Was our address for sixteen years incorrect ? Why or why not?

The only thing I can think of is that your house was already there, then they made a road next to it, Another Street.
After that, the next door neigbor’s house was build, and then Sherman Street which was around the corner of Another Street.

The main entrance faced Sherman Street. But the address was the street on the SIDE of the house. It was very old. Sherman Street was a dirt road for years FWIW. The side road was paved as far back as I can remember.

Did you mail get to you? If it did your address was correct!

Where is Astrochuck, that postal genius, when you need him . . .?

I have no memory of mail, actually . Good point.

@Aster, are you truly saying you never received any mail at all? Never mind greeting cards and thank-you notes, how about voters’ pamphlets, tax-related documents, and junk mail? I never heard of anyone who received zero mail.

I know someone who was in a similar situation. They bought a corner house, with an address on the side street. Years later, the post office (I think?) changed their address to be the front-facing street. It was weird.

@Aster, if Sherman Street was the dirt road and the side street was the paved road, then at some point back Sherman Street was the drive to the property and the mail address would have been the side street. The front of the house would have been facing the drive. When the second house was built, or before, the property was likely broken up into separate plots that necessitated improving Sherman Street into a valid street. The post office applies addressing changes as the needs arise, sometimes at the request of the property owners, sometimes at the request of the town/county/state governments, sometimes because they figure out they can’t find a mailbox. Street improvements and post office changes do not necessarily go hand in hand.

Where is the driveway located?

I have a circle drive. Our house faces a diagonal. If we cut off one end of our driveway, our address could change.

Sometimes these changes are done via the post office due to road/route changes. Since this was a dirt road, I wouldn’t be surprised if the PO was involved with the change.

@SpatzieLover The driveway is on Sherman Street between the house and the next door house. But the address is on the side of the house. lol And it was so long ago I lived there that I have zero memory of getting mail. Yes; we could have gotten mail but I do remember going to the post office downtown with my mother. Not daily but frequently. I guess back then we would have had a mailman carrying a bag but you’d think I would remember him since I remember the MILKMAN at the door !!! He also sold huge multi layered German chocolate cake and we usually didn’t get one.
TORTE my mother called it. Now; what is a torte? lol I am going to email my friend right now who still lives there and ask her, “how did we get our mail??”

Ah, I see: you’re talking about mail delivery. Some places don’t have mail delivery, and the postal customers have to go to a post office to pick up mail. So perhaps this was the case on Sherman Street. This doesn’t mean that there was never any mail addressed to your family but only that there may not have been a letter carrier who brought it to you.