Mail delivery came to RR1 Jerseyville nearly a hundred years ago.

When that happened, a farmer named William John Aikens pounded in a wooden post by the side of the road and mounted a steel box on top.

Ever since, that box has been there to receive the mail. Today it's used by Aikens' 93-year-old daughter Hilda Grimwood and her son Paul.

The box doesn't look old. At the first sign of rust, Paul puts on a fresh coat of aluminum paint. He considers that box an heirloom and treats it right.

But the mail recently brought bad news for the Grimwoods. Canada Post says that after three generations of service, that mailbox has to go. It's too small.

Farmer Aikens has been gone 77 years, but he would surely have had something to say on this matter. It was he who spearheaded the campaign to bring rural route delivery to this territory west of Ancaster.

A petition brought results and soon there was a man named Wally Wait doing the rounds. Hilda Grimwood remembers him well.

In the winter, he came over the fields on a sleigh, right to the door. In other seasons, he came up the road in a cart pulled by two ponies and dropped the mail into that very box.

He came six days a week, bringing letters, catalogues, the Saturday Evening Post, through a Depression and two world wars.

Hilda is the last survivor of five children. Four were girls, and they all worked hard on the farm.

Paul, music director at Central Presbyterian and music teacher at McMaster, admires his mother. "The women in this family are feisty."

True, says Hilda, and points to the stand of mighty honey locusts that line the road. "My mother's mother planted those with seeds from California."

Then there was a plan to widen the road. The trees would have to come down.

"My mother got in touch with (minister of highways) T.B. McQuesten " Hilda says. "He came out here, saw the trees and changed the plans."

The matter of the mailbox may not be solved so satisfactorily.

On Feb. 12, the Grimwoods got a notice in the mail. Your Mailbox Needs Attention, it said. Probably nothing, they thought, and ignored it.

But 10 days later, a Final Notice. And then a pamphlet, which stated that the opening of a rural mail box must be seven inches wide. The Grimwood box is nearly an inch less than that. The opening is supposed to also be seven inches high and their box is more than two inches short of that -- but still bigger than in-door mail slots.

Two weeks ago Paul Grimwood sent a letter to Moya Greene, president of Canada Post.

He made it clear he and his mother do not blame their carrier "who has provided exemplary service to us for many years." And they do not blame the local postal official "who is just doing her job in identifying what may be perceived to be a problem."

However, he wrote, "I do not understand why perfectly good mailboxes cannot be grandfathered for delivery ... For nearly a century this box has worked adequately to receive mail."

There's been nothing back from the president. But we did talk to Andy Paterson, manager of communications for the rural mail safety program, about that box.

"I guess it doesn't meet standards," he said. "But boy, mailboxes are a personal thing ...

He said he'd have to get back to us. And he did.

He says there may be a problem getting magazines and oversized envelopes into the box. The Grimwoods, however, say they're getting that kind of mail just fine. "And the junk mail too," Hilda says.

But a smaller box can slow down the carrier if he has to do some stuffing, Paterson says. "If we have to stop longer at one box than another, it's not fair ... Why should some customers be allowed to have boxes that aren't proper?"

As much as it's against their nature, up at the Grimwood farm there's now talk of surrender.

StreetBeat appears Monday, Wednesday, Friday

pwilson@thespec.com

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