I went to a funeral at Johnstown United Methodist Church Tuesday afternoon. It was a death in the family.
It was the memorial service for Joyce Williams, who along with her husband, Paul, owned The Breeze from the mid-1950s to the late ‘70s. Joyce died March 26 in Wray. She was 89.
I say it was a death in the family because anyone who has worked at The Breeze: pounded on a keyboard writing a story, behind a camera shooting a picture, selling an ad, laying out a page, is part of something bigger and greater than themselves. Together we have all brought the news … good and bad … to the communities of Johnstown and Milliken now for more than 112 years.
During part of Joyce’s service they had a picture of the front page of The Breeze up on the projection screen. A copy of an issue produced by Lesli and me. What I thought looking at it wasn’t so much pride, however, as gratitude.
Gratitude that Paul and Joyce came in to the paper each week and put out an issue, so that I had a newspaper to come to in the early 1990s. Every Thursday since 1904, a copy of The Breeze has hit the streets. That is a legacy that none of us who have worked here take lightly. The story I’ve been telling since Joyce’s death, which I told again on Tuesday, is one she told in 2004, when all the living publishers of the paper sat down for an interview as part of the centennial celebration issue.
As Joyce told the story, she and Paul were traveling during a snowstorm. Joyce was driving. The car started to skid, and it was obvious that it was going into the ditch.
“I just remember trying to steer it so if someone got hurt it would be me and not Paul,” Joyce said. “Because Paul could put the paper out without me. But I couldn’t put it out without Paul.”
Tuesday, after the service, Joyce’s son-in-law, Paul Neubauer, came over to where I was sitting at the reception and, as Paul Harvey used to say, told me “the rest of the story.”
Apparently, after going into the ditch out by Limon, Joyce called Paul and their daughter, Kathy, who were living in Woodland Park at the time.
“She said we needed to come out to Limon and get them,” Paul said. “I kind of pointed out to her that there was a blizzard going on, but Joyce told me we needed to come get them … because they had to put out the paper.”
So Paul borrowed a Jeep and they went and got them, and the paper came out.
Believe it or not, for all the love and adulation and vast riches that one gets running a small town newspaper, there are those Wednesday mornings when the alarm goes off and deadline day dawns when you’re not so sure you really want to put out a paper, or why you should. But yet you do. I have seen people do it sick. I have seen people do it grieving.
Joyce was one of a legacy of “newspaper wives” who have been at The Breeze. Over the years it has published, the paper has for the most part been owned and operated by husbands and wives who put the paper out together. But if you look back at the individual histories, it is usually the husband who gets most of the ink. Most of the credit.
Reality is, and I guess to be fair I should say I am only speaking from my own personal experience here, reality is that the Breeze Wives not only worked at the paper, they also took care of the kids, did the shopping, cooked the meals and everything else that kept a house a home. What’s the old saying about Ginger Rogers? She did everything Fred Astaire did, only backwards and in heels.
There’s a book from 1940 called “Country Editor.” It was written by Henry Beetle Hough, who ran the The Vineyard Gazette in Edgartown, Massachusetts, on the island of Martha’s Vineyard, for more than six decades. In the business it’s somewhat of a textbook on running a small weekly newspaper. It’s a beautiful book. I’ve read it, plenty of times, when I needed a little ink-stained spiritual recharge.
What I’ve also read are histories of the paper that point out that the credit also should rightfully go to Hough’s wife, Elizabeth Bowie Hough, who was the co-owner, co-publisher and co-editor. Some articles even point out that after Henry got all famous with his book writing and stuff, it was his wife who really did the day-to-day at the Gazette.
It was hard to be sad at Tuesday’s service. I know Joyce is again with Paul. As you read this week’s issue, yet another Thursday that the Breeze has published, think of them, as I will, and thank them for their part in writing the history of these communities.
Rest in peace, Joyce.
-30-
As Joyce told the story, she and Paul were traveling during a snowstorm. Joyce was driving. The car started to skid, and it was obvious that it was going into the ditch.
“I just remember trying to steer it so if someone got hurt it would be me and not Paul,” Joyce said. “Because Paul could put the paper out without me. But I couldn’t put it out without Paul.”
Tuesday, after the service, Joyce’s son-in-law, Paul Neubauer, came over to where I was sitting at the reception and, as Paul Harvey used to say, told me “the rest of the story.”
Apparently, after going into the ditch out by Limon, Joyce called Paul and their daughter, Kathy, who were living in Woodland Park at the time.
“She said we needed to come out to Limon and get them,” Paul said. “I kind of pointed out to her that there was a blizzard going on, but Joyce told me we needed to come get them … because they had to put out the paper.”
So Paul borrowed a Jeep and they went and got them, and the paper came out.
Believe it or not, for all the love and adulation and vast riches that one gets running a small town newspaper, there are those Wednesday mornings when the alarm goes off and deadline day dawns when you’re not so sure you really want to put out a paper, or why you should. But yet you do. I have seen people do it sick. I have seen people do it grieving.
Joyce was one of a legacy of “newspaper wives” who have been at The Breeze. Over the years it has published, the paper has for the most part been owned and operated by husbands and wives who put the paper out together. But if you look back at the individual histories, it is usually the husband who gets most of the ink. Most of the credit.
Reality is, and I guess to be fair I should say I am only speaking from my own personal experience here, reality is that the Breeze Wives not only worked at the paper, they also took care of the kids, did the shopping, cooked the meals and everything else that kept a house a home. What’s the old saying about Ginger Rogers? She did everything Fred Astaire did, only backwards and in heels.
There’s a book from 1940 called “Country Editor.” It was written by Henry Beetle Hough, who ran the The Vineyard Gazette in Edgartown, Massachusetts, on the island of Martha’s Vineyard, for more than six decades. In the business it’s somewhat of a textbook on running a small weekly newspaper. It’s a beautiful book. I’ve read it, plenty of times, when I needed a little ink-stained spiritual recharge.
What I’ve also read are histories of the paper that point out that the credit also should rightfully go to Hough’s wife, Elizabeth Bowie Hough, who was the co-owner, co-publisher and co-editor. Some articles even point out that after Henry got all famous with his book writing and stuff, it was his wife who really did the day-to-day at the Gazette.
It was hard to be sad at Tuesday’s service. I know Joyce is again with Paul. As you read this week’s issue, yet another Thursday that the Breeze has published, think of them, as I will, and thank them for their part in writing the history of these communities.
Rest in peace, Joyce.
-30-
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