WESTLOCK – Mildred Morin, the woman whose home has been the site of the Pickardville Canada Post office for nearly 60 years, has sold her last book of stamps, stuffed her last flyer and is now retired.
The soon-to-be 78-year-old, who most in the community know simply as Millie, locked the front doors to the post office Thursday afternoon, Sept. 29, while later that day the mail boxes were removed, ending her 28-year-plus tenure as postmaster which officially began July 4, 1994. The front section of Morin’s home has served as the community’s Canada Post outlet since the late the mid-1960s — she initially rented the site when she took over the job, then bought the property outright.
While Canada Post reps have stated in a past e-mail they hope to eventually reopen a facility in the hamlet, Pickardville residents will now get their mail at the Westlock Canada Post Office for the first time in more than a century. The first post office in Pickardville opened Oct. 1, 1907, and was run by William Pickard until 1914 — Pickard is the man who the community was named after.
Morin’s family moved to the area from Edmonton when she was in Grade 5, and she graduated from the then Westlock High School in 1962. She was “in and out” of the area in the years that followed but eventually came back to stay and was married in 1975 to Maurice Morin and had two boys, Dean and Brent — tragically, Maurice was killed by a drunk driver in 1980.
Morin, who’s held a variety of jobs over the years, started working at the post office part-time while her sons were in high school, before eventually jumping in with both feet. Looking back on her career Sept. 27 over the lunch hour, she said changes to Canada Post technology have long been a pet peeve, but she loved the people and will miss them the most and plans to stay in the hamlet. Community members have been signing a special wish book for Morin over the last week, while free coffee and snacks were put out for wellwishers in the final days the office was open.
“It’s been a great job … a perfect job in a lot of ways. It was a great experience and I’ll definitely miss the people … and the money,” she said with a laugh. “I’ll miss the little kids, especially. But I guess it’s time because I’ve found that for most things in life that happen, there’s always a reason.”
And while the hamlet has lost its stores and school over the decades, the post office, along with the community hall, fire hall and the churches have remained and offered a sense of cohesion for the community. And Morin, for many in community, not only delivered them their mail, but was a sympathetic ear and a shoulder to cry on and helped many in their times of need. Although she too has heard talk about the possibility of Canada Post opening another site in the hamlet and has even personally talked to some of the interested parties, she’s received no official word from the higher ups at Canada Post.
“Some have said that I’m kind of like a bartender, but I never just listened, I helped a lot of people here — from suicide to mental health, single parenting … everything you can think of I’ve dealt with first-hand,” she added.
“I was hoping to stay for two more years, but like I said there’s always a reason. And whatever happens going forward (with a new post office), it’s going to take time for sure.”
