Norton Urges Committee to Issue Postal Stamp in Honor of Two Postal Service Employees

I write to urge that the Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee recommend to the Postmaster General that a stamp be issued honoring the lives of Joseph Curseen, Jr. and Thomas Morris, Jr., the two United States Postal Service (USPS) workers and District of Columbia natives who died as a result of their exposure to anthrax while working at the USPS facility located at 900 Brentwood Road, NE, Washington, D.C., during the 2001 anthrax attacks. The proposed stamp is particularly timely because the ten-year anniversary of these men's death is quickly approaching. Moreover, this stamp is well within the guidelines set forth by the USPS for the issuance of a stamp, including the requirement that no commemorative postal item be issued sooner than five years after an individual's death.

Mr. Curseen and Mr. Morris served the USPS honorably and diligently for a combined 52 years until their deaths on October 22, 2001, and October 21, 2001, respectively. Mr. Curseen, remembered as a quiet man with a fuzzy mustache, loved to tell stories and loved his church. He was so dedicated to his work that, during the 15 years that he worked for the USPS, he never called in sick. His co-workers described him as someone who was kind and courteous, who stayed at the Post Office seven days a week, giving up breaks to get the mail out, and who regularly led a postal worker Bible study group. In his neighborhood of Cambridge Estates, Maryland, Mr. Curseen was the president of the homeowners association, an avid jogger, and a member of St. John the Evangelist Church. To his neighbors, Mr. Curseen was someone who everyone knew, who was friendly, and who worked quietly, but "really got things done." He helped build a playground and park in the Cambridge Estates area, even though he and his wife had no children. Although Mr. Curseen lived in Cambridge Estates, Maryland, he grew up in Southeast D.C., where Our Lady of Perpetual Help Roman Catholic Church was his childhood parish and school. Mr. Curseen's wife, Celestine Willingham Curseen, to whom he was married for 16 years, described her late husband as a generous, kind, and hard-working man who will be greatly missed.

Mr. Morris also grew up in the District of Columbia, although he and his family moved to Suitland, Maryland. Before joining the USPS, Mr. Morris served in the United States Air Force. Mr. Morris joined the USPS in 1973, and worked as a distribution clerk. He was a hard worker who had no aversion to working overtime, a proud husband and father of one son and two stepchildren, as well as the president of a bowling league team. To his neighbors, Mr. Morris was a quiet, thoughtful, deeply religious and humble man, who dispensed helpful, and often paternal, advice to his younger neighbors. His wife, Mary, described him as true to others and to himself, as someone who was respectful and law-abiding.

As mentioned above, this stamp is well within the guidelines set forth by the USPS for the issuance of a stamp. The proposed stamp primarily features an American or an American-related subject. It does not honor a living person, but instead seeks to honor two individuals more than five years after their deaths. The 2001 anthrax attacks and the death of postal employees, among other U.S. citizens, as a result of those attacks represent a significant event in our history. The stamp does not seek to honor fraternal, political, sectarian, service/charitable organizations, cities, towns, municipalities, counties, primary or secondary schools, hospitals, libraries, or similar institutions. It does not seek to honor religious institutions or individuals whose principal achievements are associated with religious undertakings or beliefs. The proposed stamp does not seek to commemorate a subject that has been commemorated by the issuance of a stamp in the past 50 years.

Please assist me in honoring the lives of these two men, who died serving their country, by recommending to the Postmaster General that a stamp be issued in their memory.

Sincerely,

Eleanor Holmes Norton