Thank you! 

Almost half of my career has been in Kalona, working with some incredibly kind and hardworking, dedicated carriers and clerks. 2005 is a long time ago now even though I remember most of it as if it was last year.  I didn’t know what to expect when I accepted the job as Postmaster, but I am surely glad I did!!!  From being the youngest in the office and feeling strange and then suddenly realizing I’m almost the “oldest” employee in the office!  How did that happen!!  I say to all of them, some retired, some leaving for other opportunities and those I leave behind, THANK YOU!  Thank you for the MANY great memories and for being so easy to work with! Well, mostly! Thank you for the many sacrifices - working long exhausting days everyday through the holidays when we wish to be with our families and missing family and friend events because it’s what we do; delivering mail 6 days a week, sometimes 7 through rain, sleet, snow, gloom of night, tornadoes, 100+ degrees; dogs thinking about biting us, some of them actually doing it and numerous other things we will not mention!  … and remaining ever joyful and kind throughout it all!
To my customers, oh my!  Thank you for sharing a multitude of kindnesses, sometimes your patience, your stories, your lives, the postcards - who doesn’t like to get mail, right? The best gift is getting to call so many of you my friend. I am ever grateful!  
A short list of endless fond Kalona memories... discovering in Kalona that one of our carriers was in attendance at Woodstock; joyous surprise when out of town and even out of the country travelers stop in once a year just to say hello; the Hardman family playing football in the grassy spot next to the post office and so many times scooping snowy sidewalks at the post office out of kindness; the high school art students painting our front windows for Kalona Days and the mailbox project with the combined high school and elementary art students; stewing over how I would I ever learn all the Amish customers names when there are at least 5 Mary Millers, who knows how many Eldon Millers, E Millers, not to mention the Yoders, Bontragers, Borntragers, Swartzendrubers, Swartzentrubers, Beachys, Hostetlers, Hochstetlers, Hochstedlers, Schlabaughs, Schlabachs, Slabachs (how many ways can you spell that name?!); longtime clerk Dixie asking me who the return address was on a letter addressed simply to Mary Miller, Kalona IA and Dixie’s response “Oh, that is Mary Miller’s brothers wife’s cousin who married a Yoder and moved to Ohio, so that’s Mary Miller on 520th St”!  WHAT??!!! And she was right! I’m STILL  learning their names!; the Kalona Coffee House opening RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET FROM THE POST OFFICE!; the night I slept in the post office during a blizzard and the coffee house was the only business in town open!  Hurray!  When I walked in the front door, Jeff was playing his guitar to an invisible audience!  I won’t count how many times I slept at the Post Office because of blizzards and ice storms!; Suzanne Micheau’s daughter carrying her step stool to the post office every day to check the top row mailbox she couldn’t reach; finding the very familiar “Bear“ in the lobby and making sure Claudia was reunited; the day of the tornado checking on the mail carriers to find out “Mobil2” carrier had his back vehicle window sucked into his car and glass all over the mail; and, yes, retired clerk Dixie and I finding ourselves representing the Kalona Post Office in the Kalona Days cake decorating contest and winning second place!; and yes, us standing outside the post office watching the flood water reach the front step and the rubber ducks floating by, compliments to Marlin Miller the pharmacist letting a bunch loose!; the “Saturday vandal” finally, after the third Saturday, identified by a bloody trail to a doorstep; discovering Yotty’s Ice Cream- how excellent; a bakery just a few doors down; the time our early morning mail truck upset on Hwy1 and the carriers and I went to load all the mail in our vehicles so we could get it delivered that day; the horse tied to the stop sign by the post office …only in Kalona!  Always I will treasure your friendship, shared experiences, and your stories. 
I am going to miss all of the “only in Kalona” adventures and all of you greatly.  Thank you ever so much for making my job so easy and the very thing I looked forward to every day!  I’m ever grateful to the employees and the community. 

Yours truly,
Gae Walton, Postmaster

P.S. If you have kids, grandkids or even if not, be sure to read Mailing May, Owney the Mail Pouch Pooch, and I Don’t Like Yolanda. And who doesn’t like to get fun mail? SEND POSTCARDS!