by Sara McGinnis posted in Parenting

One child, one jacket, and a smattering of postage stamps. This is all it took to get one little girl sent to 73 miles away to her grandmother's house in 1914.
Her name was May Pierstorff, and at 5 years old she weighed just 48.5 pounds, and thus was under the United States Postal Service's 50-pound weight limit. At the time May traveled from Graneville to Lewiston within Idaho, there were no clear rules against humans being shipped.
And so, it happened that little May was sent through the mail via a train compartment with 53 cents of stamps attached to her jacket.
The story is legendary enough there's even a book about this 5-year-old's adventure, called Mailing May.

May isn't alone in being stamped up and shipped out, however. According to the the Central Florida Stamp Club, "the longest documented trip by a child 'mailed' through parcel post was made by 6-year-old Edna Neff. She traveled from her mother?s home in Pensacola, FL, to her father?s home in Christainburg, VA.
"There is little information on the specifics of Edna?s trip, which was made by railway mail train other than her weight, recorded as just under the 50-pound limit resulting in a trip cost 15 cents in parcel post stamps."
To be fair, it doesn't appear all parents who asked their local carrier to take their child somewhere else for a small fee were uncaring.
For example, the first documented incident of a child being mailed occurred on January 17, 191...