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Phyllis Sullivan-Williams is retiring after 30 years as a rural mail carrier. She's also retiring her 2005 Jeep, but she's keeping Willie, her Lab. |
Phyllis Sullivan-Williams can trace her 30-year career as a rural postal carrier by the vehicles she wore out on the job.
There was the '79 Dodge Dart she wrecked in two months, and the Dodge Colt straight-stick she drove for two long years.
There was the '69 Jeep DJ5 that vibrated so badly its parts would fall off mid-route. She'd toss them in the back, and at night husband Dennis would put the pieces back together.
There was the later-model Jeep that sounded like a race car because Dennis put a V-8 engine in it.
The Subaru she bought new in 1995 saw her through the 2-foot snowfall in the Blizzard of '96. She didn't miss a day, or a house, that whole long, white January.
Another Subaru, then another Jeep.
And at last, the white '05 Cherokee, instantly recognizable to the 520 customers on her beloved route through White Oak in Stafford County.
"I said when I bought it, 'This one's going to retire me,'" Sullivan-Williams recalled recently.
And that's just how it happened.
One sunny May afternoon, Sullivan-Williams, 57, relinquished that Jeep to its new owner and said goodbye to her postal career.
From now on, she said, her cars will have their steering wheels on the left.
But she's not driving far. What she really wants is to be a homebody, enjoying the sprawling house Dennis designed and built with the help of White Oak neighbors and relatives.
She has what she loves in this place: Willie, the black Labrador retriever; nine chickens; three ducks; 41 birdhouses; a garden; and Dennis.
'THE BEST JOB'
Phyllis Sullivan grew up in the southern Stafford community of White Oak with her parents, Debbie and Roy Sullivan, and eight siblings. She graduated from Stafford High School in 1971.
Dennis Williams was raised on White Oak Road, too, and he graduated a year after she did.
The couple started their life together in a little house on Butler Road that was always too low and narrow for Dennis' 6-foot-4-inch frame.
One morning they got a call from a distant relative who wanted to sell 12 acres off White Oak Road right away, for cash. They had little collateral, but the loan officer at the bank knew and trusted them. The couple got the money that day.
Dennis designed the house and built it himself with the help of White Oak friends and neighbors.
The couple enjoy the tangible evidence of that loving neighborliness every day. There's the sunburst trim, crafted by D.P. Newton from wood cut on the property. There are the curtains, made by Arlene Weimer next door. There are homey touches from Sullivan-Williams' sisters Nancy Chewning and Joyie Sullivan.
And when she looks in the dining room she can almost see Clarence Weimer in there, with his toolbag and hammer and nails, working till the sun went down.
By the time that house was built, Sullivan-Williams had already worked for the Post Office for several years.
She started subbing on rural routes in 1979, for what she thought was amazing money: $7.18 an hour.
"I loved it. I thought it was absolutely the best job I'd ever had in my life," she recalled recently. "And the more I worked, the more I wanted to work."
Part time became full time, and for the past 20 years she's been on the same route--delivering to her White Oak friends and neighbors.
GRUMPY DOGS,
It hasn't been without misadventure.
There was the time the Rottweiler knocked her down. "I lay still to see if he was going to bite me," Sullivan-Williams recalled. "He didn't."
Then there was the incident with the Yorkie, who attempted to eat her entire leg but got only a mouthful of denim. She pulled him off the cuff of her jeans and handed him back to his embarrassed owner.
But that's about as unfriendly as it's ever gotten. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Many of those she delivered mail to, between Belle Plains Road and the King George County line, are people she's known her whole life.
They'd come out and chat, or leave little presents. One gentleman carved exquisite little figurines for her out of single pieces of wood--a mallard, a long-necked goose, an owl. He's gone now, but she still treasures them.
In return, she was a familiar presence to them and an unobtrusive guardian angel, keeping an eye out for her elderly customers but offering help only if it was clearly needed.
She'd deliver her neighbors' mail during the week, then see many of them on Sundays at Fairview Baptist Church.
While she's happy to be getting off the road and resting the right foot that pressed accelerators and brakes countless times a day for countless days, Sullivan-Williams knows there's a tradeoff.
She'll miss that daily contact, that familiarity, those smiles and waves.
But she is ready.
"I need some down time," she said, patting Willie as he nudged her arm.
"I've worked all my life, and I'm such a worrywart--when I go to work, I give it my all," she said.
For now, she's not looking for that post-retirement second career.
"If I get bored, yes," she said with a smile. "But first, I have to get bored."
Laura Moyer: 540/374-5417
Email: lmoyer@freelancestar.com
| "My 30 years as a rural mail carrier for the Postal Service has seemed so short. I know what made my job so enjoyable was delivering in the most beautiful area to the most wonderful customers this Earth has to offer. I feel blessed by God to have been allowed to serve and receive so much in return."
--Phyllis Sullivan-Williams |
