The Family Newspaper Biz

Unbraiding the Roots

The dissolution of a nearly 130-year-old family business is more complicated than one might think. In fact, being a member of a family that is deeply ensconced in a business is its own complicated and multi-layered situation, and something that only those in similar circumstances can understand fully. I am brought to this place in light of the selling of The Republican newspaper, which transpired just a little over two years ago. I have only arrived at certain realizations because those two years have passed, and I needed time to digest the sale and its repercussions. I understand now that I am just beginning to work through it with some clarity and, thankfully, less emotion. Not that I am not constantly fighting the battle with wistfulness. And I expect to do that for a while yet. But I’m much better. I’m healing. I think other members of my family are as well, even as we struggle some with the excising of a lifelong component of our identity.

A few weeks ago, my husband John and I traveled to Lancaster, Pa., and set up a booth at the annual Lancaster Printers’ Fair. According to Val Lucas, a professor of printmaking at Towson University (who has been an invaluable guide in all this), we should have been swarmed by printers for all we had to offer them. Well, the swarm was fairly small, really, and we didn’t sell a great deal. However, the entire experience rattled us farther along on the old roller-coaster of life for sure, with some fascinating discussions with random folks, and a surprising unity with people for whom printing is familiar and meaningful. For those interconnections made, I am grateful and edified.

For a while now I have been digging out long-forgotten sets of letters and numbers of varying fonts and point-sizes. Some of them have not been in the light of day for possibly 50 or even 75 years. Maybe longer. There is definitely something satisfying about dragging them out, wiping them off, and considering that perhaps the last hands to touch them were my dad’s or my grandfather’s or my great-grandfather’s, or perhaps my great-uncle George Hanst’s, who was the editor for nearly 40 years. Any of those guys. To them, these things were just tools of the job. They didn’t look at them and feel nostalgic, I don’t think. They rooted through them and picked out what they needed to spell out a sentence or design an ad. And then they carried on with it. Now I sit in that office entirely alone, looking at all that stuff. In my mind, reason battles with emotion until I want to send them both to their rooms without supper. I don’t like always feeling nostalgic or wistful. It’s time-consuming and can be depressing. I’ve had the fight going on in my brain for years now, launched when we first started talking about the possibility of selling the biz. The idea seemed surreal. How could we consider giving up the family business? The newspaper and print shop? The very sustaining entity of all our lives through five generations? But, at exactly the same time, we were stumped as to how we could continue to run it. The newspaper and print shop world is dying. Its time is passing. A family-owned newspaper, printed inhouse, is nearly extinct. As I have noted before in this blog, printers are going the way of the blacksmiths, wheelwrights, and milliners, among others. Technology charges along and takes no prisoners. What is left are the lovers of the past, the artisans, and the nostalgic. Of course there is merit in preserving history in some ways, and I am in great support of those who love to engage in the art and revel in the process. But to maintain such a workplace on a regular basis became defeating and illogical. Such is life.

At the printers’ fair, people would walk by our booth and catch a glimpse of our old fonts or line gauges or Linotype instruction books. They would stop then and linger over the stuff, saying things like “wow” or “I haven’t seen one of these since college” or “what the heck is this?” But then they would go on. John and I soon learned that if we started talking to them about our family history with the paper and print shop, their faces would change. They would light up, make eye contact, and really listen. It seems our family history is fairly interesting — to some, even fascinating. Having grown up in the family, I find it difficult to understand the fascination, honestly. It has always been part of my life, and my siblings can all say the same. But I was truly struck by the reactions and the engagement of these random people as we chatted about it. And it helped me to remove myself a little bit from what has always been, and to see it from a new place. The fact that a young man (Benjamin Hinkle Sincell/Ben/B.H.) bought a business in 1890 and his family kept it going through 2017 is pretty unique.

To make it more fascinating, we have a vast plethora of written words that record all of it. Ben wrote an editorial every week, and put the pages together completely on his own for years. So all those newspapers from 1890 on through the late 19th century are by his young hand alone. To augment this recorded history, we are also fortunate enough to have letters that he was writing at the time to his love, Lillian “Tay” Byrne Morris, who would later become his wife. But when he was a lowly newspaper editor and printer, she was of a more elite West Virginia family. She was trained in painting and enjoyed a rather comfortable existence. Her parents, especially her mother, were not keen on this inky fellow from across the tracks and state line. He was not up to their standards, and the marriage of the two would be put off for years. His letters are full of pleas and urging of Tay to marry him, along with proof that his printing business is gaining ground, professing at one point to be “in the office in my shirt sleeves, with more work than I know what to do with.” The letters provide a most beautiful setting for those early years, adding a deeply human component to the history being pressed out each week in Ben’s newspaper.

Removing myself from the lifelong experience of being a member of the family as well as a worker at the business, I do see that it is rich — this family business history that was born with these two young people, in love but being kept apart, at least for a while. At last she was free to marry him, by the way, and they did so in 1895. They went on to have five children. And that is when the first tendrils of family involvement uncurled and began to take root. I don’t know for sure if the five kids worked much at the office when they were young. I hope to somehow find out about that. But I imagine that there were days when B.H. might have needed his kids there. Sometimes work just piles up, and able hands are required. I grew up with that knowledge, spending many evenings at the shop stuffing papers (putting a section inside another section) or doing some repetitive task in what we called the “job shop,” which was where the commercial printing was processed. There we would collate booklets or run the stapler machine or help jog (shake together to straighten) piles of papers. Surely there were days when B.H. said, “I’ll need some help today at the shop.” And the kids would go. That’s how it was done, on through the years. My own sons grew up doing the same, in fact.

