The Ambridge Savings and Trust Co. buildings

Ambridge Savings and Trust buildings
5th and Merchant Sts.
circa 1920s
Louis Vukovcan collection
courtesy Jackie Vukovcan

The three-story, red brick Ambridge Savings and Trust Co. (AS&TC) building on the northeast corner of 5th and Merchant Sts. is reputed to have been the first building constructed on Merchant St. in Ambridge. While there were older buildings further north on Merchant, in the area of 14th St., those buildings were in built in what was still Economy, not Ambridge.

The AS&TC, advertised as "The Oldest Bank in Ambridge," was chartered in 1902, and opened for business in 1903--two years before Ambridge was incorporated.

The upper floors of the AS&TC building were the location of some historically notable Ambridge events: The organizational meeting of Ambridge's Methodist Church was held there in 1903. In January 1904, the first Roman Catholic mass in Ambridge was celebrated there. Also in 1904, the young Ambridge Citizen newspaper opened an office there.

In 1911, AS&TC built and moved into an elegant two-story limestone building next door to its first one. You can see it immediately to the left of the original building in the photo above and the postcard below.

Ambridge's first Post Office building had been on 5th St., adjacent to the back of the first AS&TC building. Sometime after AS&TC moved into its new building next door, the post office took over the older one on the corner. It didn't stay there long; by 1923, the post office had moved into a building on the southeast corner of 7th and Merchant Sts.

Ambridge's post office (right) and 1911 Ambridge Savings and Trust Co. building to the left
5th and Merchant Sts., northeast corner
circa 1920s

You can see both the original AS&TC building and the 1911 building on the right side of the photo of the intersection of 5th and Merchant Sts. in the photo below.

"COR. 5th & MERCHANT BEFORE BEING REPAVED.
NOTE THE DOUBLE TRACK AND ROUGH STREET."
5th and Merchant Sts. looking north
circa 1920s
Louis Vukovcan collection
courtesy Jackie Vukovcan

Here's what that same intersection looked like not long ago:

5th and Merchant Sts. looking north
credit: P. J. Fletcher Shotter, used with permission

According to notes left by the late local historian William (Bill) Bowan, Ambridge Savings & Trust later remodeled both the brick and limestone buildings to create a single, large Ambridge Savings & Trust headquarters building.

At one time, Ambridge Savings & Trust reportedly had the largest deposits of any bank in Beaver County (Economy Centennial Souvenir Program, 1924). Like many banks, it ran into financial trouble during the depression and reorganized in 1933. According to Bowan, it became The Economy Bank of Ambridge.

Economy Bank of Ambridge
5th and Merchant Sts., northeast corner
1967 Ambridge Bridger yearbook

That beautiful Economy Bank of Ambridge building was razed in 1984; its location is now the drive-through of WesBanco bank. The only part of the AS&TC/Economy Bank building that remains are its gates, incorporated into the Merchant St. side of the drive-through.
_____

Update February 2, 2018: I thought I should add that I've been puzzled about the dates of the postcard and the undated photo at the top of the blog article.

From the cars, I would have said that the postcard was older. But the postcard also shows the corner building is the post office, which as the article says, moved into the building for a few years after the Savings and Trust Co. moved out.

On the other hand, the photo shows that the Savings and Trust Co. is in the corner building. Maybe it shows a period after the Savings and Trust Co. moved back into the building before remodeling the facade and converting it and the smaller building next to it into one large building. 

Ambridge's Daily Citizen newspaper

The final issue of Ambridge's Daily Citizen was published on July 31, 1959, and Ambridge news coverage was, and is, very much the poorer for it. And people like me who want to learn about what life in Ambridge was like in the past, or do genealogical research, lost a invaluable source of information.

The Daily Citizen once told readers so much about what was happening in Ambridge. Small town papers like the Daily Citizen were the social media of their era.

Like today's Beaver County Times, Ambridge's Citizen covered news like important government actions, major business news, crimes, fires, deaths, and, of course, sports.

