1931. My family purchased the Tousey House in December, 1917. My mother lived there and reared her family

until she died, more than 60 years later. My father and my uncle were the owners of Gulley and Pettit’s General

Store. They rented a Post Office box at the Burlington Post Office. It was one of the large ones on the bottom

row of the boxes. It was usually filled not with junk mail, but correspondence pertaining to the business as well

as personal letters. Phone calls out of Burlington were handled by the local Telephone Exchange in a building

across from the Garnet Tolin house (now Mike McKinney’s law office) most calls out of Burlington were toll

calls, and there were very few residential telephones. The homes that did have telephones were usually party

lines with several people on one line - almost no privacy. There was no house to house mail delivery in the town

of Burlington. Therefore, the Post Office was a busy place. My husband served in the Army during the Korean

War (1951 - 1953). I lived with my parents in the Tousey House while he served with the Army occupation

troops in Germany after the Second World War. I was employed at the Production Marketing Association, which

was located over the Peoples Deposit Bank (now the Planning and Zoning Office). I would look out the window

and see Mr. Claude Patterson, the mail carrier, bring the mail to Burlington and I would go to the Post Office

and wait for the mail to be sorted. My husband and I wrote to each other every day for 2 years. The mail from

Germany would come in batches. There would be a week or two when I would receive no letters, then one day

I would get 10 to 15 letters or more at one time. Lloyd Weaver and Newton Sullivan were the Postmasters.

They knew I would be there waiting anxiously for a word from my husband. As soon as they could get my

letters together they would yell "Is Katie out there?" And I would answer and they would open the door by the

post office boxes and hand me all my letters and packages. The next day I would go back again and they would

ask what I heard from Germany or what was in the package from Germany.

money orders, etc. The window would be pulled down closing off access to the public while the mail was sorted.

It would be opened again when the sorting was complete. There was always a gathering of people waiting for

the mail to be "put up." It was a place to meet your friends and talk about all the happenings around the County

and Burlington. I was taught the combination to the Gulley & Pettit PO box at an early age. I remember how

proud I was to be sent to the Post Office to pick up the mail for the General Store. The mail in that box included

personal mail to my mother, my sisters and myself, all in one box. Mr. Weaver had been a personal friend of

my fathers and Mr. Sullivan clerked in the General Store some evenings after the Post Office was closed. He

had been the previous owner of the inventory in the store purchased by Gulley and Pettit, he helped out in the

store when he was needed. They knew my family and all of our relatives, if there was mail for some of the

family who did not have a post office box or had moved they would include it in the Gulley & Pettit Box. Mr.

Sullivan was better known as "Sully." I remember Sully as a good natured man always joking and smiling. Mr.

Weaver’s wife Nora ran the boarding house across from the Administration Building next to the Little Place.

She served delicious noon meals to the public.

There were free standing signs in front, one with a picture of Uncle Sam pointing his finger saying "Uncle Sam

Wants You." They were left undisturbed, most of the time night and day, until Halloween at which time, they

would be moved around town by the pranksters. I remember one time when the pranksters were able to get a

small vehicle on top of the Post Office. Other times objects would be piled high on the front steps. It seemed

to be a real target for the boys who played pranks around town on Halloween. The Post Office has a very special

place in the memories of most of us who grew up in Burlington. I am so glad it has been preserved. Thanks

to all of those who had a part in its preservation.

5

County Clerk Marilyn Rouse and Bruce Ferguson stand

beside the antique stand-up writing desk Bruce gave the

county for use in the Old Clerk’s Building.

This past fall, former Boone County Judge/Executive Bruce Ferguson donated a mid-19th Century antique desk to

Corporex initially proposed to relocate the seven burials, but opted for an alternate design