Ben and Tay’s children matured and went on their own ways. One daughter, Mary, died in her early 20s, of what ailment we are not certain, although she was apparently “sickly” most of her life. Of the remaining four, one did stay to work at the newspaper. That was my grandfather, Donald “Mose” Sincell. According to some family folks, Mose originally had designs on becoming a Lutheran pastor, and even enrolled at Gettsyburg College. But there was pressure to remain in Oakland, made more weighty when B.H. had some health issues. How would they get the paper out if B.H. could not? So Mose became a pressman. This is the point when I feel a pang of wistfulness. Did Mose sacrifice his calling to stay at the family business? Such a question crops up through the ages, for sure. My husband is always quick to note that in the early 20th century, people didn’t necessarily strive to work at a job that “fulfilled” them. People worked to survive. And if there was a job available, a person would step into it without considering whether or not it was the proper color of his soul’s parachute. And if the business owned by a father was in need of help, the offspring were the first to be called in. So Mose went, and he stayed for the rest of his life.

From left are Frances Richardson (niece to BH and Tay), Mary Sincell, Tay with baby Lillian Sincell, Mose Sincell seated, and Morris Sincell behind him. Photo taken in Mountain Lake Park, circa 1904.

I have quite vivid memories of seeking him out in the job shop, where inevitably he would be standing at the Heidelberg press running some print job. He would smile and greet me kindly every time. I knew if I stood there for just a little while, he would dig in his front pocket and jangle the change, and then produce a quarter for me. Understand that a quarter was a lot in the late ‘60s. I could go downstairs to Proudfoot’s Pharmacy and buy a whole little bag of candy and gum with that. Sometimes he would give me two quarters. I’m sure his donations went toward my first foray into buying Christmas gifts when I was about 5. I gave all my brothers and my dad new combs — each in its own little case — and to my mom and sister, I gave tiny bottles of perfume, everything purchased at the Ben Franklin 5 and 10. I felt very greathearted that year. I probably should’ve given something to my grandfather, yet I don’t think I did… but now I’ve digressed.

Mose and Bob running the press, circa 1950s.

Another sibling, my Aunt “Tink,” came to the newspaper, too. Her real name was Adeline. She was the baby, born in 1910. Mose was about 11 years her elder, so he had been at the office a long while when she came to proofread sometime in the early 1960s. And actually she was officially brought in to “hold copy” for yet another relative, my grandmother Elsie Hanst Sincell, Mose’s wife. My grandmother worked in the front office, accepting classified advertising, answering the phone, and proofreading. Her brother, George Hanst, came to the office as well, making the leadership of the newspaper shared among two families, yet the ownership remained purely Sincell. George served diligently as the associate editor until B.H’s death, and then was the editor in chief until 1977. So the family connections became rather complicated. B.H. was the founder, his son Mose was his successor. Mose’s wife Elsie’s brother was brought in as an editor. Elsie was always a bit adamant that all understood Tink was “just holding copy.” The tensions of an intertwined family business are hard to describe, but it suffices to note that competition is always there, lying in wait and coming out through some passivity as well as some overt aggression, depending on the moment. Working together with the same people with whom you gather for holidays, see at church, rely on in trouble, celebrate in joy, or grieve can make for some deep challenges and stress.

Tink’s husband, Bob Ruckert, worked there, too. He was a veteran of World War II and was working at the front desk of the Algonquin Hotel in Cumberland when he and Tink were first married. Tink asked her father to hire Bob, and soon he was on the staff. The family sent him off to learn how to run a Linotype. He then served as the company’s instructor of that complicated machine, eventually teaching my mom how to run it. (He told her that she learned it more quickly than he had ever seen, by the way. Mom is always so self-deprecating, claiming all the time that she’s not creative or smart, but her life accomplishments consistently say otherwise.)

George Hanst’s wife, Polly Johnson Hanst (married in 1931), contributed to the newspaper as well. She wrote a column titled “It Runs through My Mind.” It was about family, farming, 4-H, and life in general. Often she was clever and funny, as was George. I think sometimes how they must have had fun together. He was quiet and reserved, but witty. She was a huge personality in a tiny body, and she did love a good laugh. Together they influenced the direction of the newspaper quite a lot, especially in those earlier days. But there was always tension. B.H. maintained ownership of the company even as other family members joined in. The pay was adequate, just. I would never call the business “high-income.” I don’t think anyone in the family would. I believe there was a definite lack of frank discussion about pay and ownership and other touchy issues, which led to resentment, or at least some disappointment. The work was hard. Any dedicated staff member over the years would agree. It could be tedious and exacting, and it was definitely deadline-driven. Every single week. Every year. Every decade.

After World War II, my dad, Robert Sincell, took his place there, too. And another pang arises. Did Dad want to be there? In letters that he wrote to his parents during the war, his outlook changed over time. When he was first away, the world seemed thrilling and new and wide open. After three years of service, which was not in combat but on the outer edges of it, also tedious as well as lonely, he was ready to come back to the mountaintop. He missed the place that was in his dreams. Home. He missed his family, he missed the land, and the lure of the office was always there. He would go on to get his degree in journalism from West Virginia University, with an emphasis in advertising. And then he joined the family biz, bringing my mom along. B.H. died in 1947, so the business then fell mostly on the shoulders of George, Dad, and Mose, although Tay maintained some influence, as did Polly. The women of my clan were not submissive, for which I am ever grateful.

We in my family have often talked about Dad’s interest in medicine. He was fascinated with the human body and how it worked. Perhaps more importantly, he grew passionate about emergency medical care and went on to become a National Ski Patrol instructor, and later still co-founded the Garrett County rescue squads. He was the first emergency medical technician instructor in the county, training people for service in both the south and north. He was brilliant at it, frankly. So on the one hand, I have wondered if he might have led a different sort of life if the family business were not a component early on. On the other hand, perhaps he found sufficient joy in the emergency care while remaining loyal to his grandfather et al. The question is simply unanswerable, but one can certainly see the pull of a family organization for a young man willing to serve and wishing to be of aid. A well-trod path that lies smack dab in front of a young person’s feet is hard to resist when the world is pressuring him to choose. In the end, he was content with his career. Proud, even. As he should’ve been.

Dad (Bob Sincell) posing somewhat coyly next to a page form. I think this photo was used in a special 75th anniversary issue of the paper.

