When LAUNA LINDBECK graduated from high school in 1966, she took the postal service test and waited for the mail to bring the results. Meanwhile, she worked as a motel maid, hardly her true calling. “I took the test for the post office in Livermore, Calif., and passed,” she said, still with a touch of pride in her voice.
“My pay was $2.64 an hour, and I was the first woman in my post office to take a walking route,” she said. “That was very hard, walking all day, four or five miles, in 104 degree temperatures and pouring rain.
“We were told we should be mothers and wives,” but Launa forged ahead and came to like her job, her associates and postmasters. Her head was in her work but her heart yearned to be on Whidbey Island. She wanted to get her family out of California.
On a visit to Oak Harbor in 1978, she dropped off an application at the local post office. DOC DYKERS, the last postmaster to be appointed by a president, told her, “We have very little turnover and no openings.” Imagine her surprise when DEAN DAVIS later called to suggest she might like to stop in for an interview, which she did right after Thanksgiving. In quick order, Davis hired her with instructions to report by Dec. 12.
With some time off after Thanksgiving, she looked around for lodging and chose a spot in Western Village. Her husband GENE and son RODNEY stayed until after Christmas when they returned to California to take care of unfinished business. They moved up permanently a few months later.
Launa plunged into her work. When diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis several years ago, she did not let this slow her down.
“My evenings were spent getting ready for the next day on the job,” she said, for without proper rest, she feared losing her ability to get around.
Perhaps you remember Launa as the woman with the manicured nails who always had fresh flowers at her window. You’d be wrong if you thought a boyfriend sent them. “I love flowers,” she explained, “and bought them for myself each week.”
Launa is retiring from the postal service on Aug. 31 and will be surrounded by postal employees and others she has come to know at a dinner in her honor at Imperial Kasteel. She closes her career just three weeks short of 41 years of service, but she’s anxious to start a new chapter that includes Tai Chi, arthritis classes at the pool and daytime Bible study.
One more thing. Launa said she wishes she could have spent more time with current postmaster DALE POMEROY. “I could have learned a lot from him, and might have become postmaster myself,” she said. He saw her working on the floor one day and reassigned her to the passport section.
“After 40 years, I finally have an office!”
There are only eight days left to wish her a happy retirement. So come by, drop off a note or ask the florist to make up a bowl of flowers for a woman we’ll all miss.
