By IAN HILL

By IAN HILL
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
NEITHER SNOW NOR RAIN NOR terrorist attack nor anthrax are keeping Mary Rappach from her appointed rounds.
"The mail has to go out," said Rappach, a post office employee from Vienna. "We haven't missed a day [since Sept. 11] with the mail or anything. ...
"You have to go on. We can't just stop everything. We don't have a choice, do we?"
Rappach works five days a week delivering mail to about 450 homes in rural Vienna Township. She also sorts the mail for the homes.
A Vindicator reporter recently accompanied Rappach on her route and talked with her about the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
"It was a horrible thing we had to go through," she said. "But we do have to keep on going."
Anthrax: Rappach said her commitment to her job as well as the passage of time have helped her overcome concerns about terrorist attacks. She also said that postal workers have been comforted by the U.S. Postal Service's efforts to protect them from dangers they face in the post-Sept. 11 world.
Those dangers included the possibility of contracting anthrax from a letter. Five people were killed and 13 others became ill last year by coming in contact with anthrax. Most of the cases were linked to exposure from the mail.
Rappach said that shortly after the first anthrax-tainted letter was discovered, the Postal Service provided employees of the Vienna post office with protective gloves to wear while they sorted the mail. Some of her co-workers wore the gloves in the first few weeks after the anthrax attacks, she said.
Now, however, "everybody more or less has given up on them," Rappach said.
"I think things have settled down now, and we're just continuing with our routes," she said. "After a time, I think it probably gets easier. Everything, when it first happens, it's hard to adjust."
The Vienna postal workers might have been more concerned about their safety if they worked in a major city, Rappach said.
"We're not right at the heart of where everything took place," she said.
Family fears: Rappach also stressed that she didn't overreact to the threat she faced at work. She added that by staying calm, she helped her family overcome their fears about terrorist attacks.
Rappach and her husband have eight children and eight grandchildren.
"I was questioned by them, but, there's been no real concern," she said. "They questioned me on what we were doing and if we'd seen anything and that type of stuff, but I think, by us not overreacting, the family doesn't either."
Yet Rappach also noted that her family is taking precautions to protect themselves from terrorist attacks. She said that since Sept. 11, her family is more cautious about their mail, and they are less likely to go to public events when the government issues warnings about attacks.
"I'm sure we have our eyes open to what's around us," Rappach said.
However, Rappach also stressed that her family, like her co-workers, haven't let themselves be paralyzed by fear since Sept. 11.
"We just go on as we've been going on."
hill@vindy.com