As time went on, our mother began her stint at the office, running the Linotype first and later the Compugraphic typsetters and the confounding “headliner” machine, which did not show you what you were typing but just spat out expensive film with your headlines on it, misspelled or not. My brother Ben learned how to operate the Linotype, as did Don. They all worked over summers or during busy times. Ben took on some of the paperwork of the business, too, helping out with that for years. Don worked as a photographer. Then in 1977, he stepped in to take over George’s position as editor. Don had earned his bachelor’s degree in psychology, though… And I earned mine in theatre arts, as did my husband, who also became a nearly 30-year staff member and officer of the company. I don’t think anyone would peg any of us for lifetime newspaper people. But that’s where we ended up. Did we pursue what we would’ve or should’ve? I can’t answer that. But I can attest to the fact that the pull of a family biz is firm.

As for me, I certainly did not predict my longevity at the paper. I joined in 1990, having moved back home after some years in North Carolina. John and I had married in 1989, and while he was content to stay in Chapel Hill, I was desperately homesick. I missed cool weather, I missed my parents, I missed living on top of mountains rather than down in the Piedmont. I wanted to have a baby, and the thought of doing that without my mother nearby was daunting. I wrenched us both out of N.C. and back to Maryland, where a writer in the newsroom had just quit. I decided to grab up that position “for the time being.” My plan was perhaps to go back to school and get a master’s degree so I could teach… And John came with me, of course, but without a job. However, the ad manager had also just given notice, so John went there. For a while. Then he took over my mom’s position as a typesetter and ad designer. When the photographer left, John moved into that role. I stayed in the newsroom throughout, writing thousands and thousands of articles and stories over the years. Ben’s wife Bev Sincell was a longtime staffer in the newsroom some 30 years ago. Our nieces Angie and Rachel both joined the company as well, and nephews Adam and Matthew worked stints, too, making it a truly five-generation biz. My boys put in many hours over the years. All of us, lifting that mantle.

What if there had been no family business? What paths would we have taken up in the end? There is little point to pondering such a question, especially since our work was not unimportant. We made differences in our community, and we worked hard to be of service. All of us. That was a key component of shouldering the mantle. But a family business does present a host of issues, some good and some bad. One can get swept into the current without planning to stay in the river, but getting back out can be a real challenge. John and I proceeded to have three sons in four years. We were therefore ensconced in our work, because the boys had to come first. We were tasked with providing for these kids we opted to have. The endeavor of finding other comparable work in this area was too much. Our lives were full and busy, with some lovely elbow room in our own company that allowed us to be with the boys more than we might have been in other work, but also with the ongoing responsibility of always being connected, 100% of the time, even on vacations or when sick. The task of producing a weekly newspaper is a compact, intense project, which we achieved every seven days. In the later years, the leadership of the newspaper was on Don, John, and me. All staff issues, health insurance challenges, equipment problems, building questions — all of it was our responsibility, combined with getting the paper out and keeping the job shop in business. Desktop publishing took a huge bite out of the commercial business, and printing our own paper with all our own equipment was growing more challenging by the day. The time came to sell. And we did it.

All those roots, grown deep and intertwined over more than 100 years, are now being pulled apart, gently but firmly. A family business has so many branches and tendrils, and the entire “plant” is symbiotic. The work provides some identity to those who do it, as well as those who are connected by family ties. I knew about “paper day” and the “office” and all of it from the very beginning of my life, as did my siblings, as did my cousins, as did my dad, as did my grandfather. In all those roots that grew and split off and twisted about, there were many that caused trouble. Tensions at work easily spilled over at home since everyone was connected. Family get-togethers could be tiresome after working all week with the same folks. Disagreements on how things should be run, who is in charge, who gets the credit, who should be hired and who should be let go, how company money should be spent — on and on — can all taint the family unit in ways that non-business folks often don’t realize. A tribe has to be sturdy to survive a company run by its members. We have certainly had our fallings-out over the years. And there are scars. But as we finally finish this chapter in the Sincell family history book, I think we can do it with confidence — confidence that the decision to move on is an acceptable one, and confidence that the entire journey represents, on the whole, work well done.

The loosing of the company tether has been a journey. For a long time, I felt like a balloon that had been let go, floating who knows where. My whole life, like my relatives, had in part been defined by the newspaper and the company. Now we are set free from it. We are set free from that exacting weekly deadline. We are free from having to pay attention and be alert to every county event or breaking news. We can slip in and out of a public meeting without saying anything, asking a single question, or writing even one word about it. We also have the new and welcome opportunity of looking forward to seeing one another. I miss my brother now. We worked next to each other through thick and thin, with dedication. We were together every day, often in tense circumstances. I never really had the occasion to miss him. But now we have moved on, and it is fun to see each other and catch up on things we used to talk about regularly. And my husband has a new job. In the mornings, he goes off to work, and I don’t go with him. I don’t know every nuance and event of his day since I am not there. He gets to tell me these things. What fun! We have worked together for almost our entire relationship, starting with Domino’s Pizza in North Carolina, then nearly 30 years at Sincell Publishing. The experience of having our own time and our own adventures is rejuvenating.

There are other families in Garrett County who have maintained businesses for a long time and then moved on. The Beachys and Fikes, the Shirers and Callises, the Brownings, the Stucks, and more. I’m sure all of us could have long talks about the unique odysseys of family-owned companies. I’m sure they, too, have had the occasional former customer ruefully complain, “Why did you give up the company? We miss it!” We get that sometimes, and I always feel a little wistful, and a little guilty. I know some people miss our brand of newspaper and the service it provided to our community, and I’m sorry about it. But to everything there is a season.

