Homewood Borough, a postage-stamp-size community in Beaver County, has a major mail problem.

For the first time in 145 years, the approximately 140 residents of the small town don't have a place in town to buy stamps and pick up their mail -- or to swap hellos and catch up with one another.

In mid-December, the woman in charge of the local post office, who had been doing the job since 1964, took ill and no one was prepared to replace her.

Homewood residents who do not have mail delivery and thus no mailboxes now must conduct business about five miles away at the post office in Beaver Falls.

The U.S. Postal Service plans to survey people in Homewood to see if they want rural delivery -- "the post office on wheels," quipped Tad Kelley, a postal service spokesman in Pittsburgh.

But some residents are passing around a petition to reopen the post office in a new location in town.

Everyone in town laments the sudden illness that befell Elaine Buzzelli, 88, who was the proprieter (i.e. postmaster) for more than four decades of what the Postal Service calls a contract postal unit. Before that, Ms. Buzzelli's mother was in charge, and prior to that it was her great-uncle.

Although residents hold warm feelings for Ms. Buzelli, Mayor Timothy McGuire said he believes the time for a local post office has come and gone.

Rural delivery, or possibly even a foot route, are the preferred options in his opinion and those of the constituents to whom he has spoken.

On the other side of the equation is Councilman Alan DeSanzo, 56, who is Ms. Buzzelli's nephew; his father, Council President Alfred DeSanzo, 77, who is Ms. Buzzelli's brother; and residents who have signed the petition.

"The community has had postal service for 145 years. Our desire is to retain that service for the convenience of the residents," Alan DeSanzo said. "We're a very quaint village and we'd like to keep it that way."

The DeSanzos wistfully reflect on the post office locale as a vital social gathering spot for the town's residents, many of whom are elderly.

"I know in canvassing the community, most of the people would prefer to have the post office," Alan DeSanzo said. "In circulating the petition the other day, a woman said she don't see anybody any more."

"It was a social place. It was a good place to run into your neighbors. It was a really wonderful atmosphere of peaceful times gone past," said Kristine Usselman, 58, of Columbus, Ohio, whose parents once lived in Homewood.

Mr. McGuire said a plan is in the works to set up temporary mailboxes to spare residents the trip to Beaver Falls until there is a permanent solution.