But the Citizen, like most small town locals, once included news about the lives of residents that routinely included births, engagements, and marriages; college acceptances; lists of high school students who made honor rolls; college students who made the Dean's List; who had enlisted or been drafted into the military; who was moving to or from Ambridge; whose home was being quarantined for contagious and feared illnesses like polio or measles.

Ethnic and union picnics, Ambridge's many parades, school field trips, lists of the names of Ambridge public schools' teachers, fraternal organization officers and activities, church news, the programming schedule of Ambridge radio station WMBA, boy and girl scout activities, lists of books being added to Laughlin Memorial Library's shelves, even school lunch menus--all were routinely covered, plus so much more. The details the Citizen provided about the lives of Ambridge residents was rather amazing. In one instance, during the WWII years when there was a rubber shortage and tires were rationed, the Daily Citizen felt it newsworthy to write at least a few words about an Ambridge resident who had been lucky enough to get three retread tires.

But the paper also shared details about residents' lives that people now might consider an invasion of privacy, even if they didn't back then: who was getting divorced and why; who was in the hospital or was being discharged; who was home sick with illnesses like "grippe" (the flu) or even a nasty cold; who was on vacation, where they went, and when they were expected to return; who had out-of-town visitors.

And the Citizen published so many ads placed by Ambridge businesses big and small! Plus there were ads for products, some long-gone, some that surprisingly still exist; ads promoting entertainment options: dances, often weekly, at Ambridge bars, nightclubs, and ballrooms, or run by fraternal or ethnic organizations; ads showing what was playing in Ambridge's movie theaters; ads for church and organization fundraisers like rummage sales, festivals, and, of course, bingos and pierogi sales.

Most of the Ambridge-centric news that was the Daily Citizen's focus disappeared once that paper was sold.

Here's a scan of the final issue of The Daily Citizen:

Front page
Final Daily Citizen
July 31, 1959

Surprisingly, the final issue didn't celebrate the long history of the Citizen, as the paper's anniversary editions had. The Grand Opening of A & A Rocket Car Wash in Leetsdale had more space in the final issue than the Citizen's last words about itself had. Rather, the issue had an abridged history of the paper, a list of the people who then worked at the paper, and a front and center essay,"An Old Friend Dies" which began:

An old friend died today.

As familiar as your kitchen sink and as welcome as your favorite chair after a hard day's work, the Ambridge Daily Citizen has lived in the homes of Ambridge and vicinity for a long, long time.

Some are indifferent, others don't care, but many feel a sense of loss this day. The loss of an old friend.

The management of the Daily Citizen, for 51 years in the same family, has endeavored, through personal integrity, to make it a newspaper that could be put in the hands of any member of the family of readers.

With this thought in mind, it was nice to know that the "little fellow" could always come to his hometown paper and never be turned away. The story of his child's birth was given as much thought and importance as the world's problems of war, peace, and Geneva conferences. 

Ambridge was in its early development when W. L. McCullogh, an enterprising ad manager for the Pittsburgh Bank for Savings, decided that the rapidly growing new town might need a newspaper. He enlisted two men with newspaper experience to be his partners: John E. Joos, the editor of a Pittsburgh German language paper, Der Sonntagsbote, who became editor of the new paper, and Joseph Lehan, the owner of a chain of papers in Western PA, who became the manager.

Lehan came to Ambridge in 1904 to get the paper started, and it sounds like he hired one employee, high school student Leonard Jewell, to handle the paper's business in Ambridge. Lehan trained Jewell to do everything from soliciting and writing ads, to gathering and writing the news. I didn't find any information about where Jewell's base of operation was. Perhaps he worked from home.

Jewell, however, did not have to print the paper in addition to his other duties; the first issues were printed in Pittsburgh. He did, however, have the job of taking the train to Pittsburgh to give the news copy to the printer, and later, he'd bring the printed papers back to Ambridge for distribution.

The first edition of the weekly, eight page Ambridge-Economy Citizen was published on July 29, 1904.

