PHOTO COURTESY OF THE TRAER HISTORICAL MUSEUM

William Stone (Burt Romick’s grandfather) was one of the first rural mail carriers out of Traer when the government established the service in the early 1900s. He held the job for 13 years. He is pictured here with his Rural Free Delivery (R.F.D.) Route No. 2 mail buggy. “Rural free delivery, taken in connection with the telephone, the bicycle, and the trolley, accomplishes much toward lessening the isolation of farm life and making it brighter and more attractive,” President Theodore Roosevelt said in his 1903 Message to Congress.