Thomas Bergbauer

Tom Bergbauer worked for 37 years at the Courier-Post, and after retiring, continued to contribute by writing a column called “Tracking History” for the Courier that dealt with local events, places, and people.

It was in 1961 when I found a career in the newspaper business and I enjoyed every minute of it. Let me put it this way — “we didn’t make a lot of money, but we had a lot of fun” — and in the middle of all that fun I retired in 1998 after 37 years in the business.

The business has come a long way since I joined it in 1961 as a reporter for the Courier-Post. The paper had already moved to Cherry Hill, their new home, after spending more than 75 years in Camden at 3rd and Federal streets.

The 1960s was an interesting time to start a career as a newspaperman. Martin Luther King, President John F. Kennedy and Sen. Robert Kennedy were assassinated. The Cuban Missiles Crisis, Vietnam War and student unrest helped contribute to those unsettled times with groups of hippies and peaceniks parading around, getting us ready to drum up enough courage to streak into the 1970s. To paraphrase a statement made by the late President Kennedy: “the torch had been passed to a new generation.” Being a reporter back then was different in some ways and similar in others to today’s business.

But, like today it was long days and lots of coffee, for yourself and maybe for the cops, so you could get the facts on that all-important story. In my newspapering days, it seemed we were a different breed — kind of a throw-off from the earlier days. Like today we had our own beats and it was our responsibility to come up with a story any way we could obtain it. But, unlike today, there was no overtime, just straight pay and hard, dedicated work for those sometimes 12-hour days.

I was hired by Jane Stretch, a hardcore no-nonsense executive editor, who usually got what she wanted. Her brother, William Stretch, was publisher from 1959 to 1976. The Stretches had owned the paper since 1947, but when I joined it Gannett was the owner. The Stretches sold it to Gannett in 1959.

In my early days as a reporter my beat included covering Collingswood. My job was to get a story, whether it was a fire, flood, or finding that someone had given birth to triplets. While covering this beat I was handed a tip that there was a demonstration going on in Haiti at the time, which included an American. I jumped on the story and growing problems in Haiti.

Not too long after that incident I became a night rewriteman. Rewrite people were hard working journalists, but a strange breed. Accuracy was our goal. I worked alongside Charles Finley, “Life Here Abouts” columnist, and C. William Duncan, who was “Grandstand Manager” for the Philadelphia Phillies in the 1960s. Duncan would appear on TV after each game giving his analysis of the win or loss.

The staff consisted of about 6 rewrite people under the watchful eyes of Night City Editor Steve O’Keefe and Assistant Night City Editor Don Scott. With those two in charge we had to be good. Both were very traditional — O’Keefe with his green eyeshield in place and cupping the mouthpiece of the phone with his hand while he talked into it, and Scott with his sharp pencils, ready to attack our copy.

Frank Malloy, his straw-rimmed hat glued to his head and half-smoked cigarette stuck between his lips, would sit at the copy desk rarely looking up and when he did he would just stare in space with glassy eyes. Malloy worked the “lobster trick” from 11 p.m. to 6:30 a.m. The shift was a lonely one, working by yourself after everyone had left at 2 a.m. Malloy would keep a watchful eye on the telegraph machines during those hours and call police stations in the tri-county area and at the shore, searching for interesting stories.

He would keep notes on a roll of telegraph paper that was threaded through the carriage of a typewriter. There he would keep endless, meticulous notes of his conversations with the various police departments, who would give reports on the weather and the appearance of the first robin in spring. Sometimes he would get a “hot tip” from one of his many sources and a reporter would get a call from him in the middle of the night rousing him out of a warm bed in pursuit of a fire or accident. He was one of a rare breed of newspapermen that are rarely seen today.

But back then we were surrounded by the greats, the rare breeds of the newspaper world. This was it. I have arrived at the typical 1940s newsroom in the 1960s. I was pounding out copy taken from the notes of reporters calling their stories in for the night.

One of the top stories I was involved in during my rewrite days was the assassination of John F. Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963. It was Friday, my day off and my son Tom’s first birthday. My wife and I were not planning anything special and then we heard the news that Kennedy had been shot. The office called and asked me to report to work. It was chaos in the newsroom, editors, reporters running around checking the wires and getting ready for the next day’s edition. I was busy taking notes from grieving people who called on the phone. Later I was able to put some kind of local reaction story together.

After a couple of years on rewrite, I moved to the night city desk as a makeup editor — the person who lays out parts of the paper. I worked closely with Stanley Goldstein, who later became Features Editor and was responsible for TGIF. Along with Goldstein on the night desk was Charles Gregg, another old-timer, whose tales of the early days inspired us all. Gregg read copy and wrote headlines and always inquired “who was the author of this fabulous piece of prose.”

In May 1966 I moved to dayside as a makeup editor for the second section under the watchful eyes of Jack Carty, who showed me the ropes of working on edition time. At that time we were an afternoon paper and went to bed in the morning. I became part of the team that included City Editor Howard MacDougall, News Editor Bud Magnin and Wire Editor Alex Watson. Allen Van Fossen was managing editor at the time. Tom Lounsberry, now police reporter for the paper, was the all-important copy boy. He was the one who secured us coffee and toast after each edition from our real cafeteria.

During those years, the Courier-Post had a cafeteria, with real employees cooking real meals every day. It was a great place to go and rest and enjoy a great lunch in between editions. I can also recall the paper’s carpenter shop where workers turned out wooden news stands that could be found around the city at the time.

I continued to work on some of the top stories of the times like the Johnson-Kosygin summit in Glassboro, the first man on the moon, Garden State racetrack fire and the outbreak of Legionnaires disease.

Over the years I worked on the city desk, wire desk and copy desk coming full circle in the business. The education it brought could not be replaced and the people I came in contact with, will always be remembered. Echoing the words of a former fellow copy editor “it is important that we realize we are in the business of words.”