In December 1904, Paul A. Revere bought the paper and opened an office in the Ambridge Savings and Trust Building, located on the northeast corner of 5th and Merchant Sts. Concerned about the possibility of competition from printer H. Lee Goerman,* who already had a printing press in Ambridge, Revere also began printing the paper in Ambridge, in a rented, tiny, one-story building in the alley east of Merchant St. between 4th and 5th Sts.

The first issue of the Ambridge-Economy Citizen to be printed in Ambridge was published on October 6, 1905, and the weekly paper continued to be printed on Fridays until it switched to Thursdays beginning January 11, 1906.

"1904--First Citizen Home"
Alley between 4th and 5th Sts.
Daily Citizen
August 25, 1954

Daily Citizen caption:

Still standing, the small building shown above was the first home of the Daily Citizen in Ambridge. It served from 1905 until 1907. Originally built as a residence, and now housing a family, the two room structure was hardly large enough for the Citizen. It stands in the alley above Merchant St. between Fourth and Fifth St. The second home was at the rear of 458 Merchant St. from 1907 to 1909.

Although the tiny alley building that served as the Citizen's first print shop may have been standing in 1954, I didn't expect to find it still there in 2017. But I think it is.

This small building, behind the northern building of the three adjoining buildings--some of the oldest buildings on Merchant St.--which most recently were part of the American Carpet store at 432 Merchant, matches up enough with the Citizen's photo of its first home, that unless further evidence convinces me otherwise, I'd say that they are the same building.

Alley building behind 434 Merchant St.
August 14, 2017
credit: Nancy Knisley

The roof line has been altered, the porch roof removed, and a garage door has replaced the front door and window, but although the side windows have been replaced by glass blocks, you can see from the difference in the bricks where earlier windows had been. The bricks show that the windows that were once there were the size of those in the old Citizen building and in the right place, plus the brick arches above them remain.

Futhermore, a 1905 Sanborn Insurance map shows that a small building was in the same alley location back then.

As you can see from the ghost sign on the front of the alley building, it was once used by the old Economy Furniture store that did business at 440 - 452 Merchant St. for many years.

You never know where you'll unexpectedly find important evidence of Ambridge's history!

In 1907, the Ambridge-Economy Citizen bought the Jacob Henrici** Book Store, 458 Merchant, and the paper's offices and plant moved into the rear of the building there. That building, then renamed the Ambridge Book Store, no longer exists, and I haven't found a photo of that second Citizen location.

In 1908, D. L. McNees took over as president of the corporation that published the Ambridge-Economy Citizen, and later become both manager and editor. Members of the McNees family continued to head the business until its end.

As the weekly paper's business grew, it moved again, to a larger building on the southeast corner of 7th and Merchant Sts. in 1909. That building was at the rear of the lot at 699 Merchant, so more accurately, the building was on the corner of 7th St. and the alley that ran between 6th and 7th Sts. to the west of Merchant. That building was razed in 1938.***

"1909--Third Citizen Home"
7th and Merchant Sts.
Daily Citizen
August 25, 1954

Daily Citizen caption:

In 1909, the citizen (sic) moved into the building pictured above. The third Citizen home was located at the corner of Seventh and Merchant Sts. A big improvement over the first two Citizen buildings, the third Citizen home remained the paper's base of operations until 1919. After the Citizen moved to its Maplewood Ave. headquarters the Merchant Street building served as headquarters for various businesses. It was demolished in 1938 to make room for a new building, which housed a bakery and a number of offices.

In 1911, an evangelical campaign by all the Protestant churches in Ambridge sparked the creation of the first Daily Citizen. The committee in charge of the campaign approached McNees about running a daily paper during the six-week event, financed by the committee's selling 500 subscriptions at 10 cents a week. The daily paper ran four pages, while the weekly paper was printed on Fridays.

At the end of the six weeks, The Citizen became a regular daily, but apparently Ambridge couldn't support a daily paper yet, and in 1912, The Daily Citizen again became The Citizen, publishing on Tuesdays and Fridays.

Over the years, the paper continued to upgrade its printing plant equipment, allowing it to print better quality issues, and faster.

