The one face in this photo that brought back the most vivid memories for
me was Jerry Van Sickle.
Jerry was the lord of the APS4 room where all of the BJ stories were
churned out on film strips that Composing makeup people cut out, waxed and
attached to the pages. The late Terry Dray was an expert at that, when he
wasn’t killing us on the golf course.
Johnny Grimm’s super lackey in Advertising layouts, Mike Williams,
supplemented my memories with this information:
Jerry and his late sister, Mary Ohlinger, both were reared and educated at
the Mooseheart children’s home in Illinois.
John Knight, the best newspaper owner in history, hired both of them to
work at the BJ, straight out of the Mooseheart home in Kane County, Illinois,
which opened in 1913 for the orphaned children of Moose members.
Jerry went to Composing and Mary went to Retail Advertising.
Jerry was superficially cantankerous but under those eyeshades was a man
who was extremely helpful to me during my Newsroom Makeup Man days.
You didn’t want to challenge Jerry on the bowling alley either unless you
wanted to make yourself look foolish. I mean, this was a man who made the
elusive 5-7-10 pins knockdown, akin to a hole-in-one in golf!
Jerry started at the
BJ around 1934. Not sure when he retired, probably by 1980 or so.
His address was still in the Christmas directory of retirees in Sidebar in
December 1991.
He was an avid bowler,
though he admitted he wasn't a top scorer. He was interested enough in
the game to gain office in several of the statewide bowling organizations and
the Allied Printcraft League.
He liked taking
vacations to Canada, but if you read of the tangled affairs they became, he
might as well have stayed home. I can still remember his high yet
gravelly voice. (Think actor Strother Martin.)
Another face and
memory that popped out in my stroll down BJ Memory Lane was Roger Ellis.
Good guy Roger Ellis’ face almost made warmth rush through my heart and
head. Not the New York Titans linebacker Roger Ellis.
I’m talking the Roger Ellis who was the father and founder of the BJ
Credit Union.
Roger passed away in 2001. Maybe his favorite singer, Barbara Streisand,
greeted him with “The Way We Were.”
Roger was treasurer of
the Beacon Journal Credit Union from its founding in 1968 until his retirement
in 1980. It was his brainchild.
Roger had 27 years at
the Beacon Journal, was regularly on the Board of Auditors of Local 182 of the
ITU. He was a bowler, a horseshoe fan, loved to fish and wrote a regular
column for Tower Topics.
He and his wife Fairy
vacationed at a home in Bradenton, Florida, moving there after his
retirement.
Their children are
Barbara, Sandy and Warren. They have at least 7 grandchildren.
The late Don Bandy,
superior rewrite man at the BJ, spent his final years in a home he purchased in
Bradenton, north of the Gulf of Mexico coastline from Sarasota and Siesta Key,
where the late printer Bill Gorrell had his Poor Bill’s vacation rental just
across the road from the beach. A group of doctors bought the string of
connected rentals and Bill managed them.
The late BJ Composing
foreman Dave White often had reunions with BJ folks at Gorrell’s place because
Dave and wife Gina White, also a Composing retiree, had a home in nearby
Sarasota. They sold that house and bought one in Venice, Florida, about a
5-minute crow flight, where Gina still lives.
It’s funny how an old
photo can trigger so many memories. Just like treasures in the attic of retired
BJ clerk Sharon Shreve Lorensen did in an earlier article in this blog.
If you have any old
photos, email them to me at jo4wvu@neo.rr.com and I’ll post them on this BJ Alums
blog.
Tell me stories about
them, identify the people in them and I’ll give you a bylined article on this
blog. Use this style for your byline:
BY JOHN OLESKY, BJ
Newsroom retiree (1969-96)
Together, we can share
our memories and light up our memories like the old BJ Tower at night on 44
East Exchange Street.
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