The United States Post Office began offering parcel service on January 1, 1913. Americans immediately started shipping pretty much anything they could think of.

One of the first packages sent using the service was a bulldog. College kids started mailing their laundry home. A resident in Flushing, Queens received an opossum.

But the most brazen early parcel customers trusted the Post Office with was the most precious cargo of all: Human children.

The first recorded baby delivered via parcel post was James Beagle, an 8-month-old resident of Glen Este, Ohio. His journey wasn’t long: A carrier picked up the “well wrapped” infant from his parents on January 25 and, per the address on an attached card, delivered him to his grandmother just a few miles away. The postage cost 15 cents, and his parents insured him for $50.

Just a month later, a 14-pound baby was shipped 12 miles from her grandmother in Clear Spring, Maryland, to her mother in Indian Springs.

On February 19, 1914, 5-year-old May Pierstorff was mailed about 75 miles from her home in Grangeville, Idaho, to her grandparents’ place, which cost 53 cents in postage and was, apparently, cheaper than a train ticket.

In 1917, a man mailed 80,000 bricks needed for a bank building, because shipping them by wagon freight would’ve cost about four times as much as the bricks were worth. So . . . he mailed them! After this, the postmaster general quickly drafted a rule limiting the parcels a person could mail in one day to 200 pounds.

But here’s the funny part: Even though children can no longer be mailed, you can still mail a lot of weird things!

I’ve heard of people using a Sharpie to write an address on the outside of a potato and sending it—as is—through the mail.

A friend of mine from Texas had a bad head cold, and just for fun, I wrote her address on the outside of a box of Kleenex and sent it—as was—through the mail just out of curiosity to see if it would arrive.

She got it!

Though we no longer mail children or bricks through the mail,
it still amazes me what we CAN mail!

Aren’t you glad we don’t have to mail anything to God? As soon as we utter a prayer, it’s in His ears. The moment we ask for help, He’s on the scene.

He’s already acting on our behalf before our prayer is even completed.

“The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in
truth.” (Psalm 145:18 NIV)

Remember the old song, “He’s as close as the mention of His name …”

It’s true!
You are loved.
Susie