In 1919, McNees bought the Cunningham building, once a bakery, at 624 - 626 Maplewood Ave. and moved the paper to the much larger space. According to the "History of the Daily Citizen" in The Daily Citizen Trade Area Directory, 1956, "The plant was moved on March 8, 1919, with the press being skidded over the alley to its new location on a flat bed sled."

"1919--Fourth Citizen Home"
636 Maplewood Ave.
Daily Citizen
August 25, 1954

Daily Citizen caption:

In 1919 the facilities of The Daily Citizen were moved to 626 Maplewood Ave. which serviced as base of operations until September 1951. In 1951 a new, modern office and printing plant, at 930 - 940 Glenwood Ave. was put into operation. The picture above was taken before the addition of an office wing, in 1930. Prior to the addition, editorial, advertising and business offices were all crowded into the front room. The front room housed the job printing department once the office wing was added.

Beginning on September 17, 1923, The Citizen began publishing three times a week, on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. And, on March 4, 1929, The Daily Citizen was reborn.

The photo below shows the 1930 office wing addition to The Daily Citizen.

Daily Citizen office wing
 626 Maplewood Ave.
Daily Citizen
August 25, 1954

Former Daily Citizen building
March 22, 2014
credit: Nancy Knisley

The Daily Citizen had to cope with some notable difficulties in the 1930s, including the death of D. L. McNees, who was killed in an car accident on June 19, 1931. His son, Floyd R. McNees succeeded him.

In addition to the economic adversities of the Great Depression, one of the paper's greatest challenges arrived with the high waters of the Great St. Patrick's Day Flood in 1936. Ambridge's gas mains, needed to run the paper's linotype machines, broke. But other area papers came to the rescue. The Sewickley Herald allowed the Citizen to use two of its machines. The Beaver Daily Times "sent five galleys of their early copy." Another problem came two days later when the Citizen's printing plant lost electric power, stopping its ability to print. But the Citizen was able to publish a four page edition, thanks to the Beaver Falls News-Tribune, which allowed the Citizen to use its equipment.

That wasn't the end of the problems created by the flood. Four days into the flood, the entire county lost electric power, but the Citizen's staff still were determined to print a paper. The Daily Citizen Trade Area Directory describes their remarkable efforts:

A small gasoline engine was taken from a washing machine lent by C. F. Milleman, Ambridge merchant, and attached to one of the linotype machines; the pulleys and gadgets needed were obtained from the mangle and washing machine**** of Mrs. Anna Ross, 184 Sixth street; the operators worked all night by kerosene lamps and flashlights. The entire force was kept busy setting copy by hand. [T]he Citizen's portable saw for trimming advertising cuts was sent to the National Electric Products Corporation plant, where there was a source of power; and finally the forms and type were sent by automobile to Butler where the paper was printed on the Butler Eagle press! 

Floyd McNees died on May 28, 1937, after a long illness. His widow, Iona E. McNees became the paper's president, and Vaughn Arnold, who had previously run the accounting, credit, and commercial printing departments, was named as publisher. Amazingly, they continued in those roles until the paper was sold in 1959 to the company that published the Beaver Valley Times.

The Daily Citizen moved for the last time in 1951 after building a modern home for itself on Glenwood Ave.--its fifth and final home.

Daily Citizen plant under construction
Glenwood Ave.
Daily Citizen
October 4, 1950

The fifth and final home of The Daily Citizen
930 Glenwood Ave.
1951 - 1959
Daily Citizen Trade Area Directory, 1956

Beaver County Times building
former Daily Citizen building
930 Glenwood Ave.
1974
courtesy Borough of Ambridge

Former Daily Citizen offices
930 Glenwood Ave.
March 27, 2014
credit: Nancy Knisley

After the Daily Citizen published its final issue and left the 930 Glenwood building, a new newspaper, the Ambridge Times, appeared to take over the mission of providing news about Ambridge and the people who lived there. In the Citizen's goodbye, it said that it hoped the Ambridge Times' owner "preserves the gift of an Ambridge newspaper with news about its own people." The Ambridge Times was short-lived, publishing for less than a year.

