His parents mailed him to Valley City, then he met the Pope

Nov. 8—FARGO — It's not often you learn something about your parents long after they're gone. But that's not the case for Cecelia O'Keefe, of Fargo.

Her story starts with an email she sent me a couple weeks ago:

"My name is Cecelia (Colby) O'Keefe. I am intrigued by your article about 'mailing children' in today's Lifestyle. Fred W. Colby is my father."

The "article" O'Keefe is talking about was published on Oct.18 and detailed how some Americans took advantage of new postal regulations starting in 1913 by putting their children in the mail.

Of course, it sounds worse than it really was. Basically, it was a way to save a little money. Instead of having Junior take a train to visit grandma or grandpa in a neighboring town, they'd put a parcel post sticker on him and give him to the mailman, (whom many personally knew) to hand deliver.

According to newspaper reports at the time, that's exactly what Mr. and Mrs. Fred Colby, of Fargo, did in 1915 when they mailed their toddler, Freddie, to see his grandparents in Valley City.

At the end of the story, I wondered what happened to little Freddie.

I started by looking in The Forum's biographical index for anybody named Freddie Colby. I found one file for a man named Fred Colby (O'Keefe's father). He was a successful lawyer and Fargo community leader from the 1940s until his death in the 1990s, but I wasn't entirely sure he was the little "Freddie Colby" of postal fame.

O'Keefe wasn't sure either.

She wrote, "I have never heard of any story about my Dad being mailed to visit (grandparents in Valley City), but it would not surprise me!"

Definite signs pointed that Freddie and Fred Colby were one and the same, including their birth years and the fact that both had relatives in Valley City.

However, their parents' names did not match up. The grown-up Fred Colby's father's name was Earl, not Fred. His mother's name was Maude (but as was the case with newspapers as late as the 1980s, women were only referred to as 'Mrs. Husband's Name.' That still drives me batty and is just

one example of the sexist language used in newspapers years ago

).

So neither Cecelia nor I could say with 100% accuracy that Fred Colby, the grown-up attorney, was the mailed toddler.

O'Keefe, who has dabbled in family history research, wanted to find out. She contacted her dad's cousin James Gloege, a writer and family historian from Glenwood, Minnesota, to see what he might know.

At first, Gloege said the story didn't ring a bell, but then a fuzzy memory came back to him about an amusing story his mother's mother once shared.

"This memory is of Grandma Cronen telling the story of how the mailman brought Fred out to the farm, and I think he even had the parcel post sticker on his shirt or jacket front. I think he had come by train. Grandma was mainly laughing in the telling, as I recall," he wrote. "There was a big splash in the paper showing Fred's arrival at the station. Maude, for sure, and I think Grandma, too, got quite a kick out of the publicity of it — you know, like, this would be Maude!"

But what of the wrong father's name in the paper? O'Keefe and I deduced a couple things. Freddie's father was not named Fred, but his grandfather was named Fred. (His grandmother was Emma Colby.) The initial report I read was out of a paper in Sauk Rapids, Minnesota, not Fargo or Valley City, where it happened. So like the old sleepover game of "Telephone," some details, like the correct name of Freddie's parents, probably got mixed up as the story was shared from town to town.

I finished the story by saying if Fred Colby, the successful Fargo attorney, was indeed the mailed toddler, it appeared he was none the worse for wear after his time as a parcel package. After confirming his identity, talking to O'Keefe, and digging a little deeper, it's clear getting "mailed" as a toddler was just the start of a pretty interesting life.

Years after his 15 minutes of fame as the "mailed toddler," Fred eventually graduated from high school and attended the University of North Dakota and later law school at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., Class of '39.

World War II started, and Fred seemingly didn't take the route you might expect.

"He enlisted in the Navy, even with his JD, because he wanted to be with the 'regular' Navy guys, not the officers," O'Keefe recalls.

He served on the U.S.S. Kennebec in both the Atlantic and Pacific.

After the war, the service would lead him to his soon-to-be wife, Catherine "Kaye" Boyle, an Army Air Corps nurse who served in India and Egypt during WWII.

"My parents would meet at the 1947 National Catholic War Veterans Convention in Cleveland, Ohio. Each was there as a representative from their respective states — North Dakota and Michigan," O'Keefe said.

She said after many letters, and visits to meet each other's families, they married on Aug. 21, 1948, in Detroit, where Kaye wore a wedding dress worth noting.

"Her wedding gown was made from the silk of discarded parachutes she had sent home. She never could see the sense in throwing away perfectly good material," O'Keefe said with a laugh.

The war loomed large for the couple for years to come.

Fred was an attorney for the Veterans Administration, and he and Kaye were very active with local and national military organizations, including the Disabled American Veterans, Catholic War Veterans, and the Veterans of Foreign War.

"I believe there is an article about my parents being the first married couple to have membership in the North Dakota VFW," O'Keefe said.

The Colbys were also active in the Lions Club and the local Knights of Columbus. Fred was the supreme warden of the Knights of Columbus in the early 1960s.

"My dad was someone who would be on the road for weeks making sure veterans in rural North Dakota were receiving their VA benefits and the next, he would be in white tie and tails as master of ceremonies at a national banquet for the Knights of Columbus," O'Keefe recalls.

She said his most cherished memories with the KCs included a tour of Paris, Rome and Ireland, having a private audience with the Pope, and a personal meeting with the president of Ireland.

"Something very impressive for his Irish in-laws at the time,"O'Keefe said.

And Kaye Colby was keeping plenty busy on her own working as a nurse at St. Ansgar Hospital in Moorhead and St. Luke's Hospital in Fargo and also doing home health care. She was also appointed to the Fargo City Planning Commission, which helped develop the Civic Memorial Auditorium.

Fred also worked with Merchant's Bank, and both Colbys were campaign workers for Herschel Lashkowitz, Byron Dorgan, Quentin Burdick and several others.

Fred died at the age of 81 in November 1995. O'Keefe said with so much of his life devoted to veterans, it's appropriate that he was buried on Nov. 11, Veterans Day.

Kaye died at 82 on Nov. 3, 2001.

Both were remembered with love by their three children: Catherine (Kitty), Cecelia and Fred.

And while readers of the "mailed toddler" story might remember Freddie Colby for that one odd day in 1915 when he arrived at grandma's farm with a parcel post stamp stuck to his shirt, it's perhaps more appropriate to remember the life of service he and his wife later led.

No doubt they were "first-class" people.