August 13, 2020
My Great-Grandfather Faced Danger as a Mail Carrier. He’d Be Shocked by Trump’s War on USPS.
Donald Trump’s mail slowdown upends a centuries-old work ethic and undercuts essential postal services during a pandemic, just when we need them most.
Albert Cordner, 1870. Family Courtesy.
After the Civil War, my great-grandfather Albert Cordner got a job delivering the mail by boat and train from Westerly to Newport, Rhode Island. As a veteran of the battles of Antietam and Gettysburg, he was ready for the risks.
One cold January day in 1873, an accident on his mail boat “wafted Uncle Sam’s agent overboard,” the Newport Daily News reported. Until my ancestor was rescued, it was “a serious question of life and death.”
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Read the full article at USA Today.
Originally in USA Today.
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