The Beaver Valley Times changed its name to the still published Beaver County Times after buying the Daily Citizen and opened an office in the former Daily Citizen building.

My memories of the Daily Citizen:

My maternal grandparents, with whom I lived, subscribed to the Daily Citizen. Even though I was only 9 years-old when that paper ended, I remember reading it, at first primarily for the comics, but I also enjoyed looking at the photos. Later, after my reading ability improved, I would sometimes read an article if it sounded interesting.

I remember the paperboy delivering the newspaper, taking a rolled-up paper from the large canvas bag hung on his shoulder, then hurling it onto our porch from the sidewalk. That took a strong arm, since our house's porch was 16 steps above the sidewalk, one of the highest houses on Beaver Rd.

When the Daily Citizen folded, my grandfather, a devoted reader, brought the final issue to my mom and told her to save it, it might be important someday. Until I started writing my blog, I never knew that my mom had saved that issue all these years. That's the front page of it above. And it turned out to be very important. None of the three libraries with Daily Citizen archives--Laughlin Memorial, Penn State's Pattee Library at University Park, and the State Library of PA in Harrisburg--had a copy of that last issue, either bound, on microfilm, or digitized. Laughlin Memorial now has a scanned copy thanks to my mom. Does anyone else still have that issue?
_____

I found it interesting that Ambridge's two early newspapers didn't hide their political leanings. The Ambridge Economy-Citizen was an "independent Republican newspaper," while the Ambridge News-Herald claimed it was "The only Democratic newspaper in Beaver County."

* Shortly after the Ambridge Economy-Citizen started, Goerman began publishing its competitor, the Ambridge News-Herald, which existed from February 7, 1906, until 1943.

** The Jacob Henrici who was a Harmony Society trustee died in 1892, so I don't know if the bookstore was named after him, or if it was owned by another Jacob Henrici, perhaps a namesake.

*** The 1911 Sanborn Insurance map of Ambridge shows the Ambridge Evening Gazette in the building that became the Citizen's third home. I've been unable to find any information about an Ambridge newspaper by that name. I wonder if perhaps it was the name given, or intended to be given, to the daily paper published during the 1911 evangelical campaign.

**** While the Trade Area Directory said that parts from Mrs. Ross' washing machine was used to help create the machine which was used to print the newspaper after the St. Patrick's Day Flood of 1936, the original story that ran in the March 20, 1936 Daily Citizen said that Mrs. Ross' sewing machine was used.

Morton Chevrolet & KDKA election results ad, 1948

In 1948, the technology that provided election results wasn't as up-to-the-minute as it is today. Voters relied on radios, or their daily papers, to find out the election's outcome.

According to the November 2, 1948, Beaver Valley Times, that evening's KDKA election results radio broadcast would be the 28th anniversary of the first public radio election returns broadcast in Beaver County. Even reporting the election returns on the radio was quite the process back in 1920:

The returns were broadcast by KDKA, Pittsburgh, in its initial regularly-scheduled service and were received by the Daily Times, forerunner of the Beaver County Times, in Beaver.

Reception of the returns was made possible by Walter Barnhart, head of the Barnhart radio and electric store in Beaver, who built and operated the receiving equipment and amplifier used by the newspaper. No loud speakers were available, but Mr. Barnhart devised an amplifier by using a large megaphone loaned by Beaver high school.
...
A large crowd listened to the broadcast at the office of the Daily Times on Third street.

Morton Chevrolet, KDKA election results ad
Daily Citizen
November 1, 1948

1948, the year of the ad above, was also the year of the upset election in which the polls had predicted Republican Thomas E. Dewey would win the presidential election; but the polls were wrong, and Harry S. Truman became president. Truman was famously pictured gleefully holding up the erroneous November 3, 1948, Chicago Daily Tribune, with the large banner headline "Dewey Defeats Truman," and reportedly said, "That ain't the way I heard it."

Even though Dewey won Pennsylvania's presidential vote, the Daily Times reported that Ambridge had voted 2 - 1 for Truman.

