Mail Bag! A letter from Toronto's First Post Office... sealed with wax, no less

Following my month of letters, I traveled to British Columbia to visit family for 5 weeks. Upon my return, a few days ago, I happened upon a handful of letters in our mailbox. Including this gem, sealed with wax:

"Toronto, 13 February 2012

Dear Ms. Crook,

I listened with interest to your interview on "Spark"and last night...

I thought I should invite you to Toronto's First Post Office this coming Sunday afternoon when the "Post-a-letter Social-activity-club" (Pal-Sac) will be meeting here for their first regularly scheduled third-Sunday of the month sessions. You can find more about this on-line or -- take a chance and turn up!

This is the form that most of the letters in our museum collection take. The font is from the handwriting of Emily Austin, a woman who lived in Texas in the 1830s. It even comes with a couple of ink blots. [blot] It does fail to fade where the quill would have run out...

I am

dear Madam

Your obedient servant

Janet Walters, Postmistress

Postmistress! What a stupendous title.



I can not wait to visit The Town of York Historical Society to peruse their collection of letters (some of which I will share here with you) and to participate in next month's letter writing gathering (this month I am hosting my own... tomorrow: at the Good Neighbour Espresso Bar, 4-6pm.)  

Where, oh where...?

Where, oh where have we been?

It has been a busy month in the land of the interwebs. I (Christina) have been slowly working my way through emails and figuring out the next steps on my online journey. Believe it or not, there are two more letters that have not made it to this blog. They were slow in coming and then Marisa got slammed with work and kids and a temperamental scanner. She hopes to post them in a matter of days.

There is something I must confess: the lateness of the letters are not all Canada Post's fault (though the disorder is fully their's to blame.) Once the letters began rolling in late, I gave myself slack in mailing. Each letter was written more-or-less around the exact date, often first as a thought jotted in my 'off-line' paper journal. Every letter was also sent in numerical order, but a handful were delivered to the mailbox days late. The strangest thing about the letters arriving in such a random order is the fact that I delivered all of them to the same two post boxes each a block from our house: one with a pick-up time of 9am and the other, 5pm. I am curious to know if the pick-up times are inaccurate and if days get skipped.

Which brings me to a fun bit of news...

Upon my return to Toronto (we have been in B.C. visiting family for the past few weeks while my husband, Michael, galavants around the world for work,) I will be conducting two interviews. The first will be with my friend Rob, a letter carrier, who is going to give me a tour of a Canada Post facility. The second is with Matt Lovett, an efficiency expert with Canada Post.

Stay tuned for these next month.