A retired Climax postmaster recalled memories growing up in Scotts and later in life, including multiple times he feels he could have died and a disagreement he had with the President of the United States that almost cost him his job, at the April 2 Climax Rotary Club meeting.
Gary Hayward, who was Climax postmaster from 1971 to 1992, mainly recalled multiple times he had a brush with death, but also reviewed some Climax Post Office history and Climax Rotary Club memories at the local Rotary Club meeting.
Born June 9, 1942, Gary remembered the first tragedy his family encountered after he was born came in 1947 when the family home burned down.
He said firefighters and volunteers had to get water for the pumper from Dorrance Creek, one mile south of his home. He said a wagon was used to haul milk cans to the creek where volunteers filled the cans with water and loaded them onto two wagons that went back and forth.
“Wes (family friend Wes Swarthout) said when they got back, their hands were covered with ice. They would go out in the barn and stick them (hands) between the cow’s legs and the utters. I don’t know what the cow thought of that but we may have had curdled milk. That’s how he said they got them warm for their next trip dipping cans,” said Hayward with a chuckle.
Hayward, who grew up one-half a mile south of Scotts at the corner of R and 36th Street, said the first time he should have died was in 1948. He jumped off a hay wagon, however he wound up jumping off in front of a car that struck him. He said he was in a coma for a week with a concussion and internal injuries.
He thinks what saved his life was a leather pilot helmet he was wearing at the time.
Soon after he was struck by the car, he was on a milk cart helping on the family farm when one of the wheels came off and the milk cart tipped over on top of Hayward but he wound up escaping death again.
Hayward also recalled a time he escaped serious injury, or even death in approximately 1954. He was picking up bales of hay while working for a local farmer. He said it was close to 100 degrees out and as he reached to pick up a bale, he passed out and had a heat stroke.
After a brief time of recovery, later in the day he continued to help putting hay in a hay loft. He stepped through a hay shoot and wound up on the cement floor.
He also remembered a time he could have died working in a field with a young friend, Ron White, a long time Scotts resident.
He said the two Scotts boys both had dates to go to Lake Michigan. However the farmer they were working for wanted them to spread fertilizer on a field before they left. They hurried spreading the fertilizer with a tractor as fast as they could. They were making a turn in the field and struck a rock. The tractor tipped over with the muffler going straight into the ground.
“It threw us so hard that we went out so the tractor didn’t kill us. I crawled back under and shut it off,” recalled Hayward.
Another incident he was with White picking up hay bales when again, he had a brush with death.
He said there was a big load of hay on the hay wagon. He said he and White were on top of the load, holding the hay bales in front in place while another friend drove the tractor. He said they were going down a large hill. The driver of the tractor became concerned so he pushed the clutch in, making the tractor take off. Once the tractor started to take off the driver hit the brake, throwing Hayward off the tractor to the ground. Fortunately he missed the wagon tongue and the tractor, however a heavy load of hay came down on top of him.
“That one could have got me (killed) too. Those bales of hay back then were heavy,” recalled Hayward.
His next near death experience occurred when he was 16 years old. He said he was racing another car in the area. The contest ended near Lefevre Lake on P Avenue. “The only trouble was I was doing about 70 (miles per hour) when we realized the road ended,” said Hayward.
He said he hit the brakes, turning the car around once and then half way around again. The car proceeded to go through a fence row near a group of trees, however as his car entered a field the mirrors on the vehicle just cleared the trees “and I never hit any of them going through.”
“This was a let Jesus take the wheel moment like I needed several times in my life,” said Hayward.
While he wasn’t injured in an awkward incident that took place at the family farm, Hayward feels he could have been seriously hurt or killed.
He said his father worked with the mother of two troubled young men. His father thought bringing the two young men to work on the farm could help bring discipline and change their behavior.
Gary recalled he had to remind the two brothers they were on the farm to work, which the two brothers did not like. One day the two brothers came at him and got into a physical confrontation with Hayward, however he said he got the upper hand.
He wasn’t aware at the time how dangerous the two young men were. However he learned later when the two young men left the farm at the end of the summer, they killed nine people between them.
Another incident that could have turned bad involved a former customer Hayward prepared taxes for. He knew the man and his wife, and as a kind gesture, every other day he took the mail out of their rural mail box and delivered it to the couple.
The man developed dementia.
One day the man’s wife called Hayward and told him her husband had a gun. Hayward drove to the home and when he walked into the home he said the man had the gun pointed at his wife’s head. He asked the man if the gun was loaded and the man turned, said the gun was loaded and stuck the gun in Hayward’s stomach.
Hayward talked the man into first lowering the gun and then he asked him to give him the gun. He said he took the 9 millimeter gun back to his tax office and discovered the gun was not only loaded but there was a bullet in the chamber.
Much later in life Gary defied death again, this time battling cancer.
In 2011 he was diagnosed with smoldering multiple myeloma, which is defined as a precursor to a rare blood cancer known as multiple myeloma, In 2015 the cancer turned active.
He went to Mayo Clinic in Minnesota for consultation and treatment.
He told Crystal Rolfe in a 2018 Climax Crescent article about Gary’s life, a doctor at Mayo Clinic told Gary with his blood test results it was a miracle he was still alive.
Because he was over 70, many doctors wouldn’t perform the stem cell transplant he needed, however his doctor felt Hayward was in good enough shape, so the doctor performed the procedure to reverse the myeloma.
He said he is doing well since he had the stem cell transplant.
However about three years ago he had a cancerous tumor removed from his colon.