Ambridge memorabilia: Christmas music

I seem to recall that The Daily Citizen passed out these softcover books of Christmas music every year when I was growing up in the 1950s, and, for some reason, I really loved them. Same traditional Christmas carols every year, but I think they came with different colored covers. Did the Citizen change the color every year, or did they give out several different colors every year?

Christmas Music
The Daily Citizen
owned by Bob Mikush

Merchant Street: 800 block, circa 1948 - 1955. Plus the WRYO mystery

Merchant Street near intersection with 8th Street,
northwest corner,
circa 1949-1955
photo courtesy of Bob Mikush, used with permission

I really like this photo of the northwest corner of the intersection of Merchant and 8th Streets, even though I don't know the year or the occasion. But who doesn't like a parade?

I didn't realize until recently just how many parades Ambridge once had every year. There were parades for the big occasions like Veterans Day or Labor Day, local events like the soap box derby or Nationality Days, and to draw attention to causes like buying bonds or supporting the United Fund.

Now that I understand how much planning and effort goes into planning a single parade every year, I am amazed at Ambridge's managing to host a parade, some of them huge, several times a year.

But there is another reason I like this photo so much: it's just packed with bits of old Ambridge:

• The Ambridge Hotel on the corner of 8th and Merchant Streets (now an empty lot) with a good view of the large black sign for "Sportsman's Bar and Grill" above the main entrance;
• Martin Braun Quality Cleaner and Tailor, 813 Merchant Street (now DeWalt Health Food);
• Fritz Jahn's store at 811 Merchant Street (now Mikush Maytag). Mr. Jahn, who died in 1975, was a long-time Ambridge florist and greenhouse owner. I believe the awning above his store says "Gift Baskets." [Update February 17, 2016: there indeed was a business called "The Gift Basket" at 811 Merchant.] On the "Fritz Jahn" sign it also says "Florist" and "Dress Goods - Patterns"; 
• The Texaco sign from the station that once stood on the southwest corner (now a Subway);
• Streetcar tracks on Merchant Street;
• Vintage bus #419, not sure what company;
• Billboards advertising: Morton Chevrolet (once at 1900 Duss Avenue); Tom Tucker "Southern Style" Ginger Ale (still sold) and below, Model Restaurant (763 Merchant Street); and Krauss Jewelers (at 546 Merchant at the time of this photo, later at 610 Merchant); 
• The second story porch on the back of the building at 765 Merchant Street (currently Groomit Pet Boutique).

But, as far as I'm concerned, a most intriguing and puzzling item in the photo is the sign for "RADIO STATION WRYO 1050 ON YOUR DIAL" on the Fritz Jahn building. WRYO was an 250 Watts AM Rochester station which existed from 1948-1955 (which helps date the photo). Why was WRYO in an Ambridge building? Was it a studio? An office? Does anyone know?

Update May 26, 2015: Note the comment below dated September 18, 2014, which solves the WRYO mystery:

From "A History of Rochester in Words and Pictures, 1849-1999" ;

RADIO. STATION. W.R.Y.O.. 1949. Rochester, for a time, had a Radio Station. It began in 1949, with its transmitter tower located at Cleveland Avenue, North Rochester. It also maintained studios in Ambridge and Aliquippa.

Update February 17, 2016: Here are two 1949 WRYO ads listing an Ambridge studio:

WRYO ad
Beaver Valley Times
May 26, 1949

WRYO ad
Beaver Valley Times
October 27, 1949

Child Labor

Microsoft Word

by Robert Giles

I sell the morning papers sir my name is Jimmy Brown ... Everybody knows that I'm the newsboy of the town

From the song “Jimmy Brown the Newsboy”*

“Well, if it isn’t Jimmy Brown, the newsboy. Anyone got a dollar?”

On top of the hill in Byersdale lived a family that loved hillbilly music. I delivered their paper. When I rang the bell to collect, they always had the phonograph going – Bill Monroe, Flatt & Scruggs, the Carter Family.

