Postmaster Louis J. Albrecht announced today that Elmer J. Fochs, 1027 Dillingham Avenue, has been appointed a Sheboygan rural mail carrier by the postmaster general and that he will take over his duties on May 10.

Mr. Fochs who is well known in this community and who is very active in Boy Scout and Red Cross work was selected from a list of candidates certified by the civil service commission. He took his examination last December 5 in competition with 125 other men.

Born in Marathon City, Wisconsin, January 25, 1895, Mr. Fochs attended parochial school and high school in Wausau. Later he became connected with Armour and Company, and from Wausau he went to Waukegan for the company. From Waukegan he went to Racine, and on January 3, 1929 he came to Sheboygan where he was employed at the Armour branch office.

Served With Navy

He has been in Boy Scout work for fifteen years and at present is commissioner of District 4 of the south side and scoutmaster of Troop 44. He also is a first aid instructor and chairman of the highway first aid service program of the Red Cross here.

During the World war, Mr. Fochs served three years with the Navy, one year of which was with the peace commission. After the war he served for three years with the 128th Infantry band, Wisconsin Naval guard at Wausau.

The route Mr. Fochs will cover is over a distance of thirty-nine miles west and northwest of the city. He has 656 patrons on his route, which has been covered recently by William Klemming, a substitute carrier.

Mr. Fochs is married and has two children, Jackie, (John) 11 and Mary, 9.

Rural mail carriers of this city report for work at 5 a.m. six days a week and sort the mail for their routes between that time and the time they start out at 8 a.m. There are 1315 patrons served on the three routes running out of this city.

Wednesday night, Mr. and Mrs. Elmer J. Fochs, 1443 21st St., returned to the city from Wausau, where they attended the funeral of the former's father, Peter Fochs, who passed away Saturday, following a lingering illness.

Covered 560,000 Miles Since '37, He's Planning retirement Travel

This winter when the wind is whipping snow into deep drifts along country roads north and west of Sheboygan, Elmer Fochs can roll over in bed and feel sorry for rural mail carriers out battling the elements.

For today Mr. Fochs, who divided his many years of government service between the Postal Department and U.S. Navy, made his final rounds on Rural Route No. 3 out of the Sheboygan post office.

Retirement for Elmer, who is 67, came after 28 years of delivering mail to folks in portions of the Towns of Sheboygan, Mosel and Sheboygan Falls - about 50 miles a day, six days a week.

Mr. Fochs, who resides with his wife, Eleanor, at 1443 S. 21st St., figures he has traveled roughly 20,000 miles a year since becoming a rural carrier here in 1937. That adds up to some 560,000 miles of "touring" . . . and in about 14 different autos.

"Not only have working conditions and pay improved greatly throughout the years," Elmer observed, "but so have the cars and the roads on which rural carriers travel - - - particularly in the matter of snow removal."

Mr. Fochs, a native of Marathon (near Wausau), came to Sheboygan in 1930 as cashier and credit manager for the former local meat distribution house of Armour and Co. He had seen World War I Naval service as a chief yeoman, and in 1950 signed with the local Naval Reserve unit. Later that year, with the outbreak of the Korean Conflict, he was assigned to active duty at Great Lakes, Ill..

He continued in personnel work at Great Lakes until April, 1964

The Fochs home, by the way, is "all Navy." Mrs. Fochs, a Navy nurse, holds the rank of Lieutenant commander in the reserve and still participates in weekly sessions at the local Naval Armory in the area of recruit physicals and medical records.

Elmer's son, John L. was with his father at Great Lakes for a time as a radioman. Later he was employed in communications work by the U.S. State Department and is currently communications supervisor the American embassy at Tunis, North Africa.

A daughter, Mrs. Douglas Leach (Mary) lives in Sheboygan Falls.

In addition to his postal and naval career, Mr. Fochs has devoted much of his adult life to Boy Scout leadership, both in Wausau and here, the latter as a scoutmaster (St. Peter Claver Troop 16), neighborhood commissioner, training leader and numerous other positions in the Kettle Moraine Scout Council.

And the usual question: How does he plan to occupy himself in retirement?

"Well," says Elmer, "I'll certainly make the most of not having to get up at 4:14 every morning . . . and then, too, there's my flower garden next summer, and perhaps a little more traveling, but of an entirely different variety than that of the past 28 years."

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