Maintaining Privacy in the House Elizabeth Matthews transformed the structure created by the Thornberrys into a rural post office, store, and residence. The visibility of the structure served the Matthews well in their use of the building into a public facility. The Matthews built an addition on the southern portion of the structure to house the post office and store. They reached this addition through a doorway on the eastern side of the house. While the door allowed direct access to the addition, it did not allow direct access to the main portion of the house. The Matthews might have designed this doorway to separate public from private space. This can also be seen in how the Matthews used the yard.

Click layout map for a more detailed description.

Registered package receipt from Sudley Post Office signed by Elizabeth Matthews dated September 19, 1888. Interestingly, Elizabeth Matthews was the only local postmistress predating Rural Free Delivery in 1908.

The Public Yard

In contrast to archaeological evidence relating to Thornberry's use of the yard, no deposits were found in the yard or root cellar dating to the occupation by the Matthews. From the deposits alone it would appear that the Matthews confined their day-to-day household chores (domestic activities) even more severely than the Thornberrys. This absence can be explained through several possibilities. With use of the structure for both a home and a public space, the need to keep day-to-day activities private was even more acute for the Matthews. Second, the Matthews were better able to confine domestic activities due to their small household size. Overall, this rendered the household activities of the Matthews invisible. Thus, the only visible semblance of the Matthew's domestic life that a patron would see when approaching the postal would be the actual residence and external kitchen.

By the turn of the century, Elizabeth Matthews was a widow. She had passed away by 1904. The property was left to her niece and sometime in the 1910s she rented the house to the Davis', an African-American family. By the time the Davis' took up residence at Sudley Post Office, the structure had fallen into considerable decay.