VIENNA — A piece of mail arrived at the Maries County Advocate office in Vienna one day in June. It was an ordinary white, six and a half by three and a half inch sized envelope. What was interesting about this piece of mail was the two stamps on it.

A Google search informed me about the Legends of the West postage stamps. One was a portrait of Buffalo Bill and the other stamp was a portrait of Jim Bridger. The Google search also revealed the Buffalo Bill stamp was worth $5.80, and the Jim Bridger stamp was valued at $1.50. These are col- lector prices as each of the stamps’ stated value as determined by the US Postal Service was 29 cents.

The piece of mail was sent by Sandy and Norman Snodgrass of Vienna when they purchased a newspaper subscription. It was sent by Sandy, who made a career working for the postal service. She was a postal clerk and a mail carrier, working in Vienna, Rolla and St. James throughout her 24- year career. As a postal employee, she always knew when new stamps came in. She bought sheets of the ones she was interested in. After a time, she thought it was “crazy to buy and leave them laying around” so lately when she needs a stamp, she uses the ones she bought while working at the post office.

“I’m not a collector and decided to use them,” Sandy said. She had a whole sheet of Elvis stamps that she used on birthday cards to help make it even more special. She has or had World War II stamps, Civil War memorial stamps, and all types she simply liked for rea- sons such as the history it showed. She has more Legends of the West stamps such as Bat Masterson, Wyatt Earp, Geronimo, Kit Car- son, Wild Bill Hickok, and even

an Oregon Trial stamp. The ones she liked she bought. Now she uses them for their original pur- pose—to mail letters.

Sandy is from Ozark County, Missouri and she graduated from Gainesville High School in 1971. Then, she went to college at College of the Ozarks in Point Lookout, Missouri. While there for about a year, she met Norman Snodgrass of Vienna. She didn’t stay at college because she didn’t know what she wanted to do as a career. Things are the same nowadays for students who set out in the world in one direction they think they might like as a career, but sooner or even later find out something else is a better fit for them. “Kids get a lot of pressure on them and they don’t know what they want to do,” she said.

What she and Norman did was get married in 1973. They were both 19 years old. Sandy moved to Vienna and has lived here ever since. Norman is a son of Delmar Norman and Anna Mae Snodgrass, well known Maries County citizens who both have passed away.

For 15 years the couple lived on the place along Highway 42 east. Then they moved to where they live now on a county road not too far from there. They used to farm some and they raised two daughters who are grown up with their own families now, Samantha Shadursky of Vienna and Chris- tina Adams of Rolla.

Norman worked for the state and Sandy worked for the post office. She began in the late 1980’s at the Vienna Post Office when Ralph Jones was the postmaster. She was a clerk and current Post Mistress Mechelle Struemph worked there also. She picked up extra hours working at the Rolla Post Office and later was trans- ferred there to work.

When the post office changed how it operated and sent the mail to Springfield to be sorted my ma- chines, it brought changes to their postal jobs. Before the change, they hand sorted a lot of mail. After the machine sorting began, it was faster and they’d get the letters in route sequence and it saved time. There were still some letters “to case and all of the flats,” which are newspapers and magazines. The change to machine sorting in Springfield brought changes to the employees, too. The choices some of them had were to relocate or quit.

Fortunately, a carrier job came open in St. James and she worked there as a clerk and a carrier. Sandy laughs when she tells about the carrier job, a city route where she drove a long life vehicle (LLV). It was called that because it was sup- posed to last 20 years because of its aluminum body. But, they didn’t count on the engine not lasting that long. Sandy said she called it “an Easy Bake Oven” because of the huge, glass windshield. The engine was right up against the driver’s feet. It was hot inside with no air conditioning although there was a little fan to use. It was pretty hot work. In the winter there was

a heater but that worked about as well as the fan did. Sandy said she liked her job, but as with all jobs, there were bad parts, too.

The job could be hard work with a lot of lifting and handling heavy packages. At one point when she worked from the St. James Post Office, she walked a city route, walking about 10 miles a day. She didn’t mind but on days they had to deliver the advertiser newspaper to each postal custom- er, she had to carry a heavy bag a long way.

She met many people in St. James because she was a daily visitor to their homes as she delivered their mail. “I miss the customers and people I worked with,” she said. “I got to know a lot of people.” She spent a big part of her life in St. James and she still sees those folks occasionally while she’s out and about.

Their kids are grown and they got rid of the cows to concentrate on spending their time as they choose. This is enjoying their five grandchildren ages 12 years to 24 years old. They work in the yard, the garden and Norman works in his shop. “We never run out of anything to do.”