When Postmaster Muriel Jones went to work at the Lostine post office in 1955 the price of a postage stamp was 3 cents.  Now it is 37 cents and the affable postmaster says “it’s still a bargain.”

   When March 17 rolls around Jones will have been in the employ of the federal agency’s Lostine branch for 49 years and she still enjoys the job. At 69 years of age she is going strong and has no plans to retire.
   “I know everybody in town and out of town,” says a lady who greets customers on a daily basis by their first name. She admits that she has rented out postal boxes to generations of Lostine residents, noting that the box number for her family has been a constant for the past 66 years. M. Crow & Company may have had its box number even longer, she says.
   “It has been a really good job. I deal with a lot of nice people,” she says.  “I like everybody. I have no complaints about people.”  (Wallowa County Chieftain photo by Kim Lamb, who is one of the finest photo-journalists in Oregon.)

   From 1955 until 1958 she worked at the Lostine post office located in a small building south of the Lostine Tavern that has since been removed. Since 1958 it has remained in the same location on Hwy. 82 where it now sits.
   Irene Barklow was the Lostine postmaster from 1955 to 1975 with Jones serving as her clerk. During the next five years Jones alternately worked as officer in charge and clerk to Postmaster Dan McGee before being sworn  in as postmaster in 1980.
   According to Jones, Lostine is growing. Always having 157 post office postal boxes to rent out, for many years not all of the boxes were claimed. Now they are and the number of customers on the rural route has expanded from 40 or 45 to 80.

   Jones now works with highway contract route driver Patty Cameron. For many years prior to Cameron Jones worked with driver Pat Riecken. Her postmaster relief person who fills in when she is gone and on Saturday mornings in Bernice Lathrop.
   A 1951 graduate of Lostine High School, Muriel is the wife of Larry Jones of Jones Excavation and Southfork Ready Mix. They are the parents of Terry Jones, who works in the family businesses, and the late Kirk Jones. Grandchildren are Teah Jones Evans who is in her fifth year of teaching at Enterprise High School and Travis Jones who works in Washington, D.C., for Idaho Sen. Larry Craig. They have one great grandchild.

   One thing which helps keep the daughter of 93-year-old Quentin Lathrop young is her love for the sport of bowling. She has been bowling competitively for the past 42 years and still bowls in women’s leagues both Monday and Thursday nights. Her highest average over the years has been
165, only five pins over her current average at age 69. “I love my  bowling,” she says with enthusiasm. Joining up with teams comprised with avid bowlers from all over the county, Jones says that they periodically go to tournaments outside the area. They attended a tournament in Reno, Nev. last spring.
   She grew up as the daughter of a dryland wheat grower in the Leap area.

   On a daily basis the mail comes in at about 7:30 a.m., before Jones arrives for her 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. (with one hour off for lunch) job. Sorting follows with Cameron off to deliver rural mail from about 9:15 a.m. to 11:15 a.m. Then she is done for the day and Jones staffs the office, interacting amicably with patrons and keeping busy keeping up with her bookkeeping responsibilities, including sending in a daily deposit. “If you aren’t waiting on people there are always other things that need to be done,” she said.
   She says that Mondays are always the busiest day of the week and Tuesdays the slowest.

 © 2004 Wallowa County Chieftain