September 12, 2001
Old Mission postmaster provided first class service
Lois Manigold retires after 33 years with the United States Post Office
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
It's been 33 years, nine months and 16 days, but who's counting?
Not Lois Manigold. After spending the past ten of those years working in a slice of paradise, time has flown by for the postmaster of the Old Mission Post Office.
Retiring from her job on September 1, you can still stop by the post office this week and find Manigold's familiar face behind the counter as she trains temporary replacement Ed Hennrick.
Saying goodbye was hard for Manigold, who lives and farms on the Peninsula with husband, Rob, the Peninsula Township supervisor.
"You just feel like it is one big family out here," said Manigold, who started her Post Office career at the Detroit Metro airport, sorting foreign airmail. "I've seen little kids grow up from babies to ten years old. It is fun watching them grow up, it's so sweet."
"Two little girls offered to give me their allowance if I would stay."
Not all her neighbors and customers were so orderly in their request that she stay.
"My clerk organized a protest and there were people carrying signs out front last week," said Manigold, who will devote more time to her vineyards now that she is retired. "The TV station was here and my boss from downtown."
Located 18 miles from town, the Old Mission Post Office serves a small community whose many seasonal residents cause sharp population fluctuations. Even with 50 percent of her customers leaving during the winter, the small-town pace of her job has always been attractive. Manigold made friends with everyone and said some seasonal residents would call her or write her during the winter, just to see how she is doing.
"What's nice here is that you have time to talk to the customers," Manigold noted. "In Traverse City, it is always go, go, go. Here, you can do your book work, your sorting as time allows but when people come in and want to talk, you can."
The Old Mission post office features 160 lock boxes, antique post office boxes with combination locks. Anyone who forgot the combination would just ask her to hand them the mail. One of Manigold's goals before her retirement was installing 40 'new' boxes (they were really more antique ones she found from another post office) and moving the counter away from the outside door. She even had an old-fashioned pulley-system window installed after the move, not wanting to ruin the ambiance of the building.
The post office's small lobby, with lace curtains over the windows, was a gathering place of information for the community.
"There is an even flow of customers here all the time and we have lots of conversations in the lobby," Manigold said. "People come here to find out things or tell me things."
This word-of-mouth communication draws many residents in every day to pick up their mail from the box, even though there is a rural carrier on the Peninsula who could deliver to their house.
Such was the case with Cheryl Kroupa, who dropped by briefly Monday morning to mail some letters and nab some dog treats for her dog, who waited eagerly in the car. Kroupa could have mail delivered to her house but she appreciates the personal contact that comes with getting her mail every day from the post office.
"You see your neighbors here and pick up dog treats," she said. "If somebody's shaker breaks down, you'll hear about it here first. We're going to miss Lois because she understood what we did, our lifestyles and how we wanted to mail things."
The Old Mission Post Office is a historic fixture, now located next to the Old Mission General Store. The Post Office began in 1850 as Grand Traverse in Michilmackinac County. In either 1853 or 1854, the post office moved to Old Mission and officially received that name in 1869. The first post office in northern Michigan, Old Mission offered the only mail service available between southern Michigan and Mackinaw for many years.
Manigold served as its 15th postmaster and, since retiring, might find herself drifting to the post office herself just to catch up on the happenings.
"This is kind of like the hub of Old Mission," she said. "There was always something to do or someone stopping by."