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BY DOUG HARLOW
Staff Writer 07/07/2008

enlarge Staff photo by David Leaming

LAST RUN: Greta Hayden prepares to load a box of mail at the Athens Post Office that she will transport to Skowhegan Post Office on her last day of 47 years as a contract driver on June 30. Hayden logged over one million miles driving the route twice a day and six days a week.

enlarge Staff Photo by David Leaming

WARM THANKS: Contract driver Greta Hayden laughs after she received a winter coat from Athens Postmaster Susan Molley because Hayden frequently complained it was either too cold or too warm during the 47 years she worked at the post office. Hayden retired recently and was treated to well-wishers holding signs and a warm farewell.

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ATHENS -- When the U.S. Postal Service coined its service motto about delivering the mail in snow, sleet, hail and the gloom of night, it must have had Greta Hayden in mind.

Hayden, 76, retired this past week after 47 years as a highway route contract driver, bringing mail from Skowhegan to rural Athens and back, six days a week since the summer of 1961.

Over that period, the mother of four made an estimated 203,000 trips, logging more than 1 million miles on roads that were, well, not as good as they are today.

And it was especially hard during the winter, Hayden remembered, when the main road to Skowhegan was reduced at times to a single lane through towering snowbanks.

Greta and Herbert Hayden, 81, her husband of almost 60 years, were honored for their service in twin ceremonies last Monday at the Athens post office and later with cake and a plaque at the Skowhegan post office.

"They don't make 'em like that anymore," Athens Postmaster Sue Molley said as friends and members of the Haydens' local church celebrated the couple's final run to Skowhegan.

"Today is it," Hayden said at her kitchen table before the surprise celebration at the Athens post office. "I figured after 47 years, and I'm 76 years old, I figured if I signed another four-year contract I'd be 80 and I've been tied down for 47 years so I decided I'd like to have a little bit of time that if I just wanted to go visit my kids I wouldn't have to get somebody to haul my mail."

During her tenure, Hayden would arrive at the Skowhegan post office at 7 each morning to bring the mail to Athens. She would be back at the Athens post office by 4:30 each afternoon to pick the new mail up to bring it to Skowhegan.

Start time was noon on Saturdays, no matter the weather.

It was every day, except Sunday and holidays, of course.

In the early days she drove a 1945 or '46 Nash Rambler -- traveling about 80 miles every day.

Herbert Hayden, meanwhile, drove trucks, hauling milk from local farms. The couple raised their four children -- Donald, Donna, Dennis and Doreen -- right there in that same house on Ridge Road in Athens across from the Hilton farm.

The couple has 11 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren.

The roads are smoother and wider these days, but the traffic has greatly increased, as have the number of houses along the way, the couple said. As for the price of gas, Greta Hayden said the cost always were factored into her contract.

The price of gas in 1961 was 31 cents a gallon.

The post office was located in those early days in the back of a store run by James Scott, who was postmaster, on Main Street. The current post office was built at the junction of Brighton Road, just out of the village center.

But it was the winters in Athens that were memorable, Greta Hayden said.

"Oh my goodness -- snow -- I plowed through a lot of snow, a lot of snow," she said. "I can remember one time out there it was just one-way traffic up there (State Route 150) by the four corners by where the white school house is -- that was just one-way traffic.

"The snow was right up to the wires -- they put it up with the big buckets -- oh we had wicked snowstorms. But I don't know of any day when I didn't go out. I don't think I missed a day unless they called me and told me not to come."

On another occasion, Hayden said she and her son climbed into the family's old four-wheel-drive Dodge one-ton truck and made their way to Skowhegan in deep snow, only to find the post office closed and they had to drive back to Athens through the storm.

"In fact, I have wondered lots and lots of times how I got out there and how I got back," she said.

"I've had some pretty exciting experiences going out there on the ice and snow and sleet. I'm not one to flap down if I don't feel good. I just keep on going. It was a job that I had to do and I did it."

Doug Harlow -- 861-9244

dharlow@centralmaine.com

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