Goodbye 29704: Dot Faris Whiteside, legendary rural Catawba postmaster, dies at 89

There are legends in rural post offices and then there are mythical figures for these places that are not where mail is delivered, but the centers of tiny communities. Dot Faris Whiteside was both.

And even more.

Faris Whiteside died Thursday morning at age 89, family members said, but this woman who was postmaster at tiny Catawba in rural southeastern York County near the Catawba River for almost four decades was a legendary community figure.

She was so important in York County generations ago that when emergency officials decided rural routes in eastern York County needed names, Faris Whiteside, who knew everybody and every road, was assigned the job. There is an Ole Simpson Place because the old Simpson place was there. There is a Cureton Ferry Road where the post office sits because the old ferry ran nearby.

And just down from the post office, a short street off U.S. 21 in ZIP code 29704 states forever “Dot Faris Road.”

Faris Whiteside did not name that road; she didn’t like it one bit. But a carrier who worked for Faris, sneaking it in, named that street Dot Faris Road to honor the legendary postmaster. That road remains to this day.

Faris Whiteside retired more than 25 years ago, but she was so entwined with the post office there in Catawba that she was there as often as she could be to the end of her life. For decades, she lived just two doors down from the post office and her name and the office were interchangeable.

She said this in 2002 about her post office: “This was the place people came for problems or community concerns, and in a way I was the ad hoc mayor. In 1953, when I started, we were in the corner of the old store next door here, and then we had a little concrete building a few doors down for nine years. It’s a busy office now, but it’s always been a busy office. There’s just more people down here now.”

Faris Whiteside was the person the cops came to if they were hot on a case in the days before Internet and cellphones, or that a romantic fellow would see if he was waiting to give a pretty girl from eastern York County flowers but didn’t know where to send them.

“Everybody out here – everybody – knows her,” said Michael Goodson, one of the employees at the post office in Catawba. “A great lady.”

The funeral will be 3 p.m. Sunday at Neely’s Creek ARP Church, followed by the burial in the church cemetery. Visitation will be from 2 to 3 p.m. at the church.

This story was originally published January 28, 2016 at 12:05 PM with the headline "Goodbye 29704: Dot Faris Whiteside, legendary rural Catawba postmaster, dies at 89."