By Kelli Baxter
Trudy Kruse remembers when it took several hours to sort thousands of pieces of mail by hand at the Rush City Post Office. She also remembers when they lifted 50,000 pounds of bags stuffed with catalogs onto a scale to be weighed for postage.

And in the past 29 years, there have been hundreds of Rush City residents who probably remember her face behind the counter when they bought stamps, delivered a package, or changed an address.

Kruse started working at the post office in 1980, has lived in Rush City with her husband since 1975, and at the end of this month she’ll no longer need to ask what kind of stamps you want to buy.

Kruse will retire from the U.S. Postal Service on Oct. 31. Her last days as a postal worker have been spent not in Rush City but at the Grasston Post Office, where she has served for the past three months as its officer in charge while Grasston’s postmaster recovers from surgery.

‘It’s actually the perfect ending,” Kruse said of working in the tiny Kanabec County town off Highway 70. “It’s quiet here. I can sit back and relax.”

But working in Grasston, she said she needs to remember how to do some things manually, rather than pushing buttons on an electronic machine. The town of 119 people has a smaller post office and doesn’t have some of the technological advantages available at Rush City. 

The technology that post offices use is something Kruse said she has seen change dramatically over the years. In the past, she spent a large part of her day sorting eight to 10 trays, with about 500 pieces of mail each, into its corresponding routes.

Now, she’s lucky if she sees one tray. What used to take hours, now takes about 15 minutes, she said, because the main post office in St. Paul already electronically sorts most of the mail by route.

More changes are on the way as the postal service becomes more automated. And Kruse jokingly says she’s retiring because she is too old to learn any more new things. What she really loves, anyway, about her job at the post office is the hands-on work. It’s also what she says she will miss most.

“I love to talk; I love the people. I love working the window,” Kruse said. “I will miss the people a lot, especially the people who come in every day.”

Some of those people Kruse is accustomed to seeing daily are her co-workers, who she said will be hard to leave behind.

“It’s more like a big family in there,” she said.

Mail carrier Rosie Blazek, who has been at the Rush City Post Office for 25 years, has worked closely with Kruse since the beginning and said it will be hard to see her go.

“I’ve thoroughly enjoyed working with her. She’s very helpful. She’s done everything from sorting and carrying to being the officer in charge,” Blazek said.

Kruse was no stranger to helping a co-worker in need, Blazek said, remembering one instance in which Kruse picked up her mail route so she could attend her sister’s funeral in Montana.

“She was very accommodating ... and she has done that more than once,” Blazek said.

She and Kruse have become good friends over the years, too, Blazek said. And it’s likely that Kruse will be seeing some of her soon-to-be former co-workers outside of the mail room.

A few other people Kruse is looking forward to spending more time with are her husband and grandchildren.

When summer rolls around again, she said she’s also planning to do a lot more gardening.

But whatever her retirement plans are, don’t look for Kruse to spend a lot of time outside of Rush City. She likes her friendly, small hometown.

“I don’t like crowded areas,” she said. “Me and the Twin Cities wouldn’t get along very well.”

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