Retiring Warners postmaster was a pioneer when she started her job 44 years ago

"When we first came to the post office, there was a little resentment," says Sue Goleski.

View full sizeMichelle Gabel / The Post-Standard Warners postmaster Soozie Goleski, of Camillus, retires Friday after 44 years working for the postal service.

Warners, NY -- It was Feb. 26, 1966. Sue Goleski had just started a job as a clerk-carrier with the United States Post Office, joining a group of seven pioneering women working for the Post Office in Syracuse. The Civil Rights Act was two years old, and the National Organization for Women, formed to ensure equal treatment for women in the workplace, wouldn’t be organized for another four months.

“When we first came to the post office, there was a little resentment,” she recalled Wednesday. ’’Girls were taking jobs where men should be working.” But Goleski, 69, survived and thrived. She retires Friday as postmaster at the Warners post office after a 44-year career with the Postal Service.

Her late husband, Jack, who died eight years ago, didn’t want her to work. None of the other wives worked, she remembers Jack telling her. Her first paycheck, however, came in handy. She got that paycheck on a Thursday night. Friday morning, she and Jack awoke to a cold house. The furnace had quit. Jack didn’t get paid until the following week. Goleski cashed her check — she earned $2.57 an hour — and paid $40 that day to have the furnace fixed.

Jack didn’t complain any more about her working, she said. In fact, when Goleski was eligible to retire at age 55, Jack asked: “What’s your hurry?”

It took much longer before her male co-workers came to accept women in the workplace. She remembered one male co-worker who was initially very resentful. He moonlighted as a musician while his wife stayed home, and he had little time to spend with their children.

“He wasn’t very nice to me for a year, year and a half,” Goleski said, but one day “he took me aside and said, ‘Sue, I want to apologize to you. ... When you first came to the Post Office, I resented it. ... I kind of resented the fact that you could raise your kids and come to work.’ He said, ‘I feel like I cheated my kids and took it out on you.’ I just thought that was so big of him.”

Contact John Stith at jstith@syracuse.com or at 251-5718.