Some of us look forward to it, others, not so much. But nonetheless, it happens every day except Sunday. And neither rain nor snow, sleet nor hail, can stop it. It’s the delivery of the U.S. mail. Isle of Palms residents have the option of renting a box at the post office or the convenience of having it dropped off at their homes. That latter choice was a big deal when home delivery first came to the island 55 years ago.
Before then, mail could be picked up at a makeshift post office inside Hudson’s Pavilion on Front Beach. Hudson’s also served as the island’s epicenter for fun, with amusements and games. When the building burned down in 1954, a post office building was erected on Palm Boulevard near where the IOP Connector is now.
A decade later, home delivery began with Eldon Graham as the first mail carrier. His daughter Sharon Arnwine recalled that, “Although he sometimes had a mail delivery truck, Dad often relied on his own car to deliver the mail. He always had a farmer’s tan on one arm from it being out the window.”
photo courtesy of the City of Isle of Palms
Graham was raised and moved to the Isle of Palms as an adult. So, when he was offered the postal job, it was the perfect fit for him. “He loved the outdoors, and driving around the island’s mostly dirt roads enabled him to spend his days outside in the fresh air. But with so few full-time residents on the island back then, it wasn’t really a fulltime job, and surely not enough money to raise a family, so he had a second job downtown at the Charleston News and Courier,” Arnwine recounted. She also mused that the old joke of being called the mailman’s child was often applied to her. “My brother and I looked nothing alike. He had dark hair and I had blonde, like my dad, so he would often laugh and say that I was the mailman’s daughter.”
Graham left his job as mail carrier after five years to work full time at the newspaper. He died in 2022 at the age of 89. Several years ago, a sea turtle hatchling on Edisto Island was named after him – a nod to the man who loved the outdoors while making sure the early residents of the Isle of Palms stayed connected.
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