Parents Mail Their Daughter
On February 19, 1914, parents in Idaho took advantage of the affordable Parcel Post rate to mail their daughter to her grandmother’s house.
A year earlier, the Post Office Department had initiated its Parcel Post service for fourth-class mail on January 1, 1913. Parcel Post service could be used for sending items weighing 16 ounces or more through the mail. The mail is divided into four classes, with Parcel Post making up the fourth class. Almost any type of merchandise could be mailed parcel post, including day-old chicks, baby alligators, and honeybees. Only items that could be dangerous to handle could not be sent through Parcel Post.
It wasn’t long after the new service began that parents found an interesting loophole. None of the regulations concerning parcel post prohibited the mailing of people, and other living beings were being mailed that way. In January 1913, Mr. and Mrs. Jesse Beauge of Glen Este, Ohio, sent their young son via Rural Free Delivery one mile to his grandmother’s. The parents paid 15¢ for the stamps and insured their son for $50. Later that month, a family in Pine Hollow, Pennsylvania mailed their daughter to relatives in Clay Hollow at a cost of 45¢.
Then on February 19, 1914, five-year-old May Pierstorff’s parents in Grangeville, Idaho, wanted to send their daughter to visit her grandparents 73 miles away. They placed 53¢ in stamps on her coat and handed her over to the postal worker on the Railway mail train, who also happened to be a relative. Despite her safe delivery to her grandmother’s doorstep, once Postmaster General Albert S. Burleson heard her story, he officially prohibited postal workers from accepting humans to be mailed.
In spite of this, a woman mailed her six-year-old daughter 720 miles from Florida to Virginia the following year for 15¢. The last known instance of a child being mailed came in August 1915, when three-year-old Maud Smith was mailed from her grandparents to her sick mother in Kentucky. Even after this, some people attempted to mail children, but postmasters rejected their applications claiming they couldn’t be classified as “harmless live animals.”
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Wow, what a great loophole. It beats a $500 air fair today and the postal worker probably did not lose the luggage!
The person who subs for my regular and excellent postman consistently brings mail meant for my neighbor (same house number-different street name). I would assume that this was avoided when sending mail that could talk. I would hope that the children being mailed would know their ultimate destination and could correct any potential wrong deliveries.
What a great story. I never heard that one before. Very interesting.
I agree with the postmaster: Most kids these days, especially in restaurants, are not harmless animals!
This is a wonderful story. Imagine mailing children and they got safely to their destination. I could not help smiling at this bit of American ingenuity.
Great story, Grangeville is only 100 miles south of us here in Moscow, ID. Students at the Univ. of Idaho could benefit from this loophole if only we still had a functional railroad!
Hmmmmm, I know a few politicians I’d like to mail to Cuba.
Very Interesting article !