After 52 years in business, the Henderson post office is closing its doors after its manager retires, and it’s a bitter-sweet goodbye for the owner.
Henderson contract station manager Jacqueline Borel said the post office is not just a place of work but a place where she personally knows her 260 customers.
As various patrons walk in and out throughout the day, she converses with all of them, some she’s known since her childhood.
All of these people share the same grief of losing their post office and Borel, asking about the future of their mail after she retires.
“It was a hard decision but I gotta do what I gotta do,” Borel said. “I thought I could’ve stayed another few years but my husband’s sick. I just feel it's time to retire I’ve been here for 52 years and my husband’s very sick, so I just need to move on he needs me at home that’s why I'm leaving.”
For Borel who currently lives in her childhood home located right behind the store, the post office is also a place of family history since 1961.
“My parents had the store and the meat market, and they had the post office in the corner of the back part of the store,” Borel said. “So that’s how that all started.”
Borel said she began her managerial position at the post office at 17 years old filling in for her father’s position who was sick with brain cancer before passing. The grocery and meat store were eventually broken down, leaving only the post office.
But for a radius of Henderson residents, the post office is the only way they can pick up their mail because they don’t have a door-to-door mail delivery service. She said those outside of that radius who don’t want mail delivered to their house due to safety reasons also rely on her office.
“They’re getting it with me now,” Borel said. “Packages money orders. You just saw me make a money order. They buy stamps. They weigh packages and I send them off. Or they receive packages here they receive their mail here.”
Borel said due to her retirement, they will now have to drive nearly 8 miles to their new location in Breaux Bridge. But Borel is worried the far location may be difficult for the elderly to get to.
“We’ll have to carpool… or I don’t know,” Borel said. “Because it’s a lot of older people that don’t drive. Some have no family to do for them.”
Lifelong resident Yvonne Duplechain has the same concern. She said it’s already difficult for the elderly no longer having a bank in the area.
“We’ll have to go to Breaux Bridge to get our mail,” Duplechain said. “And we can’t go every day I mean the gas price is terrible I don’t know how we’re gonna survive. We’re just old here and we’re used to one stop. I mean we don’t have a bank anymore. It’s hard to survive.”
Borel said when residents of the town ask about having door-to-door mail delivery cost is always an issue.
“They’re telling the postmaster that it just costs too much and that’s what he’s telling me you know?” Borel said.
As for the post office itself, Borel said she hopes to see it either turned into a home or a business in a different location. She is open to selling the building as long as it is taken off of her property.
“I just wanna sell it and move it away from here.”
When it comes to the job, Borel will miss being around the people she sees every day.
“I’mma miss my people, I’ll miss my work 'cause I like my work,” Borel said teary-eyed. “But I just gotta move on.”
Doors will officially close October 31st and postal service will begin at the Breaux Bridge location.
