Postman's Park: A Lady's Tribute To Those Who Cared

A little wild spot, a tiny wooded oasis in the midst of the city. Annie Mueller would be pleased. The ramshackle old house that she laughingly called her "rough box," has been torn down, but the wildflower garden that was her greatest pleasure in life has become Ann Arbor's smallest city park. The quarter acre at the corner of Vinewood and Wayne is called Postman's Park in tribute to the neighborhood mail carriers who took it upon themselves to guard her passage through her later years. Mrs. Harry S. Towsley, a friend and neighbor who discharged Mrs. Mueller's estate and deeded her property to the city for the park after Mrs. Mueller's death in 1965 at the age of 85, reminisced recently about Ann Arbor's pioneer woman journalist, about the postmen who cared for her and the park that was named for them. "We were only casual acquaintances at first, but later she would come and talk to me for an hour or two at a time. She knew Ann Arbor and its people backwards and forwards, and in her 80s she spoke more beautiful English than I'll ever hope to." One might even presume to say that Anne Belger Mueller was a liberated woman. When she graduated from the University of Michigan in 1903 she was looking for work and came across an ad for a reporter at the Ann Arbor Times-News, then located on East Ann Street. "I knew they didn't want a woman," she told Mrs. Towsley. But she was armed with a personal letter of recommendation from University of Michigan President Angell. "She was proud of that letter," said Mrs. Towsley. "It was still framed and hanging in the bedroom of her house when she died." So the Times-News gave her an impossible assignment, to get an interview with a famed U-M professor who had maintained a wall of inaccessibilty. She got in to see him and spent several hours talking to him. As she was leaving, she casually said , ''Oh, you wouldn't mind if I wrote this up for the newspaper, would you?" And the professor had enjoyed talking to her so much that he said, "Why, of course not. Go right ahead." Later Mrs. Mueller wrote a column for a Detroit newspaper. During the war years, even though she had officially retired, she worked as a private secretary and receptionist for Dr. Inez Wisdom, one of Ann Arbor's first woman physicians. She stayed at that job for many years because Dr. Wisdom had difficulty getting help. "In her later years I suppose you could say she (Mrs. Mueller) was a bit of a character," Mrs. Towsley said, "but a very pleasant and friendly character to anyone who didn't try to tell her what she should or shouldn't do. "She had absolutely no concept of how she looked when she went out to work in her garden. She'd tie her hair up in a handkerchief and put on just any old clothes. "People would talk about 'that awful old shack,' and she would joke about it, too. But then she would say, 'A person's home is his palace. It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks of it.' " She would also laugh about the clutter in her living room, but she had so many books it was impossible to maintain any order. She haunted rummage sales, and it was usually books that she bought, or antique dishes that nobody else had realized were antiques. "The living room was lined with bookshelves and book cases, but we didn't realize how many books she actually had until we were taking care of her things after she died. Every shelf had double or triple rows of books," said Mrs. Towsley. Mrs. Mueller and her husband purchased the big wooded lot at the corner of Vinewood and Wayne early in their marriage and were among the first residents in the area. They tried to keep it in as much of a natural state as possible, even as the area developed and other residences began to encroach. Eventually she sold part of the lot to some people who built a home on it. "One day my eldest daughter came home nearly in tears, saying 'they're cutting down Annie's woods.' " She was widowed in 1937 and had no children or other living family. She made do on her Social Security, which amounted to about $45 a month. She had a small inheritance, Mrs. Towsley said, but it was set aside "for when I really need it," and it was never touched. "She was a very independent individual," said Mrs. Towsley, "and that was one reason we all defended her if anyone questioned the way she lived. We forget to be proud of people who make do. As she got older and wasn't always well, it was neighbors and the postmen who took the time to make sure she was getting along. At the time the property was turned over to the city, then Councilman Douglas D. Crary said, "As far as I'm concerned this is reminiscent of the service above and beyond the call of duty of the late Norm Kern who took care of everybody." Kern was the first postman on the route. He knew that Annie locked the door sometimes, but if the door was open or he couldn't see her, he would knock and make sure she was all right. When Kern retired, Bob Schlupe took over the route, and he did the same thing. "We don't half appreciate the value of a friendly postman, what he can do for a neighborhood if he takes a little interest in it," Mrs. Towsley said. "Bob always tells us if someone on the route is sick or having difficulties, just manages to let us know he's a little worried about someone. "A few year's ago, they tried to take Bob off this route, and everybody was terribly upset. We just won't let him go." The park was supposed to be called Postman's Stop, Mrs. Towsley explains, because it was where they stopped to check on Annie, but people had a hard time getting used to it. The city now sometimes calls it Postman's Rest, but she prefers just Postman's Park. The city knocked down the old house and laid a winding path through Annie's garden, but otherwise leaves it quite untended. Mrs. Towsley hopes that sometime when other needs are not so pressing they, will be able to afford to develop it a little more. "But not too much. She loved it so as a little wild spot that it should be kept that way. She never tried to maintain any semblance of order."