If you drive too fast, you’ll miss it.
Even those on a slow Sunday cruise often think the postcard-sized storefront has long been closed.
But the old Eola post office is still very much open for business, and the citizens of the tiny unincorporated town at the western edge of DuPage County want to keep it that way.
The Eola branch is one of only a handful of post offices in DuPage, Kane and Kendall Counties that still offer post office box service only.
Instead of walking to their curbs to get their mail, residents of these post offices in Eola, Wasco, LaFox, Wayne, Kaneville, Millbrook and Millington must pick up their mail.
It’s less convenient than home delivery, but most residents regard it as a treasured tradition, linked to the very identity of the town.
“The newer offices are fantastic and beautiful, but these little offices are more homey,” said Judith Frederick, Eola postmaster, whose mail arrives at 6 a.m. and is handsorted and distributed to 178 boxes by 9 a.m. each weekday morning.
“People are basically very nostalgic and feel very comfortable in a place like this,” said Frederick, a 12-year veteran of the Warrenville post office.
So comfortable, in fact, that Eola residents petitioned in recent years to avoid being annexed by neighboring Aurora and Naperville, Frederick said.
Citizens of Wasco, who face similar development spilling over from neighboring St. Charles, understand.
“They’re afraid that the small town atmosphere they grew up with or moved here to have will be lost with new development,” said Sue McMahon, Wasco postmaster, who maintains 500 post office boxes with a waiting list for more.
“There is no local government here, so when anyone wants to know anything, they call the post office,” said McMahon, who worked in the Elgin post office before going to Wasco eight years ago.
“If you’re here early, there’s always two or three people here talking about things,” said Wasco resident and builder Irv Brummel, who has had a Wasco post office box for 30 years. “We’re planning to move soon and we’ll have a (home) mailbox, but I don’t think I’ll give up my box here.”
“There’s a real closeness here you don’t get in a big office,” McMahon said. “We know everyone’s kids and when someone is retiring or dies, and we sometimes learn when someone is pregnant even before the father knows.”
One local new mother stopped at the post office on her way home from the hospital to weigh her infant on the old-fashioned postal scale.
The Wasco station has always been in the 110-year-old building at Illinois Highway 64 and LaFox Road that used to house the Hummel Lumber Yard.
Once a desk in the back corner of the lumber store, the post office now occupies half of the building, with Collins’ General Store filling the other side.
Some of the old ledger books record a time when postal sales averaged four cents a day and a postmaster’s salary was 38 cents a week. Last year’s revenue at the Wasco station was more than $300,000, McMahon said.
In nearby unincorporated LaFox, the post office also once occupied a desk, in the back of Potter’s General Store, said Betty McKee, postmaster of LaFox for the past 10 years.
When business for the store and the post office grew and local subdivisions started to appear on the very rural horizon, a new post office was built four years ago. There McKee services more than 200 post office boxes.
LaFox residents, as do most patrons of non-delivery offices, have the option of rural delivery service from a neighboring town, but most choose to keep their boxes, McKee said.
“It’s a sense of community,” McKee said. “When people move here, they move to LaFox, and that’s what they want their address to say.”
Post office size and type of delivery is based on a town’s size, growth and needs, said Chris Britton, a regional postal manager of customer service support.
“In a small town, the local identity of the town is symbolized by the post office,” said Britton, who oversees stations comprising ZIP codes beginning with 600, 601, 602, 603 and 605.
“But the post office mirrors the town it services, and as that town grows and develops, so does the post office,” he said.
Wayne, with a population of 1,600, is one town that has grown to the point of being eligible for delivery service of its own but still maintains post office box service only.
“Wayne is pretty stubborn about changing anything,” said John T. O’Shea, Wayne postmaster for the past two years. “The folks here like it the way it was and we want to accomodate them.”
The Wayne office services 560 boxes, and plans to add an additional 200.
“The oldtimers don’t want to change and the newcomers would like to, but they get used to it,” said Gladys Stevenson, a Wayne postal clerk for 23 1/2 years.
Residents in the side-by-side towns of Millbrook and Millington in Kendall County could also have delivery service from larger post offices. Yet most choose to keep their post office boxes in the quaint downtown offices of these picturesque Fox River towns.
“People like to live in the country, but they have to get used to a different kind of life,” said Virginia Howe, Millbrook postmaster since 1986. “We don’t think much of having to drive five miles for food and gas.”
Walking to the post office is not a big deal either, said Lottie Sieroslawski, who moved “to the country” in Millbrook in 1988.
“I don’t mind coming for my mail because it gets me out of the house everyday,” she said.
“This post office is our connection with the community,” said local artist Helen Hollenback Johnson. “We’ve lost so many of our connections these days.”
Patrons of small-town post offices like to show their appreciation, said William Francis, Millington postmaster.
“They spoil me, bringing pies, doughnuts, stews. . . . In the 15 months I’ve been here, I gained 15 pounds,” said Francis, a postal service employee for 25 years, including service in the Sandwich and Naperville offices.
“The small post office is not small anymore,” Francis said. “We can offer nearly every service that the larger facilities do. But people want to talk to someone and we can take time to do that here. It’s not as easy in a large post office, not because the people are cold, but because of the pace and volume.”
Sometimes small-town service includes big-hearted special treatment that larger offices can’t offer.
In Eola, postmaster Frederick personally delivers mail to two housebound patron each day.
Down the road in Wasco, two handicapped residents pull up in their cars, beep their horns, and postmaster McMahon brings their mail out to them.
“We have two customers who ride up on their horses each day, tap on our side window and we hand them their mail,” said Millbrook postmaster Howe. “I believe we’re the only office with that kind of window service.”
