Mike McCoy photo - E.F "Chuck" Asberry, at right, tells Post Master Mike Pullam that he has decided to have his mail delivered to his home instead of a Post Office box. Asberry has had the same P.O. Box for 62 years, but decided it was time he stopped driving to the Post Office. He got the box when he returned to Dexter from serving during World War II.

On Monday morning he closed out his Post Office box and changed to having his mail delivered to his home in the Hickory Hills section of Dexter. It was something he had thought about before, but had just never got around to doing.

"The main reason I quit was because gasoline prices are so high," said Asberry, "That and I'm getting old.."

He admitted that his children were concerned about his driving in icy weather, and he agreed that the cold weather was more of a factor now. He is 85 years old. But "the dang gasoline prices" were the final straw.

The trip to the Post Office to change his address after 62 years did bring back memories. It was February of 1946 that he came to Dexter out of World War II. He took odd jobs and got by the best he could until he got a break in finding employment. Post Master Max Clodfelter died suddenly, and a friend told him there might be an opening at the Post Office. All the people that worked there were moving up, and he might just get on as a carrier, Asberry said.

He went to work there in October of the same year. He delivered a city route, which required a great deal of walking. His daily route started at the home across the street from the Post Office and traveled down Stoddard to the Cotton Belt, though it wasn't known as that in those days. His biggest area was the Nelson Addition..

According to Asberry, C.E. Nelson lived in a house where East Stoddard seems to end, past what is now Tyson's. At that time all the land past Nelson's house was in farms. It was Nelson who divided up the land and began selling lots for home construction.

Asberry's route also included the downtown businesses.

"In those days we delivered the mail to the business district twice a day," Asberry noted.

Asberry made the daily walk for almost eight years, before leg problems set in. His doctor advised him to find something that required less walking. He was faced with either taking a desk job inside or finding new employment.

"I was making $325 per month," Asberry said, "Which was good money in those days."

He left his job at the Post Office in June of 1954, which was a difficult decision.

"I had a wife and three children," Asberry says, "and those were some hard times."

He was making plans to move from the area, when Marvin Jones told him about a job possibility. Jones was a Dexter attorney at that time and served as regional manager for insurance claims.

"I took a cut in pay to work at MFA Insurance," Asberry said with a laugh. It's easier to laugh now that his kids are grown and he is retired. He started out making $250 per month with MFA.

He worked at MFA for 31 1/2 years, receiving several promotions until he became branch claims manager. MFA Insurance later became Shield of Shelter and is now known as Shelter Insurance. His office was located in the same building as Dr. Robert Boon's dental clinic on Grant Street.

He made many trips to the home office in Columbia over the years while with MFA, but Dexter always remained his home.

Born in Detroit, Michigan, he spent his early years there. His mom and dad were from Wayne County, Missouri but migrated to Detroit during the depression. The lure of factory work, when there was none to be had in Southeast Missouri, took the Asberrys north. But the economy kept worsening, and his dad lost his job.

Asberry said the story goes that his dad "borrowed $50" and moved back to Missouri. They lived on a farm outside Dexter. His dad got a job at a grocery store. Asberry went to the Dexter school located where the old Armory is now located. He graduated from Dexter.

He entered the Air Force, which was then the Army Air Guard, in 1942. He was stationed stateside, first at an air base in Laredo, Texas and later at Scott Air Force Base in Belleville, Illinois. He was in Aerial Gunnery School when the war ended in 1946 and he returned to Dexter.

It was at that time he took out the Post Office box, the one that he kept until Monday.

"I'd been thinking about it, even in cold weather I felt obligated to go to the Post Office," said Asberrry, "Even though I don't get a lot of mail."

"But wouldn't you know it, I actually had some mail today," Asberry said with a laugh.