Drewryville Post Office will eventually reopen

Published 7:06 pm Friday, March 22, 2019

 

DREWRYVILLE

The U.S. Postal Service plans to eventually reoccupy its Drewryville facility, but no reopening date has been set.

Freda Sauter, a spokeswoman with the federal agency’s corporate communications office confirmed this to The Tidewater News on March 13. However, the USPS is still assessing the building for repairs and at present, there is no firm timeline for completion of the work, she said.

The building sustained damage last June when the adjacent storefront, which was being used as a residence, caught fire and needed to be demolished. Dennis Whitby of the Drewryville Volunteer Fire Department told the newspaper at the time that the post office and the building that burned had shared a parapet wall, which is an extension of a wall that goes above the roof. That wall had collapsed onto the roof of the post office and went through its floor. The post office had also sustained water damage.

Mary Nolen, who has worked as the Drewryville Post Office’s postal service employee for the past 16 years, has spent the past nine months of her USPS career since the fire operating out of a post office van parked along Drewry Road. Nolen confirmed she is in the van nearly every day in all weather conditions from 12:30 to 4:30 p.m. On Saturdays, her hours are 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

Nolen and her supervisor, Virginia Smith, who is postmaster for the Capron Post Office and the Drewryville community, both said they had not heard anything definite about when the Drewryville Post Office might be able to reopen.

The Drewryville Post Office building dates to 1917, when it was the Bank of Drewryville. This bank, according to Whitby, who is also an amateur historian, was the only bank in Southampton County not to go under during the Great Depression.