labor and food.

Nearly two dozen residents put their stories on paper and cassette tape and brought them to the post office.

With the help of Garfield residents Dan Bothell and Sally Elder, who publish Palouse Magazine, Landers created a special spiral-bound book.

It was so popular, he eventually sold 170 copies and held a reception at the community hall for the authors and their families. He has since shipped copies of the booklet to other post offices in Latah and Whitman counties. At $11 apiece, he even made back the money the U.S. Postal Service invested in the project after he pitched the idea to his Spokane supervisor.

“It’s been fun for them, and for their families too,” Landers said of the project. “I think it’s important to hear their stories. These people are getting up there in age and when they’re gone, their stories are gone.”