And recently he discovered he has a tumor on his kidney that is not growing, but doctors are monitoring.
Hayward had a recent near death moment again when he either lost consciousness or fell asleep and totaled his vehicle. He said he missed a curve, drove past trees, struck a guard rail, curved around more trees and came to a stop in front of a large tree. He said he doesn’t have much memory of the incident, however he was not injured.
As soon as he graduated from Climax-Scotts High School in 1960, Hayward started preparing taxes for local farmers in the area. He soon started Hayward’s Tax Service, a business he worked at for 62 years and remains open.
He married his high school sweetheart, Jeanie Rowley, the same year. The couple had two children, Randy and Kelly.
His post office career started in 1961 when he started as a foot mail carrier in Battle Creek.
He worked as a mail carrier in Battle Creek until 1967 when he transferred to the Augusta Post Office as a clerk.
When Gordon Eldred retired as Climax postmaster he was urged by a postal inspector to apply for the Climax Postmaster position. Hayward asked what he needed to do to apply and the postal inspector handed him a piece of paper and told him to write down, “I Gary Hayward, am interested in becoming postmaster in Climax, Michigan.” That was his application. He was then asked to go to Chicago for an interview.
He said during the process, he and five other people who had applied for postmaster positions at other locations, went to Chicago to be interviewed. He said the six were the first batch of postmasters in the United States to become postmasters under merit, rather than political. “All that time before, your party put you in. They couldn’t even ask us what our party was. I was pretty proud of that,” explained Hayward.
From 1971-1979 he was state secretary of the Michigan Branch National League of Postmasters.
He said he would often attend hearings in Washington, D.C. as a guest of Augusta Postmaster Gerald “Red” Holloway.
He learned at one of the hearings President Gerald Ford’s plan to cut many post offices. He said under the plan, 92 post offices in the Kalamazoo area would have been closed. He said all of the deliveries would have come out of Kalamazoo.
He was at a meeting in Washington, D.C. when the Deputy Postmaster General explained how the plan was going to work.
He said he wrote to President Ford explaining why he thought the plan was a bad idea.
Hayward said he got a reply from President Ford letting him know why the president thought the plan would work.
“This is when I found out you don’t threaten the president,” said Hayward.
He returned another letter to President Ford explaining his side of the story, again, pointing out some facts. He also told the president in the letter he would soon be attending the National League of Postmasters convention in Phoenix, Arizona and if the president hadn’t changed his mind by then he was going to get every postmaster in the United States to campaign against him.
“That was the wrong thing to do,” said Hayward with a laugh.
He said he received a phone call from his boss, the postmaster of the Kalamazoo Post Office. He was asked by his boss what was going on and what was he up to?
Hayward asked, why?
“He said your personnel folder has been ordered into Washington, D.C.,” said Hayward.
He adds when he arrived at the National League of Postmasters convention at the airport in Arizona, the national postmaster president also asked him what he was doing to cause a stir with the president.
Again, Hayward asked why? He was told the national postmaster president was at the Postmaster General’s office and he observed Hayward’s personnel folder on the Postmaster General’s office desk.
He checked into the hotel and the national editor of the National Magazine told him not to send any more articles for the magazine Hayward had been submitting articles to every month called Gary’s Corner. The National Magazine editor told him he was ordered not to accept any more of his articles.
He then learned the deputy postmaster general was flying to the convention to see Hayward.
“He said on the second day of the convention when he was on the floor, somebody handed him a note indicating the deputy postmaster general wanted to see Hayward in his hotel room.
He promptly went to the deputy postmaster general’s room.
“He said, ‘This is short and sweet.’ He said ‘Gary, I don’t disagree with what you’re doing, but I’m not in any power to make any changes right now. I’ve been sent out here though, to tell you, you will stop right now.’ I said ‘Yes sir.’ And I did. That was the end of my pressure,” recalled Hayward.
He said two years later the deputy postmaster general became postmaster general and he pushed through everything Hayward was attempting to get done.
The new postmaster general fired Pete Dorsey, the former deputy postmaster general.
Hayward became a member of the Climax Rotary Club in 1971 when he was 29 years old.
He became club president in 1976. He was club secretary 25 years, most of them while longtime former Rotarian and owner of the Climax Crescent Ray Smith was treasurer.
Rotary Club awards he has received include the Rotary Hero Award and Paul Harris Award.
Hayward was very proud that Climax is recognized as the home of the first rural free delivery. He worked very hard reviewing Climax historian Jette Lawrence’s collection of articles from the Climax Crescent and other newspapers, detailing the unique post office history in Climax for a booklet that would be submitted to the Smithsonian. He was able to gain acceptance of Climax being the location of the first Rural Free Delivery into the National Postal Museum of the Smithsonian Institute.
He was recognized as Postmaster of the Year for the State of Michigan.
The first Postmaster at the Climax Post Office was Daniel Eldred and the last two postmasters before Hayward assumed the position in 1971 was Gordon Eldred and Georgiana Elwell. Hayward is the last listed Climax Postmaster in the book “Post Offices of Michigan,” a book authored by Sister Marcianna, along with Ruth Reed that details the postal history of the state, covering the period from 1802 to 1976.
“I consider myself lucky,” said Hayward.
From left, former Climax Postmaster Gary Hayward, former rural carrier Cleo Hammer, former clerk Julie Hayward, and former State Sen. Harmon Cropsey are pictured in the May 9, 1986 Climax Crescent when Sen. Cropsey presented Hayward a plaque May 2, 1986 commemorating the 150th year of Postal Service in Climax.
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