One of my pandemic inspired hobbies involves newspaper archives. It started as a means to continue family genealogy research but wound up becoming a way to enjoy the news rather than doom scrolling current headlines..
Looking through old newspapers offers insight into so much more than the who, what, and where. These articles go deeper than the names and dates on a family tree.
Finding My Family’s Stories
I started researching family genealogy several years ago. Thanks to online search providers, I traced my family tree back into the 1500s in some cases. And I found all kinds of documents for marriages, births, and government records such.
I decided to invest in a subscription to Newspapers.com, an affiliate of Ancestry.com, to continue diving into my family’s stories. Through various newspaper archives from the places they lived, I uncovered a lot more to my family’s history. I found things like wedding announcements and obituaries. But I also found stories that told of my family’s real lives, their work, their celebrations, and their travels.
Grandpa’s Sunshine Band
One of my favorite discoveries came from the Norcatur Dispatch, the paper from my grandpa’s small Kansas hometown. My grandpa’s family was active in the community. They often had their names in the paper for businesses ventures and school activities. But articles that made me laugh featured my grandpa’s interest in music. At an early age, he became the conductor of a children’s band, affectionately known as Virgil’s Sunshine Band. They played an instrument called a Songophone. As I’ve learned, this appears to be a cross between a recorder and kazoo (enjoy that, parents!). The instrument came in sections that could be added or removed to mimic the sound of regular instruments. The little band played songs for school and community programs.
The Greatest Generation Comes Home At Last
Another favorite discovery revolved around my great-uncle who was killed in action during World War II. I had heard the basics of his military service, but I had never known the full story. Through the archives of his hometown newspaper in Nebraska, I came across several stories that helped fill in the gaps. The paper reprinted several letters he sent home that outlined a little bit about where he was and some of his experiences. I also found an article that detailed when my great-grandparents received notice of his death and subsequent burial in a makeshift military cemetery in Germany. After the war, articles outlined funeral plans for when his body was finally returned to Nebraska.
The Family Journalist
A favorite story I’ve come across within the depths of the newspaper archives was about my grandmother on my dad’s side. She passed away when I was three-year-old, so I only have vague memories of her.
I regret not knowing her better. As I searched through papers from the areas she lived, I discovered a number of things about my grandma that I had never known.
The thing that excited me the most was discovering she actually wrote a column for the local paper. During the early 19030s, she wrote a short column each week with news about social gatherings. Okay, so it was a basically a gossip column. But because many within the county were somehow related to us, her column essentially told the story of my family’s lives and experiences at that time.
Grandma wrote about family visits, church events, and other county gatherings. While the news was simple and something that seems cheesy by today’s standards, for me, those columns represent two things. Those were the stories of my family. They visited each other and celebrated together. They ate meals and worked together.
And, on a larger scale her columns showed me that my grandmother was more than just a farmwife. While I don’t know if she had aspirations for a career of her own, seeing her name in print, or I should say Mrs. Emil Glinsmann, (her name was Florence), demonstrated she had skills beyond what I had known about her. She never finished high school. But those columns make me wonder if she was a writer at heart.
Travelling Through Time
Digging deeper into the newspapers, I decided to see what I could find about favorite authors and historical events. While some newspapers weren’t available for the dates the person lived, one I found that was of particular interest to me was the Red Cloud Chief. This newspaper from Red Cloud, Nebraska held a treasure trove of articles about American author Willa Cather.
Cather spent most of her childhood in Red Cloud, and the town served as inspiration for much of her later work. I came across articles about Cather’s time as a student in both Red Cloud and at the University of Nebraska, visits back home after she moved away, and stories about her family. As a reader, the excerpts that caught my attention were actually short snippets. In several editions of the paper, I found announcements that the local drug store had stocked her new books. New, as in My Antonia and O! Pioneers.
These little announcements made me think about how I would use a time machine. If I ever had the chance to go back in time, one thing I would do would be to pick up first editions of my favorite classic books. I know, it’s a big leap going from simple newspaper archives to thinking about time travel, but there you go. My bookshelves would look pretty amazing filled with unspoiled first editions.
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