When I am sitting alone in the office, examining the tools and belongings bought at some point by someone in my family to help improve the business, I imagine the folks being there with me. I can feel the connection, and if we could speak, we would revel in our similar life stories, bound together so deeply by this endeavor, and by our strong family ties. We would agree that a business does not have to be the definition of a family, but we can be grateful that it lasted 130 years, employed hundreds of people, gained respect for its integrity and constancy, and operated full-steam ahead for such a long time. To those who work in a family business, I offer you my hand in solidarity and understanding. We should go get a beer and chat. We’d have a lot to talk about. And to my forebears, I offer my gratitude. Thank you for founding the business, for instilling in us the value of hard work, and for providing many of us with good, meaningful careers. It has been such an adventure.

Finding a Type

The two-year anniversary of the sale of our newspaper and the closure of our printing company was July 1. I keep doing the math to be sure that is right. It’s right. My brother Don, his wife Suzie, my husband John, and I released our family legacy two years ago this week, altering our very sense of ourselves with the move. The newspaper had been our identity for going on five generations. To sell it to another company was a difficult decision to make, of course, and we didn’t know for years how it would all go. We did know that we would probably have to sell — for a wide range of reasons. First, the industry was (and still is) changing with such speed that it was nearly impossible to keep up with the technology. After doing things pretty much the same way for decades, we were faced in the last 10 years with changes every few months in how we created the paper, obtained enough advertising to stay afloat, put the info together, and published it — every week, without fail, no matter what. And second, as a family, we had no one coming up in the generation after mine who had any interest in keeping it going. As we struggled along over the past years, our offspring saw firsthand how trying the business could be. They knew about the relentless deadline and the growing stress over machinery, technology, and staffing issues. It was hard work, every week, with little respite. None of the fifth generation wanted that, and none of us blamed them. So we knew. We were going to have to either just let it die with the three of us who ran it — Don, John, and me — or we had to find a buyer.

For the sake of our community, we wanted a buyer, and yes, for our own sakes, we wanted that, too. And after a few years of angling about, a buyer did float to the top. Brian Jarvis, a 30ish man who already owned a couple other papers, was very interested. After some haggling and figuring, we agreed on the sale. A whirlwind followed as we informed the staff (they knew something was up), separated out our assets and resources, and severed the Sincell ties with ownership of the newspaper bought by our great-grandfather in 1890 when he was 21. All through his adult life, then through his children’s lives, chiefly his son Donald (known as Mose) who worked at the paper all this life; then all through my dad’s life, Bob Sincell, and all through my siblings and my life… it was our industry, our company, our lifeline. And two years ago, we said goodbye to it.

The transition has been long and strange. It was like we were all shoved into this deadline box for so long, with just enough elbow room to move a little as we created a product every week, slowly on Monday, much faster on Tuesday, writing stuff to fill the first section to be printed that day — usually the smallest section of the week. Then Wednesday morning the pressure was much more intense as we worked to figure out how much news we might have, how many pages we should do on that day’s section… all elbowing each other in that little box. Then Thursday would come again… and we would shove that front section together, still writing that morning the news that would hit the streets that afternoon. Then we would all fly downstairs to the press room to get the whole thing together and out. Always pressure, always stress. It was a dance, every week, and everyone knew their steps. Hurry, hurry, hurry. Then we would be finished. Thursday evening was the quietest. Friday was sleepy, too, although the edge of the next week was always visible again. Round and round.

I must say that it was an interesting job, for sure. I was well aware of the goings-on in the county, whereas now I am not much at all. It is strange to be disconnected, to not leap at the idea of a story for the paper, or to get a few details of an event so I can throw it into an article. Not anymore. When we sold, we were all released out of that cramped box. We floated up and out, no longer tethered. No longer operating every day with the next day on our minds. The freedom was odd and uncertain, as if we might just float away. In a few months after the sale, Brian moved the company to a building he bought two doors down. And our office, built around the turn of the 19th century by my great-grandfather and his two brothers, was suddenly silent. Today, there are a million items still lying around, as if some folks have just left. Scissors, pens, tickets and posters and programs printed in our back shop, phones, wires, fans, desks, chairs, shelves, and so much paper. It’s all still there, mostly because it has been too hard for us — especially Don and me — to go in and start sorting. When we walk into that empty place, the lifelong memories roll in, and it’s so hard to even come up with a plan for organizing it all. We need to sell stuff, throw other stuff out, save some things, refurbish others…. there is just months and months of work in there. And we stand there looking at it all, at a total loss as to where to begin, thinking of Dad, and of his dad Mose… and all those people. All those folks with whom we worked all those years to push out a county paper every week. So many people.

At long last, I have mustered the strength to push on a bit. Some lovely moments of serendipity led to my meeting a professor from Towson University who is a print-maker artist, and who teaches print-making at the school. She has visited twice now, diving into the vast resources left in our print shop by all those generations of hard-working Sincells and staffers. She is over the moon about some of the equipment, and is leading me through a learning process. I know now what is valuable or at least sale-able of much of our inventory. Seems there is a market for some of that dusty old stuff, and she — Val Lucas — has jumped in to help us figure it all out. I’m so grateful for it. She is a small woman with auburn hair and sparkly eyes. She stands with her hands on her hips, assessing the various dusty piles. She knows so much. Every little piece of printing equipment, strewn about on old desks and printers’ blocks, she knows. “Oh, this is a [insert name]! And it’s in good shape! Wow, that’s great…You’ll want to clean that up with mineral spirits…”

Val is helping me makes lists of what we have, and she has taught me some cleaning methods to get a lot of it ready to sell to other print-makers. She finds such joy and fun as she roots through dusty, dirty type drawers that have not been opened in years. She examines a piece of type and in a moment announces what font it is, and what size. She smiles if it’s a good one. I think it must be a real treasure trove to her, and her appreciation of the stuff is contagious. As she handles these bits of steel or metal or wood, giving sound to their names and smiling at her finds, I feel such relief. We aren’t going to just let this stuff rot. We aren’t going to just throw it all out. We are going to find avenues right to print-makers who will love it all, too. I think of how my great-grandfather must have obtained some of those things — probably through great effort and cost. And he used them, publishing a paper every week, like we did, and printing booklets and programs and invitations, like we did. I love that we can respectfully hand this stuff on to people who will clean it, use it, and most importantly, appreciate it. I know it’s just stuff, just things. But in this wrenching transition of leaving behind such a significant part of our family’s heritage, I am finding great peace in the knowledge that a good bit of it will live on through this effort. We can spread out the wealth of that shop to those who will value it and give it new life. I’m grateful.

