Quentin Uppgard Delivers His Last Letter

This August, Quentin Uppgard retired from 33.5 years of service with the post office, 30 of those spent in Silver Bay. Throughout those years, Uppgard has faithfully delivered the mail to local residents, through a variety of hardships.

Quentin Uppgard started his postal ca­reer at the Two Har­bors Post Office as a janitor in the fall of 1991, working two and a half hours a day, filling in while the post office was between contracted janitors. It was that fall that the Great Halloween Blizzard arrived. Up­pgard’s mother was delivering mail on the rural route out of Two Harbors at this time, and the morning after the blizzard, Uppgard and his parents got into his father’s old Scout, which had a plow, and headed to the post of­fice. Uppgard remem­bered his father having to “plow a couple of times to get to the P.O.. We made it, along with Bruce Solemn, the postmaster. The mail truck made it from Du­luth.”

After getting the post office running, Sol­emn asked Uppgard to carry the mail to the businesses on 1st Av­enue, since only one other mail carrier had made it to work. “That was my start carrying mail,” Uppgard relat­ed. “I was then hired for Christmas help as a letter carrier.” Af­ter that Christmas ap­pointment was over, Uppgard went back to being janitor…until the next Christmas, at which time he became a full-time mail carrier. When Silver Bay post­al worker Maury Fla­nagan went on vaca­tion, Uppgard came to Silver Bay, and “Willy Johnson, the postmas­ter at the time, liked me, and he got per­mission to hire a part time career carrier, and he hired me for Silver Bay.”

Working for the postal service was not without its tri­als, though. “When I started, the postal ser­vice was the lifeline to the community, and people believed they needed their input.” In Two Harbors, during Uppgard’s time there, clerks began unload­ing and sorting mail for the carriers at 4:30 a.m. “There was one old guy that lived in the Bayview Terrace behind the post office. If we didn’t have the flag up by 5 [a.m.] he would call and let us know.” One day, Up­pgard couldn’t resist pranking the man. “I went up and put the flag up before 5. Then about 5:15 I took it down. The boss got called later by the old guy wondering if we were under attack. I got in trouble for doing that to the town.” That wasn’t the only time Uppgard served his own justice to people on his route. The moth­er of one of his fellow carriers lived at Bay­view Terrace, and she had a habit of reaching her arm through her mailbox to be sure she had gotten all her mail. Behind the mailboxes was a room the car­riers would fill them from, and one morning Uppgard grabbed her hand as she reached through the box. “She screamed and away she went,” Uppgard reported. “I got told not to do that again.”

Sometimes a mail carrier is the only per­son that visits the home of a person that lives alone. One afternoon, Uppgard was deliver­ing mail when he no­ticed that the previous day’s mail hadn’t been picked up by the elder­ly man that lived there. Uppgard knocked on the door, but there was no answer, and upon looking in the window he saw the man lying on the floor. This being the days before cell phones, Uppgard went to the neighbor’s and called 911, and an am­bulance crew was able to help the (unhappy at being disturbed) man to the hospital.

“I have seen Silver Bay change over the last 30 years,” Uppgard said. “The kids who have grown up and had kids.” He referenced a few people that really stood out to him in his years carrying mail for Silver Bay. “The peo­ple of Silver Bay have been very good to me. Evie Buetow, Steve Haga, Molly Velcheff waiting every day to see you. Mrs. Savonen with either lemonade or hot chocolate for you every day. Herman Radtke with loaves of bread and stories of being a cook in the army. Checking on Ted Peterson every day, having my lunch with him to make sure he has something to eat. Listening to his stories of being in the Mer­chant Marines during WWII. Friends with Bob and Ed Eckstrom, fishing with them. Lis­tening to Bob and see­ing a man who saw the dramatic changes in the world during his lifetime.” Uppgard fin­ished his reflections by saying, “I’ll miss the people. I won’t miss the frozen fingers and nose. The long hours. Being a postal work­er is not just walking around talking to peo­ple. It’s a lot of hard work to make sure that the resident gets their mail and packages six days a week no matter what.”

On behalf of the communities of Silver Bay and Two Harbors, thank you Quentin for delivering our mail in all kinds of conditions for so many years.