Signed, Sealed & Delivered
EVANS CITY — Dorothea Epps is better known to employees of the Evans City Post Office as “Big Mama.”
“It came from how everybody's welcome in Big Mama's house. That's how she makes you feel,” said Josie Amerson, Epps's longtime coworker who works as a rural carrier at the Slippery Rock post office. “I can't stress enough that she has a heart of gold.”
But this Friday, after 21 years as Evans City's postmaster, Epps is retiring. Her coworkers and family threw her a surprise celebration at the post office Tuesday morning.
“I've been blessed with so many very, very good people here,” Epps said. “My staff has been wonderful over the years. It makes your job a lot easier.
“These jobs are tough jobs, but rewarding in the sense that you're a service in the community — but also for me, we're like a family here. The community and who you work with make a huge difference.”
Epps has long been a cornerstone of the postal network in Butler County, as well as the larger community in Butler, Evans City and Cranberry Township. She coached the Butler Area High School girls basketball team for 12 years before stepping down, and has been coaching Seneca Valley High School girls basketball since 2019.“We were very fortunate and blessed (in the midst of COVID-19) that the Seneca Valley School District and school board and administration fought really hard and came up with great protocols for us to follow, so that we could keep the girls safe, but at the same time enable them to continue to play,” she said. “Not every school district did that.”Epps will still continue coaching the team, and doesn't plan to change how much time she spends with them.“Some people in my sports community know (I'm retiring), but I haven't really talked too much about it,” she said. “Most of it is done in the evening anyhow, and really won't make any difference as far as that's concerned. It might give me some more time to prepare, but I put a lot of time in, even if it's at 12 (or) 1 o'clock at night, to get the team prepared. So it really isn't going to change anything in that aspect.”She hopes to spend more time with her grandchildren, travel and explore fun activities she had been too busy to do before.“Just being able to do what you want to do when you want to do it is a nice feeling, I think,” she said.Epps doesn't plan to leave Butler, where she and her family have lived for more than 30 years, and hopes to keep in contact with her coworkers.“This community here, Evans City, is a tight-knit community, a welcoming community,” she said. “I will miss a lot of people from the community that has welcomed me and has treated me very well. My employees have become like family, so I'm sure we'll stay in touch with each other.”
Epps had been considering retirement since March, but didn't expect the surprise party. Her coworkers wanted to show their support one last time before she left, and planned the party in less than a week.“The postal network really knows her,” Amerson said. “There are a lot of postmasters who couldn't be here today who wanted to be here.”To Amerson, Epps was always helping other employees at the post office, and went above and beyond her role.“She worked her butt off,” Amerson said. “And she was out there in the thick of it with us. There was no 'where's Big Mama?' because she was in the truck behind you. She would help us deliver.“She just makes the day go faster whenever you were bogged down. She was out there delivering in snow.”
Joshua Rennels, a clerk at the Evans City post office, will fill Epps' role temporarily while the office searches for a new postmaster.“She's taught me, the whole time that I've been here, what her job entails, and then last week it was decided that I would take over temporarily till someone else came in,” he said. “Overall, she's responsible for all the operations that take place in Evans City postal-wise as well as Callery. That includes working out the routes, figuring out who's overburdened and who needs additional houses put on their route, figuring out which ways are the best ways to deliver.”He isn't certain when the administration will begin the process of looking for a permanent replacement.Amerson said there's no doubt the office will be different without Epps, but has hope for whoever follows.“I'm hoping they bring the same welcome, and the friendly atmosphere that she always brought in,” she said.