So I will now set in to work, back at the office, by myself. I will gather up those letters of type, learn what font they are and what size, and I will bind them up with string as Val showed me. I will prepare them for the Lancaster Printers Fair in September, where avid print-makers will come shop and, I hope, be wowed by what we have to offer. All the while I will keep my forebears in mind, thinking of B.H. when he bought his first Linotype (the many parts of which I will be sending to perhaps the country’s last Linotype repairman, who happens to live in Maryland); and of Mose, my dear grandfather, who was gentle and kind, and who I remember most standing in the back at the printing presses, always ready to hand me a quarter with a smile and a chuckle. I will think about Dad, a printer who operated with precision and expertise, and who could design and print lovely pieces with all that equipment. I will think of my grandmother and great-grandmother, and my grand-aunts — all of whom either worked at the paper, or had great influence over it in their day. I will remember my great-uncle George Hanst, who steered the ship as associate editor and then editor-in-chief for nearly half a century. And of course of my own mom, who was there for many years, and my siblings, and so many dear friends. We have all had a common experience, working together in that place with all those things that now lie unused and quiet. As I clean type and gather fonts together, moving farther on through the adjustment to this jarring life change, I will think on all of them. The personalities, quirks, humor, kindnesses, intelligence, artistry, determination, constancy — all of it — because in the end, of course, it is the people who matter anyway. All types.

A Bee on the Window

When I worked at the newspaper all those years, there were times when I was needed “in the shop,” which was the section of the building where our commercial printing operation was housed. We — the staff — were all needed back there on some days to help put together big jobs, like calendars for the local schools or various documents that were in triplet, which we had to stack one on top the other in order for them to be connected properly. The word we used as a catchall for that process was simply “collating.” Don or Dad would say, “We need some hands in the shop for collating,” and people would moan a little and try to figure out what they might be able to say they had to do instead. But usually a crew of us would trudge back and settle in to the tedious process. It wasn’t so bad. Dad used to joke the work required “a strong back and a weak mind.” We would all find a “station” and start in on the job, with thousands to do usually. Thousands and thousands. Pull this paper, put it on top of or inside of this paper, maybe add a third thing, then “jog” it, or rattle it downward on the table to straighten it out and line it up. Then stack it neatly on top of the last one. Over and over. On and on. For hours.

The work was indeed tedious, but it was also a time of freedom. Freedom to dream, to figure out problems, to create stories, to remember times past. Repetitive work can be meditative. In just a little while, I could be a million miles away. And time would pass before I even realized it. Of course, that can be a problem if you somehow get out of sync and start collating incorrectly. Then you just keep doing it wrong, on and on, until someone shakes you awake. “MARY! You are putting two of the same pages in those!” Then you look at your finished pile and see that you have done that for the past 373 documents. Sigh. Of course catching the mistake then is way better than having the customer come storming in holding up 500 pages that are collated all wrong, screaming for a refund. So one simply takes the mistakes back, un-collates them, and starts again. Nowadays the machinery is far fancier, and does most of the collating itself. But back in my day (said with proper old-person, hands-on-hips, eye-rolling disdain), it was on us.

One day I was collating calendars, which is pretty tiresome as there are a number of pages to pull together. But I had a long open tabletop for my work, and I slipped on down the line, over and over, inserting May and June into April and July, March and August into February and September, and so on. I was facing a window, across my table. So I could look outside as I shuffled by. But what I noticed was actually on the inside of the window. A bee. I think it was a little wasp or some other small buzzy thing. It was flying into the window, bump bump bump, over and over. I figured it was trying to get outside. The kicker was that the window was open to the air just above where the bee was bumping. The insect was literally an inch away from freedom, but it kept bumping, bumping against the glass just below where it should. On and on it bumped, each time I shuffled past, collating the calendar. I kept willing it to just go up a little bit, just venture onto the window frame and then it would be out; Out, free and able to fly as far and in whatever direction it might desire. Just a few bee steps upward and it would make it. But no. Instead the bee went farther down the window, and into a corner, full of dirt and cobwebs. It bobbled around in the filth for a while, getting dust on its legs, and continued to bump, bump, bump. So fruitless an effort, in vain. It climbed back upward then, and I was wishing it all the positive vibes I could create with my brain, willing it to go onto the damn window frame and then find its way out. Its furry, dusty leg even touched the edge of the frame, but then it leapt back, as if the bee needed to be able to see the outside in order to get to it. If it went onto the window frame, the site of freedom disappeared. So it shied away from the very place it would have to go if it wanted out.

At this point I figure you are asking, “Why the heck didn’t you just shove it out, you doof? Or squash it?” Wow, two questions there, and derisive to boot…. As for shoving it out, I did. Eventually. After I had watched it struggle for some time. And out it flew, without so much as a wave or nod, into the blue sky, free. And I didn’t squash it because I grew up with a father who carried every creature out of our house intent on keeping whatever it was alive, from spiders to snakes to bats. Everything has a right to be alive, and we don’t have the right to squash stuff just because we can. See what I did there? Plugged in a little preaching about not squashing bugs. Pretty slick. And I don’t mean the bugs.

Anyhoo….back to collating. I mentioned that it is meditative, and it is. So after freeing my bee friend, I had a long reverie about how humans are a lot like that. We always think we know the pathway to our freedom and happiness, but often we are only shoving our faces around in cobwebs and antique dirt, unable to see how to get out, and totally unaware of how close the answer really is sometimes. I could see because I was clear across the table, watching the insect struggle, able to visualize its remedy. But it couldn’t see it.

