Last Mail Going Through St. Andrews Post Office
By Hu Blonk
“News & Standard” – May 24, 1957
ST. ANDREWS - Some weeks hence, this "St. Andrews" dateline will be officially a thing of the past.
The small post office, 67 years old, will be closed.
Big Bend Postmaster Hans C. Wogensen, a proud Dane, has told Uncle Sam he's quitting.
His resignation more or less coincides with the Post Office Department's plan to close the office and substitute a rural route.
The once bustling community, where farmers and horses rested en route to Coulee City with the wheat, has gradually been shrinking.
Two or three years ago the two-room school was closed, the pupils being hauled to Coulee City. Wogensen shut up his grocery counter, near the mail boxes, four months ago when he lost his wholesaler. Now all you can buy are soap suds and a candy bar.
What there's left here now is a small one-room building called a “teacherage" and an old-fashioned two-story building, where Wogensen and his wife live and handle the mail. All around are acres and acres of green wheat and fertile summer fallow.
St. Andrews, named after the first postmaster, a Capt. Andrews, once boasted a livery stable that could hold a hundred horses. It also supported a church, a blacksmith shop, a two-room school, a harness shop, a butcher shop (once run by Wogensen), and, also, according to him, "one of the best hotels."
Wogensen became postmaster in 1942 but he knows the history of St. Andrews well. The post office was established in 1890. The first mail, he said, was hauled on horseback from Sprague. Later postmasters included Foy Sinclair, Eva Dodd, Ambrose Cross, Aage Olson and Ras Tanneberg.
The retiring postman came here in 1907, thinking of a homestead and ending up for the first five years as a butcher. Later he farmed 30 years. He still owns land.
Of the homestead days he said: "It was just pitiful. They couldn't make it on a quarter section. Most of them had nothing to go with in breaking up their land. They generally ended up with just a garden spot. That's as far as it went. The men used to work away and the women would sit in the shack with the kids. The queered me on homesteading."
The first floor where the Post Office sits in a corner, was once littered with everything from a "pinto to a threshing machine," Wogensen recounted. Now it's almost bare except for two counters, over which many hands passed, and a wall with Daily World clippings of Grand Coulee Dam, in which Wogensen is tremendously interested.
Running the Post Office wasn't always easy for the immigrant from Denmark. "I didn't get a day of American schooling," he said. "And I made a lot of bloopers. I didn't understand all the regulations of the Post Office at first."
Wogenson has been on his own since he was 12 in Denmark. He came to this country when 20, looking for opportunity. In Denmark he worked for 8 crowns a year ($1.10), plus "the overalls I wore out and my keep." He borrowed $200 to come to the U.S. and soon was broke. His first job was working in an Iowa sewer.
One of the first intriguing sights for Wogensen was a woman in a train chewing gum. "I never saw gum before," he laughed. "I kept watching, figuring she was chewing tobacco and had to spit sometime."
St. Andrews may be passing out of existence but to Wogensen there "isn't a finer community anywhere - as a whole."
The 77-year-old mailman said, as he neared the end of the last batch of mail: "I'll mist the people I've lived with."
As to the future . . . "I just got a good car and I'm going to see the country as long as I can push it around."
And as to St. Andrews without Wogensen, Farmer Lloyd McLean said: "The Grange is taking in 20 members . . . that shows St. Andrews isn't quite dead yet."
(from Conor Jorgensen via facebook)
By Hu Blonk
“News & Standard” – May 24, 1957
ST. ANDREWS - Some weeks hence, this "St. Andrews" dateline will be officially a thing of the past.
The small post office, 67 years old, will be closed.
Big Bend Postmaster Hans C. Wogensen, a proud Dane, has told Uncle Sam he's quitting.
His resignation more or less coincides with the Post Office Department's plan to close the office and substitute a rural route.
The once bustling community, where farmers and horses rested en route to Coulee City with the wheat, has gradually been shrinking.
Two or three years ago the two-room school was closed, the pupils being hauled to Coulee City. Wogensen shut up his grocery counter, near the mail boxes, four months ago when he lost his wholesaler. Now all you can buy are soap suds and a candy bar.
What there's left here now is a small one-room building called a “teacherage" and an old-fashioned two-story building, where Wogensen and his wife live and handle the mail. All around are acres and acres of green wheat and fertile summer fallow.
St. Andrews, named after the first postmaster, a Capt. Andrews, once boasted a livery stable that could hold a hundred horses. It also supported a church, a blacksmith shop, a two-room school, a harness shop, a butcher shop (once run by Wogensen), and, also, according to him, "one of the best hotels."
Wogensen became postmaster in 1942 but he knows the history of St. Andrews well. The post office was established in 1890. The first mail, he said, was hauled on horseback from Sprague. Later postmasters included Foy Sinclair, Eva Dodd, Ambrose Cross, Aage Olson and Ras Tanneberg.
The retiring postman came here in 1907, thinking of a homestead and ending up for the first five years as a butcher. Later he farmed 30 years. He still owns land.
Of the homestead days he said: "It was just pitiful. They couldn't make it on a quarter section. Most of them had nothing to go with in breaking up their land. They generally ended up with just a garden spot. That's as far as it went. The men used to work away and the women would sit in the shack with the kids. The queered me on homesteading."
The first floor where the Post Office sits in a corner, was once littered with everything from a "pinto to a threshing machine," Wogensen recounted. Now it's almost bare except for two counters, over which many hands passed, and a wall with Daily World clippings of Grand Coulee Dam, in which Wogensen is tremendously interested.
Running the Post Office wasn't always easy for the immigrant from Denmark. "I didn't get a day of American schooling," he said. "And I made a lot of bloopers. I didn't understand all the regulations of the Post Office at first."
Wogenson has been on his own since he was 12 in Denmark. He came to this country when 20, looking for opportunity. In Denmark he worked for 8 crowns a year ($1.10), plus "the overalls I wore out and my keep." He borrowed $200 to come to the U.S. and soon was broke. His first job was working in an Iowa sewer.
One of the first intriguing sights for Wogensen was a woman in a train chewing gum. "I never saw gum before," he laughed. "I kept watching, figuring she was chewing tobacco and had to spit sometime."
St. Andrews may be passing out of existence but to Wogensen there "isn't a finer community anywhere - as a whole."
The 77-year-old mailman said, as he neared the end of the last batch of mail: "I'll mist the people I've lived with."
As to the future . . . "I just got a good car and I'm going to see the country as long as I can push it around."
And as to St. Andrews without Wogensen, Farmer Lloyd McLean said: "The Grange is taking in 20 members . . . that shows St. Andrews isn't quite dead yet."
(from Conor Jorgensen via facebook)
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