The paper route was handed down through my family. My sister was the first of us to deliver the Sun-Telegraph. No one called her “Jimmy Brown”. Mr. Shimrak over at the Isaly store used to tease her by calling her “Abe Lincoln”.

It took a certain amount of “grit” or “gumption” for a young girl to manage a paper route in 1956. My sister had more than her share of those qualities.

Mr. Shimrak must have been impressed. He gave Linda a job in his store, the first of a succession of Giles kids to clerk for the Shimraks. The clerkship at Isaly’s became a family tradition, just like delivering the newspaper.

I learned the newspaper delivery business helping my older brothers. My turn came when I was twelve or thirteen.

If I remember correctly, the “Sun-Telly” was an afternoon paper like the “Press”. About the time I inherited the route, it was bought out by the “Post-Gazette”, a morning paper, and became for a short while the “Post-Gazette & Sun-Telegraph”. This was too much of a mouth-full, and soon the “Sun-Telegraph” name was history.

One thing did not change – the “Post-Gazette” was and always would be a morning paper. I had to learn to get up every morning by 5:30 am.

I’m not sure now how it came about but we also delivered the “Press” on Sunday mornings.

I slept in a bedroom with three other brothers. So as not to wake up everyone, my mother would set the alarm clock in her room and come and rouse me. After a while I got into an “early to bed and early to rise” routine and did not need an alarm clock.

I had a knack for being able to sleep through all the inevitable horseplay that arises when four young boys are confined to a small room.

Once I was shaken awake by two older brothers.

“Bobby, you slept in. Mr. McBroom left your papers on the front porch a long time ago. You better get up.”

In a panic, I got dressed and ran down the steps and out onto the front porch. Where were the papers? The porch was empty.

I came back inside and glanced at the clock. It was one o’clock in the morning. Mr. McBroom wasn’t due for another four hours.

Another time my brothers put my hand in a bucket of water while I was in a deep sleep. They wanted to test something one of them had read – that the water would induce in the subject a need to get up and urinate.

I did not disappoint them. On my way back from the bathroom, I heard the sound of brotherly laughter.

The economics of the newspaper delivery business were not good. I suppose that is the reason that children got the job. The newspaper girl or boy got maybe a fraction of a cent on each weekday delivery – several cents on the more costly Sunday edition.

I was old enough to do the math. I had around fifty customers so I made about $3.75 per week – about $30.00 in today’s dollars - provided I could collect all the money I was owed. If I failed to collect from just one customer, my profits were reduced by the entire amount I didn’t collect, or a little more than 25 percent. I had to pay the route man whether I collected from all my customers or not.

Of course back then the word “deadbeat” wasn’t in my vocabulary. I was as naive as any other kid in his early teens. Adults were intimidating. If they said they didn’t have a dollar in the house and couldn’t pay me, who was I to argue?

I had a collection card for every customer. There were little squares with dates on them that you tore off and gave a customer when he paid. (The receipt system was later supplanted by an even more unsatisfactory way of keeping accounts – punch cards. The customer had a card, the paperboy another. The boy punched both cards to acknowledge payment.)

Imagine how eager people were to keep their punch card on hand for the paperboy - not very. If they couldn’t find a dollar, they certainly couldn’t find a punch card.

Some people went for a month or two without paying. “Mr. Cooper, you owe me $8.00.”

“What, that can’t be!”

“Well, here is your collection card and you can see I haven’t punched it for eight weeks.”

He would then argue that I had forgotten to punch the card. (Or maybe I had glued the chads back in the holes.) With someone like that, my only recourse was to cease delivery, refuse service.

I had much more luck collecting from the wives. There were some exceptions, but most had scruples about taking advantage of children.

One lady I won’t name had me pick up a carton of Pall Malls at Isaly’s on collection day. She always gave me a dime for my trouble and let me look at her tropical fish tanks while she scrounged for the cigarette money.

People would see me lugging the Pall Malls and ask me when I was going to switch to a filtered brand.

Once in a while a customer would pay me with the pennies he had emptied from his pockets and collected in a mason jar. He didn’t like to carry small change but it was OK to pay the paperboy by the pound.