The everyday news of this world is getting me down. I think social media is partly to blame, as I tend to keep my eye on it a lot and it can be so depressing. But I don’t want to hide from everything just because it’s depressing. I want to be aware of what is happening in our world because it’s the only world we have, and it’s a fine mess right now. And like the bee, we are all off in our messy corners, bumping about, seeing what we perceive to be the right path, but blind to the whole picture. I often imagine what it would be like to rise above everything; to literally rise up and see the world like I could see that bee. We’d witness all the effort, all the work, all the striving. And we’d see all the futility, all the pain, all the failure. What would seem so huge to the little people down there would seem lost in the wideness of the whole world, the whole picture.

Today our world is full of passionate debate, of reaction, of judgment. There is despair and frustration, and there is weariness. Such a weariness. A heaviness that pulls us down. Which reminds me of a hilarious story. (Segues are my specialty.) John and I took his mom to a percussion concert one time at West Virginia University. Our son Rob was in the show, and we decided to bring Alice (John’s mom) even though she had grown rather infirm and foggy-brained. Percussion shows can be wonderful. On the other side of the coin, they can be excruciating. Or a little of both. Generally I enjoyed the shows over the years Rob spent in school, but there were just a few times when I wanted to crawl out of my skin and slither away, like when a drum solo would go on for 25 minutes (yes, that happened), or when a marimba piece with no discernible melody but with the same note being struck one gazillion times would drag on until I wanted to stand and squeal at them to wrap it up. At this particular concert, there was a piece that did go on a bit. Alice then said she needed to go to the ladies’ room, so John popped up and escorted her out. He said when she came out of the bathroom, she asked him something, at first gently, then with a bit more emphasis. “Do you suppose everyone in there is like me?” she asked. “AT THE END OF THEIR ROPES?” We still laugh about that.

But I do think that a lot of people are like that now… just like me, at the end of our ropes. The animosity and venom rage on. Comment sections are like Wrestle Mania, but real. People are figuratively hitting each other over the heads with folding chairs without so much as a “hey, let’s talk about this.” They are leaping off the third rope onto people already lying on the floor, and gauging them with elbows to the spleens. It’s brutal. A man is shown to be too handsy and he is crucified for it. And then those who defend him are ravaged by one camp, and those who condemn him are ravaged by the opposite. There is no view of freedom in sight. It’s just the dirty, gross corners where we all wallow about, with no effort to look up or out. We just keep looking right where we think we should, and ignore any notion of casting our gaze elsewhere.

Empathy. I love that word. I love how it looks, and I love how it is spelled. It’s a pretty word. It is spelled nearly the same in most of the Romantic languages. Empathie in German and French, empatia in Spanish, empati in Danish, and, uh… сопереживание in Russian. Wow. Anyway, it’s a good word. And its meaning is integral to our existence. To experience the feelings and thoughts of another being; To tread the path of another while wearing her shoes; To see through another’s eyes. I have been on the planet for 56 years, and I have learned some things. One of the most important has been realizing that some people do not utilize empathy. Some do not tune into the “how would I feel if…” place, and I think that is because it’s hard. It’s terribly hard. If one is not taught that practice as a child, then that heart is hardened. If a wee one is not shown empathy, how can he learn it? And if he is not shown it, how does know if what he feels matters? We parents and aunts and uncles and teachers and mentors must listen to the wee voices. The personality is in there. It’s whole. A child needs to know that he matters, and he needs to know that others matter, too. If he learns it, then it will be there. He may fight it when empathy casts its sting, but it’ll be there.

As we float above the Earth and all her creatures down there bumping against windows, how far do we have to rise in order to see how some things simply don’t matter? In this vast picture, this open and majestic view of life, what will stand out to us? As we gaze from our new perspective, I would hope some things would be diminished, as would only be right. The obsession with our bodies might go away. Not with health, mind you — I think being well is vital. But our looks, our presentation to the world of these vehicles that carry our souls about. How important is it that we dress these things so well, or that we place such importance on how well we are keeping them in absolute tip-top shape? Do we need to spend ages on discussing our latest exercise endeavors or our best makeup techniques? We are slaves to our worry over our visages, that is for sure. We get cut with knives to fix our faces, to find the younger one there under the aged places. I do understand that entirely. But I hope as we rise up, we can forego our fretting over this part of our lives. We spend so much time on how we perceive the appearance of others, even though appearance has nearly zero to do with the person, the mind, or the soul in there. So let’s pretend we will disregard that part. What else can we disregard? Maybe we could scurry about a little less, reduce our busyness, purge our calendars that are packed with so many things that there is no room to sit and think. Everyone needs to sit and think. Kids need to sit and think. We schedule their days like they are in military school. And we rush about, driving here and there, gathering up kids, dropping them off, volunteering, making food, comparing our lives with other parents, fretting…. all the fretting. Bump, bump, bump against the window we go.

From our new wide view, maybe we would be able to better see this amazing blue dot of a planet out here in the middle of nowhere. How was it that a spark of life took off so very long ago, and our ship became capable of sustaining life? In this vast, cold, silent space, life somehow snapped awake on this rock, and over the millennia it has thrived and teemed. What kind of magic is that? How often do we pause to think on it? We are living miracles. Life is a miracle, a mystery, a journey with every possible fascinating turn. But when we are lost in its minutia, we forget. So easily. In the play Our Town by Thornton Wilder, there is a poignant scene of the young character Emily, who has died. She is given the opportunity to relive a day; just an ordinary day. She chooses her 12th birthday, and finds herself being called to breakfast by her mother, who to Emily seems so young and lovely. While her mother and father go about their daily tasks, Emily tries to halt the scene and take it all in, and she begs the living to see it, too, and to cherish all of it. She is so completely overwhelmed by the beauty of every moment that she can’t bear to stay. She leaves, bidding farewell to her Earthly existence: “Good-by, Good-by, world. Good-by, Grover’s Corners . . . Mama and Papa. Good-by to clocks ticking . . . and Mama’s sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new-ironed dresses and hot baths . . . and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you.” Indeed.

