The Superior Express -

The deadline has passed for submitting newspaper history to the Nebraska Press Association for inclusion in the association’s 150th anniversary publication, but I continue to be fascinated by the topic.

This week I read a short story written by Mrs. A. S. Berry about the Berrys’ association with the Superior Journal.

In the late 1940s Grandfather Blauvelt rented a stucco-covered house at Sixth and National from Mrs. Berry. When I met Mrs. Berry, she was living in a little house under the shadow of the Crest Theatre. She apparently previously lived in the larger house at Sixth and National because several pieces of her furniture were stored in the home’s parlor. The French doors that opened into that room were closed and perhaps locked. Though I wanted to inspect her things, I was never allowed into that room.

As Mr. Berry died in 1934, I never met him but I have heard stories about the Berrys. Mrs. Berry regularly rode in the back seat of the family automobile with Mr. Berry at the steering wheel.

Did she like riding there or was there another reason for her choice of seats? She may not have had a choice.If the automobile was also used to deliver newspapers about town, it may not have had a seat in the passenger position. By removing the seat, more newspapers could have been loaded within reach of the driver.

As chamber of commerce manager, I remember riding about Superior in the back of a pickup truck driven by my mother and throwing sale flyers at houses. I don’t think I broke any windows but neither did I land many of the papers at the front door.

Another group was supposed to have delivered the flyers and didn’t. When Howard Crilly called me the night before the sale was to start and reported the flyers were still sitting in The Express pressroom, there weren’t many delivery options. I did the best I could but I remember getting lots of complaints.

I don’t know the history of the truck and so can’t explain why, but I once had a truck that had only a seat for the driver. There was nothing provided for a passenger. I added a folding camp stool for those times when I wanted to take along a passenger. The driver’s seat was not bolted to the floor. It rested on blocks which on rough roads sometimes slid out of position. Of course, the truck had no seat belts.

Some over-the road semi-truck tractors, in an attempt to keep the truck’s weight below the limit, lack passenger seats. That didn’t explain my truck. It was only a ton and a half Ford. I suspect the bench seat wore out and was removed before I bought the old rig.

Before I grew too tall and my head starting rubbing the roof, I rode standing up in the back seat of my parents’ automobile with my feet straddling the drive-shaft. Now that youngsters must be secured in booster seats, my favorite riding position would not be permitted.

I remember when there were several adapted vehicles in Superior and perhaps some that should have been adapted a bit more.

This week two Express employees passed up an opportunity to have a unique vehicle. One has an auto with a smashed front end and the other an auto with a smashed rear end. I suggested they enlist the assistance of a shop specializing in customizing vehicles and chop the two vehicles in half. Then attach the good halves and have one parade vehicle. Had they done so, I suspect it could have been one of the top entries in the Lady Vestey Victorian Parade.

The Express used to use haul papers to the post office in gray canvas sacks stacked in the open trunk of a car. If it wasn’t raining, that worked pretty well most days. But there were days when the paper was bigger than usual and a mail sack would fall onto the street between the newspaper office and the post office. Canvas mail sacks are now obsolete. The post office has switched to plastic boxes which stack well. We load the boxes on a cart and push the loaded cart to the post office. If we tried that with sacks, I suspect some would have fallen off.

A number of years ago, The Express was a test site for the boxes. We liked them and a story about our experience sending newspapers through the postal system in the plastic boxes rather the sacks appeared in a national newspaper publication.

But the postal system was slow to adapt. After we converted our mail room sack racks to hold only boxes, the rules changed and we had to go back to sacks. Supposedly the boxes were taking up too much room on the trucks and we could only use boxes for mail distributed within the local sectional center’s district.

The box size hasn’t changed, but this spring postal officials decided sacks are no longer acceptable.

I once removed an automobile’s back seat and added air inflatable shock absorbers so the vehicle could haul more papers.

There were other adapted vehicles in Superior. An appliance dealer chopped the back portion of his automobile, added a plank platform and used it to deliver appliances. A house painter mounted his paint spraying equipment inside an old automobile. He would drive up next to his project house, open the vehicle doors, fire up the compressor engine and go to spraying. If a little paint drifted onto the vehicle, he didn’t care.

Long after Model A’s and similar vehicles were out of style, a man with a floor sanding business continued to maintain one he had modified to haul his equipment. The post office used a Model A vintage car to haul mail sacks between the office and the Burlington train station.

Now we don’t see many adapted autos but there is a pletora of pickups and light trucks with special boxes. When the newspaper used a van, I mounted a rack inside so I could haul my Windsurfer sailing boards to Lovewell Lake. I don’t think the rack was quite ready for market as twice when I had to apply the brakes the boards came sliding forward and broke the windshield from the inside rather than the more customary outside.

For the Superior Diamond Jubilee, Mrs. A. S. Berry wrote the following story about the family’s involvement with the Superior Journal.

“I came to Superior as a bride on July 9, 1898, my husband having come a few days earlier to work for Mr. J. D. Stine, who was then the editor and publisher of the Superior Daily and Weekly Journal. We purchased the Journal in 1905, sold it to Wm. Nuff in 1909, and went to South Dakota to homestead in the Rosebud.

“Purchased the Journal again in 1914, and owned it until after Mr. Berry’s death in 1934. One of the outstanding incidents in connection with the Journal was the burning of the power house in 1916. All of our machinery was run by electricity. We secured the use of a small gasoline engine from the G. R Dodds Company to run the Linotype and a large engine was used during the day to run our presses and at night by the Dodds Company. The boys who delivered the daily were Lester and Clarence Roder and Eddie Wolf. Paul and Frank Schmeling were also Journal carriers and I taught Paul to set type. He was very dependable, as you may imagine.”

I have a picture of Paul Schmeling dressed as a printer’s devil and riding a parade float with a C&P press we still have in our press room. His son, Richard, frequently sends stories to this newspaper remembering his days growing up in Superior. After his days working for the Journal, Paul ran a drug store and retired as president of the Security National Bank.

We still have the press but it is no longer OSHA approved. We keep it around just to show the youngsters how printing was done in the days before computers.

I went to high school with Lester Roder’s son, Larry, and remember when Clarence Roder lived in Superior. When I was a youngster, Lester ran an IGA grocery store in downtown Superior.