Fort Thomas mourns post office worker killed while walking

Marchelle Bertram spent years at the front desk of the Fort Thomas Post Office, greeting people who walked in. On Oct. 15, she was struck by a car while walking on Memorial Parkway near her home in Bellevue. She died later at the hospital.

Her daughter, Whitney Bertram, said she learned her mother had been hit and rushed to the hospital. "Given the grave amount of injuries she sustained, there was no way she was going to survive," Whitney Bertram said. She said the driver stayed at the scene and that she believes the crash was an accident.

Whitney Bertram said the reaction since her mother's death has been wide. "There are so many people I don't know whose lives she's touched and affected," she said. She said she has heard from people describing her mother as kind and well known in the area. A woman at the post office began crying when she learned of Marchelle Bertram's death.

People who visited the post office would call her mother "the nice lady at the post office," Whitney Bertram said. She said that hearing others miss her mother helps her through the loss. "You're never truly gone until you're forgotten about. It's good to hear other people reaching out and expressing how much they miss her, too," Whitney Bertram said.

The collision happened while Marchelle Bertram was walking near where she lived. She worked at the Fort Thomas Post Office for years, handling the front desk. No further court dates or official determinations about the crash have been released.

"I miss her like crazy; I try not to think about it too hard because I'll break down," Whitney Bertram said.

"If she could come back for a moment just to see what a reaction has come about because she's no longer with us, I think she'd be stunned," she said.