Walter Chronert arrived in Los Altos in 1959, from Gary, Indiana. He had a postal service background, and found a job quickly in the new town of Los Altos. Walter and his wife, Vera, and their two sons, had found a new home. This is the second in a three-part series about Walter Chronert.
"I'd been stationed in Monterey during the war. My wife and I were married in San Francisco. We had always wanted to come back here. I came out here first, and right away I started looking for a postal job.
"I went over to Sunnyvale Post Office and the guy said, "There's a new town over here, Los Altos. It's growing like crazy, and they're looking for people." So I drove over to Los Altos. That's the first day I met my friend Howard Denton, who was then the Assistant Postmaster. Howard called Percy Helena, the Postmaster, who happened to be home sick. Howard said, "I've got a postal inspector here who wants to transfer in. Percy got up from his sickbed, came right down to meet me, and we made the deal right there.
"My family came out here in June, and I'll tell you, it was a thrill driving down San Antonio Road toward town. My family was so excited. The apricot orchards were just beautiful. A first impression counts a lot, you know.
"At that time the post office was the whole corner where Delia's Cleaners, Heintzelman's Books and the ballet school is now - that whole corner. We didn't move to the new building until 1960.
"We kept careful mail volume records. It was amazing! We were getting 11-13 pieces of mail per delivery in Los Altos. We had the second highest piece-per-delivery rate in the state. Los Altos still has one of the highest. For comparison, San Francisco was getting about 3-1/2 each day. In Los Altos, everyone got mail. If you missed a box, something was wrong.
"I would report our volume numbers, and they would call me from the main office in San Francisco and say, "Walt, your volume numbers seem too high" So, they'd send a team of guys down here to check my count. After a few days they'd walk out and say, "'I guess your numbers were right, Walt.""
"I was named Postmaster in 1965. I had the best people, excellent people. It was just a great place. When they tried to unionize people, many post offices had a lot of grievances. I just called the workers in and said, "Now if you ever have a grievance, bring it to me, and we'll talk things over. If I can't handle it, the guy up in San Francisco sure can't handle it either." We never sent a grievance out of my office in all my years as Postmaster. That shows you. We had good morale and we worked out our own problems.
"I've never had a bad day in Los Altos."
- Adapted by Donna Shoemaker, Los Altos History House Association
Walter Chronert was interviewed by Anne Lee, in February, 1998. Adapted by Donna Shoemaker. For information about the Los Altos Oral History Program, call 948-9427.