On April 30, Brownsville postal clerk Carla Pearce hung up her blue uniform and stamped out for the last time.
After serving Brownsville’s mail needs for 30 years, Pearce entered retirement.
Strategically, her husband, Troy Pearce, also logged his last hours on that day after a 20-plus-year career with logging company Ron Staley Enterprises.
Carla Pearce started as a substitute rural carrier associate in 1995.
At the time, first-class stamps cost 32 cents and the US Postal Service issued special stamps commemorating or featuring designs such as the cherub in the Love Series, aviator Bessie Coleman in the Black Heritage Series, prisoners and missing of war, American culture, World War II, carousel horses, woman’s suffrage, jazz musicians and comic strip classics.
Through the thousands of stamp designs the USPS has issued in the past 30 years, Pearce decided that one of the more memorable ones for her was the “Total Eclipse of the Sun” series in 2017.
“That was a very special stamp,” she said.
Today, stamp collecting has become something of a bygone hobby, but Pearce can remember when she would join her coworkers to sell stocks of USPS stamp series at philatelic group (stamp clubs or societies) meetings twice a year in Albany.
In 1998, Pearce took up a full-time clerk position, which she stayed in until her retirement. She also occasionally filled in as officer in charge, where needed, and her job at times allowed her to work at other post offices in the area.
“It’s such a blessing to be able to work there,” she said. “You get to know the public, and so many of them I either grew up with or my kids went to school with their kids.”
Over the years, Pearce knows she racked up a lot of good memories in her career, but she reflected more on how special the job itself is.
“Our mail is very personal to people,” she said, noting how working with the public in that aspect sometimes provided an opportunity to care for the people she served, or to handle some interesting packages.
“I was reminded tonight by a customer how I had helped them mail a newt (salamander) to Ohio,” Pearce said. “That was a first for me. They shared that not only did the newt survive, but lived another five years.”
During her 30-year career, Pearce also surfed the vast wave of changes the postal system has seen since the Internet became publicly available in 1993. Letters and documents are no longer mailed out as often, but package shipments have increased significantly.
Also, when she started, carriers were expected to sort their mail piece by piece, but automation has since become a thing, freeing up carriers’ time because machines do the work now.
When Pearce ended her postal career last week, first-class stamps cost 73 cents. Special stamps issued or expected to be issued by USPS in 2025 include designs featuring a spiral galaxy, Year of the Snake, Betty White, baby wild animals, musician Allen Toussaint in the Black Heritage series, the Appalachian Trail, and the 250th anniversary of the Army, Navy and Marine Corps.
So what do Pearce and her husband plan to do in their retirement years? On their first day off, May 1, the pair went halibut fishing on the ocean. Then they will focus on “catching up on some things” before spending more time on traveling and time with family.
Between the two, the Pearces have four children and three grandchildren.
“We did treat ourselves to a new travel trailer,” Pearce said. “We love to go fishing out in the ocean; we will do that. But I did tell my husband, ‘Retirement’s not all about fishing now.’”
As such, they expect to do more camping and spend more time with their own parents and their grandchildren.
“I have experienced a wonderful career with the United States Postal Service,” Pearce said. “They’ve been a wonderful employer.”