E. C. Birch Announces Retirement
“Slim” Birch, Mr. Amerada in Tonkawa for the past several years, has announced his retirement on February 1 after 37 ½ years with Amerada Oil company.
Birch went to work for the company in 1923 in the Three Sands field and has remained here since that time. He was gang pusher for two years, farm boss for 15 years and for the past 20 years has served as district foreman of Southern Kansas and Northern Oklahoma.
Mr. and Mrs. Elmer C. Birch moved from Cushing to the area and for 27 years lived on the Amerada lease at Three Sands, moving into Tonkawa 10 ½ years ago.
Known as “Slim” to most of his friends and company associates, Birch is a member of the First Methodist church, serves on the official board and is chairman of the board of trustees.
A son. Dwight, is also employed by Amerada, working in the office of the production department in Tioga, N.D.
“I am ready for retirement,” Birch said this week. “In fact, I’ve been looking forward to it for the past five years.”
In the future “Slim” intends to catch up on his fishing and do some traveling – some of it to North Dakota where he and Mrs. Birch will do a little “spoiling” of his four grandchildren.
Postal Clerk Vaults Through Window After Completing Last Day of Service
When a slightly built man with a wide grin vaulted through the parcel post window of the Tonkawa post office last week, it was a fitting climax to a record of 41 years of service with the U. S. Postal department.
The man making this ungraceful exit through the window was Basil Cunningham who had hung up his apron for the last time. He had worked his last shift and was on his way to visiting, fishing and just plain loafing.
If Cunningham believed, however, that the last day would be uneventful, he must have forgotten the bricks and scrap iron he had slipped into mail bags for some unsuspecting mail carrier to carry on his route.
Sure enough, when he tried first one door, then another, to leave the office on his last day he found city carriers effectively holding each door. That’s why his final exist was through a window.
How many times had he pulled the trick of wrapping a brick like a package and slipping it into a mail bag?
“Just look around,” Basil smiles. “Everyone in ...
