Rayetta Kenworthy unlocks the door. It is early morning. She enters a small, 20’x15’ room filled with 180 post office boxes. Inside, she opens the door to her 6’x10’ office packed with papers, envelopes, and boxes from floor to ceiling. She is good looking, with stylish short dark hair, dressed in classy tasteful fashionable clothing. She is a small, 61 year old woman who has been coming here for 19 years. Kenworthy is the postmaster of Bay Center, a small fishing village with 200 people in southwest Washington. She loves her job and looks forward to coming to work. Kenworthy has a steadfast devotion to her job and the community. Kenworthy and her post office are the heartbeat of this village.
My post office is the hub of this community. Without it, the whole existence of this community’s atmosphere is gone. I wear many hats – I have many people come confide in me. The old people are dependent on this place – they need someone they can talk to on occasion. They don’t have anyone to talk to around their house, so they come here. They sit, have a cup of coffee, and visit with the other people that come in. It’s like a small, close family.
I’m sure that there is someone out there that could take my place, just as it was passed down from the last postmaster. But if they close down this small rural post office, you are going to lose the whole identity of this community. There is a lot of doom and gloom that constantly comes in about the post office closures that everybody is going through right now. It’s a bad time in the world.
We do more than just deliver their mail or sell items – we are a support system. We are a consistent, steady rock in the community that they come to. They can find out things, they can socialize, like in the old days when they used to gather in the general stores and huddle around the fire, drink coffee, and discuss everything, from births to deaths, political life, to troubles that they were having. Many problems were solved that way. I am sworn to people’s privacy, so I have to be careful what I repeat, but different things affect all of the people. I have 180 boxes here and when people come in, I can tell if something is going on with them. Usually I get to know what, because they volunteer that information. I empathize with them as much as I can.
I try not to get really involved with people’s personal affairs, but I do know when people are ill and they can’t get out. If somebody doesn’t come in and pick up their mail on a regular basis, I will go check on them. I will ask a neighbor if they have seen them, and I will go do a welfare check. Actually, in doing that I have saved two people by getting there and finding them stuck between the bed and the wall. In a lot of cases, I am the only person that the elderly have contact with for weeks. I remember another occasion when the small grocery store was still running next door. It was a warm summer day and the gal that was working over there came running over here and said, “Rayetta, Rayetta! Bob’s choking!” So I ran out, went across, and there he was sitting at the table where he had been eating a hamburger and was choking. I went up behind him and I gave him the Heimlich maneuver and he popped out this piece of meat. I told him, you know what Bob – that is a sneaky way of getting a hug from me.
I’m a solid rock here because they know I am open. They know I am going to be here through rain, sleet, snow, and darkness of night. That is what we do. It is really a fun job in a lot of ways. For years, I have always had a little dish of candy. The kids will come in, even the little tikes, and want candy. So I would ask them to say please and thank you. That was one of the requirements, and now these children have grown up and bring their own kids in here to do the same thing. That is very rewarding, knowing that I have helped two generations to learn how to say please and thank you. I like everybody to know that the postal business is a friendly business.
My motto has always been if you come to my post office you can buy a stamp, you can get a piece of candy, get a smile, and if you’re crying, I’ll give you a hug. Any tragedy that happens in this town or anything good, I get notified so I can notify the rest of the community. I have a notice board out here where people can hang up what they like, within reason. Families will call me and ask me to put it up for them so the word can get out right away. So that’s what I do as a postmaster. I had a personal friend of mine who was like the matriarch of Bay Center who was in a bad car accident on the dike road. I was notified right away that an accident had happened. I started thinking about her life, how important she was to this community. She had many children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, and was a real active person in the town. I just thought to myself that something special has to be written right away for this person. So I did, and her children and grandchildren used it in her obituary for the newspaper. That makes me feel really good when I can help.
The people in this town are my family. They have helped me raise my kids. The wonderful people of Bay Center have helped me through good and bad times. You can just walk around the streets here and see how warm and close this community is. Since 1993, it’s been hit-and-miss knowing how to handle things that come up. I was a postmaster relief, which was a guaranteed two hours a week and that is it. I did that for nine years. The previous postmaster did not take any time off. In order to feed my family, I picked blackberries, pealed bark, or whatever, like cleaning houses. People started paying attention to who I was and what my circumstances were. They helped me in whatever way they could, financial stuff, or other things. I had no idea there were jobs like this whatsoever, jobs that had benefits, sick leave. I couldn’t believe it when I got this job. I was truly amazed. If the postal gods close this office, I will have to do the best that I can. If I have to go cook on a stove in the woods again, I will. I can still put up a tent with a blanket, I can still do that. I can still fish and get clams and pick berries to survive if I have to. If I have to, I still know how to do that, but I don’t want to. I have always had a lot of compassion for people. I like people. Very few people do I dislike. A person would have to do something pretty horrendous before I say, you know, I don’t much care for that person. Having gone through what I have, I feel compassion for people. I have taken elderly to the doctor or taken them food. When that horrible storm in 2007 happened, I helped the store put together soup and sandwiches. I knew who was in the community that would need that help up, above anyone else. I gladly play the role I do for the community. I am kind of a Switzerland here at the post office. I am not church affiliated while I am in here, and I don’t frequent the tavern so I am not on that side of it. I am just a neutral place for people to come get a service, if not get a smile.
This town has given me confidence and I have given it my empathy. If I could change anything, it would be getting a community center. We have a temporary one at the old store where I have helped organize monthly potlucks. The events are like bringing in the old days. I let anyone new who comes into town know about the Women’s Club and the Bay Center Association, as well as letting them know who to call to get their power or garbage hooked up – anything someone would need to get their life started when they get a new place. The first thing that new people say when they come in here is, I did not know there were little hamlets like this still alive. What a quaint little fishing village, with oysters and clams.
My favorite story was about this elderly gentleman who had just had an operation on his eye. His name was Hank. Hank came over one morning with an eye patch on and said, “Rayetta, can you help me?” I said, “Sure Hank, what do you need? He said, “Will you put this eye back in for me?” He held out his glass eye, and I was thinking what should I do? Hank said, “I have to keep this in there after the operation so it can form around it or it won’t fit in later.” Hank then stated, “I am shaking so bad that I can’t get it in there. I am just a mess.” So I said, “O.K., Hank.” I sat him over on the bench and propped his eye open. I looked away and popped it in there. I said, “Did I get it in right?” He said, “How would I know, I can’t see?” The lesson from that one was be careful what you say you’ll help with.
Post offices were first opened to help people, to connect them with the outside world. They became more than that in small towns. In the big cities, it is all business, no personal compassion and the postal service thinks it should be that way everywhere. They don’t care that we are the social workers of our community. Right now, there are hundreds and hundreds of small towns dying and people suffering because of the closures of all the rural small town post offices. America is changing. We will hold on to what we have as long as we can.
[While this interview took place, two people came in to donate a heater and ripe kiwi fruit to share with the community of Bay Center.]
~Interviewed & transcribed
by Taileen Wilson
