Elbert Lamberth’s career as a Post Office Inspector began in April 1914, when he received his appointment from the position of clerk at the Corinth, Mississippi, Post Office.
In yet another bizarre twist, the letter was discovered only 48 hours before Chief Postal Inspector Lee R. Heath and former Inspector in Charge Daniel L. Mihalko dedicated a laser laseretched, crystal memorial plaque honoring what was believed to be an inclusive list of our agency’s personnel killed in the line of duty. But in fact, one name was missing. Elbert Lamberth’s career as a Post Office Inspector began in April 1914, when he received his appointment from the position of clerk at the Corinth, Mississippi, Post Office. No doubt he and his pretty young wife, Myrtle, were pleased with his promotion. They had an infant son and would soon add a daughter to the family. At 31 years of age, Elbert was optimistic. He was one of the nation’s youngest Post Office Inspectors, his first domicile assignment was in Corinth, and his whole life and career lay ahead of him. His two great ambitions, to become a Post Office Inspector and raise a family, were coming true. By the summer of 1917, while America was being pulled into “the Great World War,” Inspector Lamberth was reviewing case files in his office at the recently rebuilt Corinth Post Office. One of his cases involved cross complaints filed by Stantonville, Tennessee, Postmaster Joseph P. Harkins and Rural Letter Carrier John B. Gibson, both political appointees. Exact details of the complaints are conspicuously missing from all newspaper accounts and court records. Whatever their contents, the complaints caused the 34-year-old Inspector to travel across the rough Tennessee clay roads, most likely by horseback or buggy, to investigate.