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Mail carrier leaves her stamp on area

By E.B. FURGURSON III Staff Writer

 

For 32 years, Florence Ingram didn't just make deliveries on her postal route in Edgewater. She accepted them, too.

Customers who'd grown to love her over the years left things for her in their mailboxes - candy and cookies, even a gold bracelet.

And then there was all the memorabilia in honor of her favorite NASCAR driver.

"People have given me Rusty Wallace jackets and little cars," she said. "One week Rusty blew an engine, and on Monday a customer put a car in the mailbox with cotton coming out of the back like smoke from a blown engine."

It's all a testament to a well-earned devotion Mrs. Ingram's customers felt toward their postal carrier, who recently retired.

"We'll never have one as good as Florence, never," said Helen Osman, 78. "She would take time to talk to you. She would bring mail to the door sometimes just to check on us."

For all those years, Mrs. Ingram, 59, carried mail along the same route, which eventually centered on both sides of Londontown Road.

She got to know her customers; she watched kids grow up and have kids of their own.

"I miss my people. Oh, now you're going to make me cry," she said, tearing up for a moment.

The postal patrons along her route came to appreciate her caring attention. They recalled how she asked about their health when she noticed them getting a lot of cards.

Others said she put packages of bees and insects for one customer's lizards in the shade so they wouldn't get overheated in a mailbox.

She delivered all sorts of oddities: beds, bumpers, even birds.

Having a soft spot for animals, she had stern words for one customer when she opened up a box with a parrot in it.

Over the years she made good friends on the job too. Her best pal was fellow Edgewater carrier Barbara Hume.

Co-workers called them Lucy and Ethel. The pair sometimes pulled pranks like sneaking to the post office intercom to sing "Happy Birthday" to fellow workers.

When Mrs. Ingram turned 50, her friend pasted a "Yippie Yippie Look Who's 50" sign on the back of her mail truck. Mrs. Ingram didn't discover it until the next day.

"Yeah, we got some 'splainin' to do," Mrs. Hume said, imitating Ricky Ricardo's line on the 1950s sitcom "I Love Lucy."

"Florence is just a great lady," said Mrs. Hume.

"She was a mentor to everyone on the job. With her, the customer always came first."Even when the customer was grumpy.

But that never got to Mrs. Ingram. "I knew I could win them over," she said. "It takes some sugar, and I can pour on the sugar."

Since retiring last month, Mrs. Ingram has been pouring all her sugar onto her 1-year-old granddaughter, Meagan Wood, daughter of her only child, Cindy.

Mrs. Ingram and her husband, Robert, live in a home on the Edgewater property where her family has lived since moving from her native North Carolina when she was 19.

For now, she's getting used to not having to wake up at 5:30 every morning and spending time baking cookies in the kitchen of her neat-as-a-pin rancher, decorated in country kitsch.

She's thinking of getting busy with some other job. "But it has to be with people, maybe something in public relations," she said.

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