January 12, 1977
Pictures: Arthur Murray, Fred M. Hopkins, C.W. Foster mansion, where Review was printed and site of present Municipal Building
I will be bringing to you on a regular basis a variety of “POTLUCK” for your reading enjoyment.
Having been born and raised in Fostoria, this column will naturally, and I believe quite reasonably, contain some nostalgia … notes about people, places, and events of the past… pictorial as well as editorial.
Fostoria has been a good town to live in. The environment here had produced many citizens who have highly successful careers in the fields of business, education, the arts, etc. Biographical sketches or these personages, in addition to making interesting reading for everyone, will hopefully present a challenge to the young people of this area, and spur them on to make their contribution too.
Straight, undiluted news delivered promptly, is the primary responsibility of all news media. However, the individual viewpoints of others on a variety of issues always provides diversion for the reader. Like the crackerbarrel philosophy of the old general store, the editor of this column too will present some views for your consideration.
There are many other items of interest which I believe can be developed for the readers of The Review Times, and I hope YOU, the readers, will alert me to those which interest you.
Enuff about this new “POTLUCK” column. BACK HOME AFTER 35 YEARS
As I start thinking about my “new assignment”, it is almost like starting another chapter in my life, and it makes me turn in retrospect to my early association with this newspaper when it was The Fostoria Daily Review. Dr. T.T. Rosendale was one of the early financial backers. Fred M. Hopkins was editor and publisher; Clayton Kinsey, advertising manager; Arthur Murray and Ella McNailey (Aldrich) were news editors. That was the lineup when I started as a carrier boy back in 1917 or 1918. Murray is the only living member of the above staff.
It wasn’t long before I made the acquaintance of Murray, and he asked me if I’d like to be a reporter and earn some extra money. The deal was negotiated in a hurry and armed with a reporters pad and pencil, Murray sent me to all the business establishments to collect news items.
When I returned with lots of notes about people, I had my first lesson in news-writing … who, what, when, where and why. I also learned the “hunt- and-peck” typing system.
Incidentally, I learned later that Murray was paying me out of his own pocket.. just to help a poor young lad along. As I recall, after more than 50 years, the salary was 2.00 per week. That experience lasted one summer, but my respect and appreciation for Art Murray has survived many years.
Murray was quite a baseball player. Upon leaving The Review he became a coach at Ashland College; later moving on to Wooster to become associated with coach L.C. Boles, who had produced a national championship football team at Fostoria High (more about that later) Art Murray still resides in Wooster, Ohio.
Later, in addition to delivering papers, I also worked in the mail-room and the foundry, where the linotype metal slugs were melted down and formed into ingots every day after the paper was printed, to be used over again.
All of the above took place when The Review was located in the old Charles Foster mansion, on South Main Street where the municipal building is located.
When I graduated from Fostoria High in 1923 I went to work for The Review full time … “printers devil” at first. By this time The Review had acquired the location where The Review Times now is.
I had been given a scholarship to Wooster College, through the efforts of my pastor T. Howard McDowell of the Presbyterian Church, but had forego college to support my family. My mother had had a stroke and a younger sister was still in school.
So, I learned the printing trade, learned to run the job presses, the big press, and to make-up the paper.
Later I assisted in the editorial and advertising department.
In 1941 I left The Review Times to work for the Fostoria Pressed Steel. So, now after 35 years, here I am back at my first love.
They say if printers ink gets in your blood you are hooked.