Thursday, October 05, 2006

R. W. Apple dies: The Akron connection

The Akron connection of R.W. “Johnny” Apple is well documented in his obituary in the New York Times which ran for 47 graphs in the version I read.

The headline:

R.W. Apple, a Times Journalist in Full, Dies at 71

The lead graph

R. W. Apple Jr., who in more than 40 years as a correspondent and editor at The New York Times wrote about war and revolution, politics and government, food and drink, and the revenge of living well from more than 100 countries, died early this morning in Washington. He w
as 71.

The Akron connection:

Raymond Walter Apple Jr. was born Nov. 20, 1934, in Akron, Ohio. His father, also known as Johnny — nicknamed for Johnny Appleseed — ran a chain of grocery stores that had been founded by the family of Mr. Apple’s mother, the former Julia Albrecht. The senior Apple had hoped his only son would take over the business, but an early encounter with Th
e New York Times in the Akron public library gave Mr. Apple other ideas. [They lived on Storer Ave.]

At Western Reserve Academy, a private prep school in Hudson, Ohio, Mr. Apple was sports editor of the student newspaper and editor in chief of the yearbook. He continued his journalistic training in college, on The Daily Princetonian at Princeton. Twice expelled for neglecting his studies at Princeton, he eventually earned a B.A. in history magna cum laude from Columbia University’s School of General Studies in 1961.

Beacon Journal reporter George M. Thomas adds in his obit:

“When he returned to Akron he usually stopped by Swensons. . .He even named Swensons one of the top 35 places to eat in a Forbes magazine article."

You can Google to learn more about his career but one of the newspapers where he worked, the Wall Street Journal, is not picked up in a Google search, apparently because you have to pay to read the WSJ on line. Click on the headline to read the Times obit.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

In the "good old days", if there was an Akron connection to a story we made sure our readers knew about it.
so each time a story by Apple appeared, we ran a box that proudly announced he was a "former Beacon Journal staffer. Course, those were also the days when we ran a news obit the day or the next day a news obit person died...not a week later.

Anonymous said...

As an aside of interest, to me, at least, Paula carried Johnny Apple's portable typewriter as he set up his field office at the Kent Stater to cover the 1968 presidential election.

As another aside of interest, to me, at least, another famous New York Times reporter, James "Scotty" Reston, also was a copy boy at an Ohio newspaper, the Dayton Daily News, but that was long before I worked there.

Anonymous said...

This Paula is the one I live with, and not Paula Schleis. Just to clear up any confusion.

Ott Gangl said...

This brings a not-so-good memory back to me. When Johnny Apple came to visit his parents in
Akron they always had a big party for him.
I was assigned to cover one of them. I was in the driveway shooting some pictures of arrivals and then proceeded to go inside.
I was stopped by an older lady I presumed to be his mother and she told me "No, you can't come in through this door, please use the servants entrance in the back."
I was sorely tempted to just cut it off then and there but I didn't and went in the back through the kitchen.

This was the only time in 35 years as a BJ photographer that I was treated that way.

....Ott