If only we could drag ourselves out of those dark corners, even for a little bit, to take a new look at this world, like Emily did, and to relish the magic of being alive in it. How lucky we are to stroke our cat’s head as he purrs, or to wrap our arms around our dog’s fine neck and rest our head against hers. What magic allows us to get up onto a horse and feel its strength beneath us, and ride off with abandon? How perfect are our tongues that can taste chocolate, or can make a kiss so suddenly and urgently passionate? Our fingers and toes are so perfectly designed, with the bones and sinew so aligned that we can hike or dance; play the piano or make a pie crust; or braid the fine hair of a child. We can use these vocal cords and make music right in our throats. We have adapted to life on this planet in ways that none of us ever truly realizes. So many ideas and inventions, so many conveniences. We are fantastic creatures and we can do so much. We can look into the eyes of our lovers or our babies, and we can sense the comfort of love there. The touch of one hand to another gives us solace. We can hug. We can laugh. All of it.

If we stepped up the window just a little, maybe we could see our dear Earth more clearly. Perhaps we could detect the changing colors of the water, the sea’s unhealthy rise, the hillsides too brown. Maybe we would be inspired to be more careful — to turn off the spigot sooner, use fewer plastics, recycle our stuff — any of that. The planet is not invulnerable. Oh, she’s tough. Tough as can be. But if we don’t treat her with some understanding and kindness, she’s going to stop being as hospitable as she’s been all these gazillion revolutions ‘round the sun. She doesn’t have much of a choice. We’re getting to be a problem. Like a rash. An itchy, relentless rash that is spreading and not responding to remedies very well. I mean, we’re a cute rash, sure. Our babies are to die for. And we’re funny and clever and ingenious sometimes. But we aren’t very nice to our planet these days, and we take her for granted 100% of our time here. We should try not to do that so much.

I readily admit that much of this I am writing for myself because I feel so defeated in this world sometimes. As the bizarre, surreal politics play out every day, I feel the noose of unenlightenment tightening. Human beings driven by fear or by greed can be a scary lot. As the axe of division continues to chop away, people seem to find it easier to simply categorize those they don’t understand. The “dems” or “libtards”; the “repuglicans” or “magats” — names for those with whom we disagree. We put these people into a box, and then we can easily strip them of any humanity. We lump them into one pile and declare that pile to be worthless. My mom has always taught me that everyone has some good. Everyone. And we have to work to find it sometimes. But in this time of instant updates and a hawk-eyed social media public, we have no time to breathe, let alone find the good. So our boxes of disregarded humans just get more packed. We don’t remember that they are more like us than not. We just remember to hate them. We hide them and check them off our “friend” list. We avoid them. When a person randomly holds a door for me or exchanges a brief kind word with me, I wonder sometimes if we would be as kind to one another if we knew more. I hope so, but I am certainly not sure.

As we stretch our wings up here above all the complications of this wearying world, perhaps we’ll stop seeing borders on the land. Maybe we’ll just see land, as it is, with no man-made lines of separation. How freeing that would be. Goodbye to tribalism and nationalism — those -isms that bring such hardship. We are intent on building walls and fences to keep the “other” out. Why? What is the point of staking out a spot and then fighting to the death over it? Why are we compelled to seek out more land and shove others away from it by force in order to have it? Why are we convinced that the way we live is the right way, and all should fall in line or be gone? All of this leads to nothing but pain. Over and over, on and on, bump, bump, bump.

In our little arcs of existence on this planet, we sure do spend a lot of our time fretting about how others live their own arcs. I don’t think it is the best use of our time to police others, and to make laws based on how a certain portion of people perceive how one should live a life. I believe we must protect our children, of course, and protect one another from those who may harm us. But when it comes to who people choose to love and to be loved in return — why would we fret about that? If we are finding our own comfort and building our own unique relationships, I see no reason at all to step out of that pursuit in order to complain, penalize, and actually enact laws to restrict how others find their own contentment. Fear drives much of that, I think. Humans fear losing the familiar and of having to adjust to the unfamiliar. The idea of losing one’s footing, of being proven wrong, of being unsure of how to proceed — those are powerful tools for the fear-mongers who feed the flames of insecurity, convincing followers that they must rise up against the new. Then deep-seated sexism and racism are validated and fanned to raging flames. Fear leads to more groups of people being shoved into the boxes stripped of their humanness, and the divisions deepen. Such a vicious cycle.

In the embattled existence we all have to varying degrees, there is only one true remedy to all that ails us. We can have all the money in the world, or the most splendid mansion, or the most followers on social media, or a dizzying stack of awards won. But what comforts us more than any of this? The comfort of another living thing. The security of knowing we matter to someone. And as we slip away from this planet and go on, I truly believe the only thing we take with us is love. Love is our buoyant, warm transport to the next step. We are sent off by all the souls who hold us dear. I am pretty sure we will feel that blanket of care as we head out. And those who mourn our exit will rely on love to heal and to go on without us. So in the end, nothing is as vital as love. Nothing is as lasting or as real. If we could step up on that window frame and look out, I think love is what we would see. If we behave as if that is all that matters, then we find more patience, more acceptance, more ease, and less stress. When we look at others with at least a semblance of love and a moment’s worth of empathy, seeing them as actual living beings all trying to make their way along this bizarre and magic path of life, the heaviness in our own hearts lifts. It just does. And we move closer to the way out of those bleak, useless places where what we do and the energy we expend is all futility.

Over the many years since I collated that calendar, I have thought about the bee. When I finally realize at times that I am wallowing in the filthy corner doing nothing but getting tired, I do try to turn around and aim for the window frame. I’m not sure at all if I am very often successful, but at least I give it a go. I hope I keep trying. You’re welcome to give it a whirl, too.

