A longtime postal employee has stamped her final piece of mail after retiring from her job in Holland at the end of April.

Julie Taduran worked for the U.S. Postal Service for 31 years. She started when she was 24 and had a young child. She later went on to have four more children.

“Basically, I was a young stay-at-home mom,” she said, adding that she wanted something to do with her free time.

She sometimes helped at the restaurant her mother owned and saw postal workers come in frequently to grab lunch.

“They had spoken about the post office, and I saw a thing for the post office hiring,” she said.

She applied and “forgot all about it,” she said. “Two years later, I got a letter saying they wanted me to come in for an interview.”

She started working at the Norfolk facility at first. In 2006, she was moved out to the Suffolk office and later moved to the Holland post office, but she still sometimes served at the downtown office.

“When the job came open in Holland, I got that job, which was nice, because it’s only five minutes from my house,” she said.

Taduran said it was difficult to raise her children while working full time, especially since she was on the midnight shift in the early years.

“It was hard until they got old enough to pretty much be able to take care of themselves,” she said.

So far, she hasn’t had time to miss working.

“I haven’t laid around and did nothing all day yet,” she said.

“I am so busy, I don’t know how I worked and did what I’m doing now,” she said.

She hopes to travel but hasn’t made many plans yet, although she does have a Myrtle Beach trip planned with some friends.