Crazy Fun Fact: Let’s send Junior to Grandma’s – Through the Mail!

Here’s a unique story that I had to share. This is why I do this. There’s always something new to learn or explore. I wouldn’t have believed it if I did not fact check it first. I got most of my information from the Smithsonian, so I knew this was accurate stuff.

Think back to the days of yore (circa 1913). You live in a rural area in the middle of nowhere. You don’t own a vehicle. Grandma lives just out of reach, but you want her to see her grandchild for a few days. What’s better than a family visit? You don’t have money to send your child via the train. But then, news had traveled fast about the newly expanded postal services.

The Post Office expanded to start shipping large parcels and packages through the mail starting on January 1, 1913. This new service allowed millions of Americans access to all kinds of goods and services. This new service was a boon to farmers and business owners. And it didn’t take long for some parents to come up with an affordable way to send their children off - through the mail!

The weight limit for “packages” initially had to be under 11 pounds and postage was cheaper than a train ticket.

Up until this time, the only live things that could go through the mail were bees and bugs.

“It got some headlines when it happened, probably because it was so cute,” United States Postal Service historian Jenny Lynch tells Smithsonian.com. The photographs used in the news articles were staged shots for storytelling purposes.

Just a few weeks after Parcel Post began, an Ohio couple named Jesse and Mathilda Beagle “mailed” their 8-month-old son James to his grandmother, who lived just a few miles away in Batavia. According to Lynch, Baby James was just shy of the 11-pound weight limit for packages sent via Parcel Post, and his “delivery” cost his parents only 15 cents in postage (although they did insure him for $50). The stamps were put onto his clothes. The quirky story soon made newspapers, and for the next several years, similar stories would occasionally surface as other parents followed suit. Ok, let’s stop here. He was 8 months old! Food? Diaper changes? I know his grandma lived nearby but how was this child mailed? Via train or horse & buggy?  What if there was traffic? Just kidding. But the human issue concerns me. 

I read more and found out that these children were accompanied by a chaperone. A relative, or clerk would be with the child during the trip although the ones who went via train would stay in the mail freight car. As this practice continued, it became more awkward to pull off.  Rural workers really didn’t want to ship kids, but some rural workers would let it slide if a family member assured them, they would be cared for.

Over the next few months, these stories continued to pop up from time to time as parents occasionally managed to slip their children through the mail.

On February 19, 1914, a four-year-old girl named Charlotte May Pierstorff was “mailed” via train from her home in Grangeville, Idaho to her grandparents’ house about 73 miles away. Her story had become so legendary that it was even made into a children’s book, Mailing May. She was accompanied on her trip by her mother’s cousin, who worked as a clerk for the railway mail service, Lynch says. It’s likely that his influence (and his willingness to chaperone his young cousin) is what convinced local officials to send the little girl along with the mail.

Finally, on June 14, 1920, several newspapers including the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times all ran stories stating the postmaster had officially decreed that children could no longer be sent through the mail.

Mailing your kids through the mail just showed how much rural communities relied on and trusted local postal workers. I shook my head when I first read this, but back in the day, people did what they could with what they had. Very different times.