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: Ruth Elllott, 66, who retires today, flips a mall flag on the Glanworth-Belmont rural route she has H EA UL s iS‘is the final day Ruth will enjoy work There'aren’t many who have spent more than 40 * yearslm one job who can say honestly there . wasn’t one day they minded going to work. But despite snowbanks, mud and ditches, that‘s how Ruth Elliott feels about delivering mail on the Glanworth-Belmont rural route. Today she‘s packing it in. Page B4 FRIDAY, September 29, 1989 ‘taken care of tar more than 40 years ] MAILWOMAN l‘Rural-route Ruth paoks it in ' . She started in‘ 1948, and now it’s her last day ‘ delivering on the Glanworth-Belmont route. i l By Jeff Brooke . St. Thomas Bureau GLANWORTH â€" Ruth Elliott flips up the red flags for the last time today on the rural mailboxes she has visited for more than 40 years. The Glanworth area grand- mother, 66, has roamed the duSty, country roads between Glanworth and Belmont delivering mail each morning since 1948. And year after year, Elliott says, she has tried tobring the “person- al touch.“ "For all these years. I‘ve been dealing with my neighbors. There- fore, I’ve always tried to do myjob just a little better." She figures she drives about 32,000 kilometres a year. in her career. that's equivalent to almost 33 times around the world. HST MAILBOX: The last of the 93 mailboxes on her 45-kilometre route is her own century farm- house just northeast of here. "I’ve been in the snowbanks, Jet! Brooke/File London Free Press mud. ditches. But I've never had an accident. never had a llckel. “And i never. ever hated to go on my route. It was never any trouble. But it's time [ was through." A few of her friends along the route are taking her out tonighl for dinner in Pom Stanley. A “sur- pn‘se party" that she's pretending she hasn‘t heard about will follow at a Glanworth hall. WOMAN SUCCESSOR: Am in. day. Elliott turns the route over to another area woman. “That way it's like keeping it in the family. it’s always been someone local. That was the way it was and It should always be that way."