Daugherty retires as Jonesville Post Master

What started as a temporary job, only filling in when needed, became a career for Linda Daugherty.

Linda Daugherty retired after 28 years at the post master at Jonesville. She has relocated to Tennessee. Arbidella Richardson is the new post master.

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Daugherty spent 28 years in a small room. She battled snakes once and bad weather during the winter.

If she needed to use the restroom, she had to leave the building and go across the street. Once she had to operate out of a mobile unit with a portable heater to keep warm, but through it all, she never missed a day of work, other than for a vacation.

“I might have opened a little late, but I always made it to work, even if my husband had to drive me,” she said.

Despite those obstacles, she was teary-eyed on her last day at work as Post Master of the Jonesville Post Office.

“I’m going to miss the people,” she said. “I won’t miss going to the store or fire department to go to the bathroom, but I will miss all the people.”

The post office in Jonesville has 50 route customers and 26 box customers. The post office rents the space in a small brick building with no running water. When they explored installing water, they discovered it would cost $26,000, probably more than the building was worth.

When Daugherty decided to retire, her world moved fast.

Her husband, a long time employee of DHL at the Northern Kentucky/Greater Cincinnati International Airport lost his job in December.

Then, her Dry Ridge home sold within 24 hours which she said she took as a sign that her retirement and move to Tennessee to be near her daughter and grandson was meant to be.

“Everything just fell into place,” she said.

Daugherty said she left stacks of notes for Arbidella Richardson, the next post master of Jonesville. Richardson, like Daugherty before her, was a sub when Daugherty was on vacation.

“They’ll have to bear with me,” Richardson said.

Richardson has lived in Jonesville for 43 years and has been involved with the Jonesville Fire Department so she feels like she knows just about everyone.

“She’ll do fine,” Daugherty countered. “It’s a happy day and then I cry, but I’m happy to be going and sad to leave.”