We've got to keep those pennies in circulation.

I carried the papers in a standard canvas newsboy bag with the Post-Gazette logo. Fifty papers were pretty heavy for a twelve-year-old. The shoulder strap bit into my clavicle. I had to walk with my weight shifted to the side away from the sack with one hand underneath the bag to give it support. I didn’t start up the steep Byersdale hillside until I had lightened the load by first delivering to customers on the bottom streets.

The Sunday papers were even heavier. Mr. McBroom didn’t have enough space in his station wagon for all of them so he delivered the “funnies” and the weekly magazines and supplements Saturday night. The rest of the sections came Sunday morning.

I had to sit and put together the two sections before delivery. One of my brothers helped with the Sunday delivery until I got older and stronger.

I found that most of the dogs in Byersdale had some private resentment against the exercise of a free press. With them I was about as popular as the mailman. You had to watch out for those little terriers that came out of nowhere when a customer opened the door.

“He didn’t bite you, did he? He never bites.  Ronnie, get back inside … That will only hurt for a little while.”

Way back of the hill was Short Street, the last street before you came to the woods. Short Street was notable for the smell of raw sewage and the large hound that was tied in one of the yards. Every delivery to that neighborhood was an assault on my nose and ears. There he was – the “Hound of the Baskervilles”, baying himself hoarse and straining at his chain. 

All that stood between me and death by dog bite was a frail ribbon of rope. I walked a little faster.

Neither snow, sleet, rain nor hail kept me from my appointed rounds. A new snow was fresh and lovely at six o’clock in the morning. The other stuff I was not so keen on. A downpour could strike pretty suddenly.

There were newly-weds starting out in a small house on Essex Avenue. The Mrs. was quite pretty – I was beginning to appreciate that sort of thing. I arrived at the door in a thunderstorm, wet to the bone, to collect.

“Look at you, you’re soaked - where’s your umbrella?”

She invited me in and gave me some towels to dry off. I protested that I would get her sofa all wet but she insisted that I sit down while she made me a cup of hot tea.

Her husband and I chatted a bit. The tea was ready. We all had a cup while we talked about where I lived and went to school.

The rain had slackened, but they loaned me an umbrella to carry, just in case. Off I went.

I can’t remember their names but I do remember that act of kindness, over fifty years later.

Was it worth my while to deliver the newspaper? I had to miss out on several camping trips when I couldn’t get someone to take my route for me. I had to go to bed early and wake up early. I had to work about twelve hours per week. I made just over thirty cents an hour ($2.40 today).

On the other hand, I had money to buy clothes and snacks and presents on Christmas. That was better than nothing.

There was a sort of tacit agreement in our house. Dad would feed us and keep a roof over our heads but we had to do our share. He never gave us a nickel to spend. I always thought he was free of guile but now I see a man with a plan. If his purpose was to teach us to stand on our own two feet, he succeeded. 

I never stopped to weigh the pros and cons and reason it all out – mostly I did it because my brothers did it, it was expected of me, and it was a good feeling to have a little money to jingle in my pocket.

On collection day, I often stopped at the little grocery at the top of Anthony Wayne Drive and plunked down my own coin for a dime bag of Snyder’s potato chips and a bottle of ginger beer. I sat on Mrs. Batch’s wooden steps and sipped and ate and studied the sumac berries that grew on the opposite side of the road. Soon the existential gloom would lift and I would descend the hill toward home. 

After four years, I sold my route for $25.00 to another Byersdale “Bobby”.

I had turned sixteen. I went and got myself a work “permit”. I was old enough to make real money.
_____

* If you need something to lift your own existential gloom, don’t have a beer and chips – listen to Jimmy Dale Gilmore’s version of “Jimmy Brown the Newsboy”. It has enough bounce to levitate you up near the ceiling. I couldn’t find it on YouTube but there are other versions of the song there. (The Flatt and Scruggs version is disappointingly slow.)

Turn up the volume. If it turns out you just can’t stand bluegrass, you may have to try a different color.