Well Earned Recognition of Excellence:
"One of the
very few women who are engaged as a rural mail carrier in the country is
Mrs. Clara Lane, who every week day, during the year, thru summer's heat and winter's cold, makes the trip from Brodhead to Avon, and the territory thereabout. Mrs. Lane has carried the mail continuously for eighteen years, and is now
regarded as one of the veteran employees of Uncle Sam's service.
Mrs. Lane
entered the service long before the rural routes were thought of and she became one of the most capable and valuable of the carriers in Green and Rock counties. When the rural routes in that vicinity were established, the patrons of the mails there, were unanimous for Mrs. Lane, and she has ever since made the deliveries. As a careful and painstaking official, she has no superiors, the good people of Avon and Brodhead say. This is proven by the fact that
she has never missed a day during the eighteen years, making her route thru the worst of the winter's storms and blizzards. It is a record that few male carriers in the United States can excel.
Mrs. Lane is 57 years of age, and is
the widow of a veteran of the Civil War, James Lane, who died about ten years ago."
~ Janesville Gazette, 1904
