Thank you all for your kind support!
Eldridge-
1. MDS - It stands for "Mail Delivery Specialist", a title I made up for my mail carriers. Originally I wrote out "Elizabeth Meade, Mail Delivery Specialist", but I didn't like the long chapter title. "Elizabeth Meade, MDS" sounded kind of official, but also kind of silly. So I used that instead. (I accidentally drank caffeine, could not sleep, and wrote that chapter at about four in the morning. Things got really silly.)
2. America's name - I've always liked names ending in "-ica", so that was probably involved. America Snow version 1 was the ninth of 24 kids in my Baby Boomer challenge file. I don't know why I named her America--almost all the other names I used were really normal.
America Snow (version 1) was the biggest troublemaker in my Baby Boomer house--always getting into and touching things she shouldn't. (Great qualities for an immortal dynasty founder, right? <cringe>) Then she would make charming violet-eyed expressions at me, and I would sigh and forgive her. Since I liked her for some reason (I could not say that about most of my Baby Boomer kids!), I decided a similar Sim would make a good immortal founder. I didn't want to mess around too much with whatever magic formula made me like her--so I kept the strange name.
America version 1 was a gardener, and twins with Samantha Snow, a writer. If I recall correctly, America was the only kid the game decided to marry off after leaving my Baby Boomer house. She married her girlfriend, Eliza Ursine.
America Snow in this story is the third revision of her. (Version 2 failed at the dynasty.) America has mostly different traits here, and she has some changes to her appearance, although the skin/hair/eye color remain the same.