Finding Old Newspapers

By Timothy Linscott First Published September 11, 1998There's been a lot of history in the air lately, or is that brautwurst burning can my grill'?No, that's history, all right. History with a side of kraut and onion. The 14th annual Germanfest, a piece of Fairbury's history, kicks off today. Mark McGwire made history with smashing, if you call the shortest homerun this season smashing, his 62nd homer.I ran into history over the weekend. Visiting a friend in a local community, which will remain nameless, I noticed my buddy Glen was tearing down his porch.“I don't know how old this porch is but it's falling apart,” Glen said on Saturday, preparing to tear the porch down.He and his wife, Glenda, worked on tearing the porch down all weekend with the help of their landlord. Glen and Glenda are not their real names, but I thought an Ed Wood reference would be historical or hysterical.The next day I visited Glen again. The porch was torn down and a pile of stuff was in his lawn ready to he thrown out.“What are all of these packets in the lawn?” I asked Glen, picking one up.As I looked at the strange bundle I noticed a piece of paper on the ground. It was a piece of an old newspaper. I couldn't tell how old the newspaper was because the news didn't sound familiar. I realized the bundle in my hands was a newspaper. Folded into a neat bundle, the paper looked like a small pillow.Unfolding the newspaper I found that it was from 1929. I sat on the porch with Glen and read what was going on in 1929. The thing I noticed the most about the paper was the advertising. A big ad said “All woman's dresses, 99 cents.”The ad showed everything that came with the dress. In 1929, for 99 cents, a woman could get a dress, shoes, hair bows and leggings. Now all that might just cost $99.The newspaper, which I will not name, was five cents an issue.Curious about what else was under the porch I started digging through the pile a little more. Papers from 1941, 1939, and 1942 were found under the porch. I read about World War II accounts, old baseball scores and area events.Newspapers have changed a lot since then. The front page was solid type, little to no pictures and small headlines. Now newspapers don't bombard readers with story after story, running seemingly together. Words like flow and modular are used with papers today.I read how opinionated the stories back then were. Some of the stories used adjectives and phrases that I wouldn't think of using today.The one big thing that I noticed papers of old lacked was a really good column. Papers needed a really good column written by a handsome man in his 20's. Wait, that's opinionated isn't it? I guess some things never change.

Doris Culp

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