Page 10 - MSN_373_FebruaryMarch

PAGE 10 ALL ABOUT mONTANA MONTANA SENIOR NEWS • FEBRUARY / MARCH 2021

From Youngest Postmaster

to Oldest USDA Employee

ROSELLA WHITEHEAD

cancer. Her grandparents, Kalispell home-
steaders Charlie and Elizabeth Bonathan,
moved down for a while, caring for Rosella
and her siblings while Marie received
treatment at the Mayo Clinic, but the
treatment was not successful.
Rosella never quite recovered and spoke
of her sadness to her last days. Her father
never remarried.
At 18, Rosella was hired as Winston’s
Postmaster, the youngest in the country.
This was during the Great Depression and
the 1930s brucellosis outbreak that deci-
mated the Plains economy. She was lucky
to have a job.
She worked out of a cubicle near a small
wood stove in the back of the general store.
“As postmaster, it was my job to go
down to the train depot to deliver and

In 1999, Rosella (center), then a spry and active 81 years old, received the Prime Time Award as the oldest retrieve the mail.” she once wrote. “In those
productive worker in the state of Montana. She was also the oldest worker in the Department of Agriculture. days a mailbag was placed on a long metal
She poses here with her family and Montana Senator Max Baucus. Photo courtesy the Whitehead family. rod by the railroad tracks, allowing the mail
carrier to reach out from the moving train
through Rosella’s hoops. A horse leaving for and pick it up. Another mail carrier stood in
BY CRAIG THOmAS NAYLOR the Kentucky Derby had to wait at the starting the doorway and threw a large mailbag to
gate until Rosella processed the papers. me. The big steam locomotive never stopped
Hauling a bull to South Dakota? How She did all this after she’d turned 50. as it flew by at full speed.”
about a bred heifer to Hawaii, a parrot to Rosella Mires was born in Winston, Rosella married Charles “Willard”
Pennsylvania, a hog to Hollywood, or bovine Mont., in 1918. This now-small town south- Whitehead in June 1942. Willard supported
semen to Brazil? east of Helena was prosperous then, with the War effort working for General Electric
From 1970 through 2005, you would trains running through, mines in the hills in Seattle and Butte before being sent to
have needed approval from Rosella producing gold and silver, ranching and the Philippines to fight in the Pacific. After
Whitehead, export certification specialist farming filling the flats. the war, they settled in Townsend, where
with the US Department of Agriculture Her father owned the general store. He Willard owned the Texaco station and sold
office in Helena, Mont. fed the “hobos” a hot dinner every Sunday. Case machinery, while Rosella raised their
When a circus entered or left the state, Rosella was only 7 years old when four children, including the youngest,
the elephants, tigers, and lions had to jump Marie, her mother, passed away—from Candi, my wife.

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