A January Swan Song

I sent an email to my editor last week. I told him that the January 31st issue of The Republican newspaper will be my last. How strange that is. My history with the newspaper has been long and arduous, and comes after my father’s experience, my mother’s, two brothers, my grandparents, my grand-uncle and aunt, and my great-grandparents. I am the last Sincell to add to the paper, after 129 years of at least one of us involved, if not several at any given time. And I don’t mean to imply that our family is all that special or anything. It just has been the lifework of several of us over the century-plus, and there has been a family member there since B.H. Sincell bought The Republican in 1890, when he was all of 21 years old. I imagine him sometimes, there in the office, working alone, making fairly meager money but enough, gathering county news and putting on the pages. He was so young. I’m nearly certain he never thought his newspaper would stay in his family for more than a century. He just needed a job, and he saw an opportunity. Through our family that thread has remained, until now.

But it’s okay because nothing in this life is really that important. At least, nothing like companies or materials or papers; offices or desks or pencils. In the entire scheme of things, a family business can be noble, but not indispensable. After wrangling it around in my brain for quite some time, I am sure now that it is okay to let it go. Traditions can be burdensome. Familiarity and ease of known surroundings and tasks can tuck a person firmly into a rut, which over time can become a cave, with little light or room to stretch. I am sure it is time for me to stretch. Life is indeed short, and there is a time to stay in familiar surroundings, and there is a time to leave them.

There are so many stories about the family biz, though. So many to tell. So I have created this subset of writings all about the family business, the newspaper, The Republican, so named in honor of Abraham Lincoln a mere 12 years after he was murdered. The paper began as a re-do of the Garrett Gazette, bought in 1877 by Captain James Hayden, a Civil War veteran who fought at Gettsyburg and who revered the late president. Hayden lived in Mountain Lake Park, at that time an up-and-coming vacation spot with a Chautauqua feel. City folks traveled by train to the little village during the summer months, escaping the heat and bustle of Baltimore and Washington, D.C., to spend a few months on the top of the mountain ridge. Classes were available throughout the cool summer weeks in art, archery, Bible studies, cooking, bicycle repair, and anything else one might dream up in the 1870s. The huge 5,000-seat Mountain Lake Park Amphitheater offered plays, acrobatics, all sorts of music, and rousing evangelistic preachers shouting their Good News to the rafters. So was life in Hayden’s little town.

After 13 years of publishing, the captain was ready to move on, and sold his little operation to Benjamin Sincell. The story is, Ben turned 21 on the day he published his first issue of The Republican. He was working out of a building located along Liberty Street at that time, but in a few years he and his brothers went together to build a structure along Second Street that would house a law office for Edward, a haberdashery for brother Harry, and the newspaper and print shop for Ben. Oakland was just a baby still, having been founded just in 1849. The streets were dirt, of course, and often traversed by livestock. Cows, chickens, and pigs were herded down the road in town, and of course horses were the mode of transportation. (When the Civic Club of Oakland was founded some years later, one of the women’s first orders of business was to lobby for an ordinance to keep the pigs off Second Street.)

The Sincell brothers built their homes a few blocks north, also along Second Street. The houses were huge, with plenty of room for families to come. I now live on a street perpendicular to Second. When I come out of my house and step onto Pennington Street, I can see B.H.’s house, my father’s childhood house which is just across the road, and Harry’s home. I can look southeast up on a hill to see the edge of the Oakland Cemetery, where all these folks are buried. I can even see a spire that marks one Sincell plot involving six little cousins of mine who were Richardson siblings — of my great-great-aunt and uncle, I think — who all died within the same year of some childhood illness like diphtheria or influenza. And all these deaths are reported in The Republican. Such a circular route I have traveled, following them here, being surrounded by them. I didn’t plan it. But there it is.

Many, many times I have walked down the alley between B.H.’s house and my dad’s on my way to work at the paper, and I have felt them there, or sensed their long-past energies. I worked in that same building that they built along Second Street for about 26 years. And I grew up going there, trudging up those steps (there are something like 24, I think), to be met by my grandparents and grand-aunt Tink (Adeline). They would gush over me and give me hugs. My grandfather Mose (Donald) Sincell would be standing in the back shop, running a printing machine. He would grin and wait for me to come stand by him. Then he would dig in his pocket for a minute and inevitably produce a quarter, which he would press into my hand. A quarter was a lot. I could go right downstairs to Proudfoot’s Pharmacy and buy candy or gum with that. Or I could keep it, rolling it around in my hand, feeling rich. My grandmother was pointier than Mose. She loved me, sure, but she was not as pillowy. She had sharp elbows and a sharp nose, and often a sharp demeanor. But she was kind and funny, too. Aunt Tink was extra soft, gushy to me, and forever just on the edge of sadness about her many miscarriages that kept her from mothering. She so wanted to mother. She called me “lamb” and thought everything I did was spectacular.

My mom was there, too, first operating the Linotype machine, which was a fascinating and complicated monster. It melted its own pigs of lead, which then were piped into molds right there in the thing’s innards, and then at the touch of Mom’s fingers on the keys — where were not laid out in the “QWERTY” style, by the way, but rather some higgeldy-piggeldy fashion long forgotten — lead column-width pieces would drop down, spelling words backward so as to be printed forward. I would stand for quite a long time watching the pigs (crudely cast bars of lead) sinking into the hot cauldron, slowing drowning into themselves, going from loaves of lead to molten silver it seemed. My dad could run it, and then at least two of my brothers learned. My great-grandfather had written a letter to his betrothed, my great-grandmother Tay (Lillian), back in 1893 after he attended the Chicago Exposition. He had seen this wonderful machine there, the Linotype, which intrigued and thrilled him, and he said he would have to get one sometime soon. And he did so, I believe before the turn of the century. When I was a kid, there were two in nearly constant use at the office. The last one sat for many years untouched, until we finally had to haul it away for scrap. The march of technology is never sentimental, that’s for sure.

As I grew up, my dad took over most of the work at the paper as his father aged. My grand-uncle George Hanst, grandmother Elsie’s brother, was the editor for decades, following B.H. Brother Don took on that role in the 1970s. George’s wife Polly, a tiny, energetic spitfire of a revolutionary woman, wrote columns in the paper, and also wrote regularly for the Farmer’s Wife magazine. So all around me were writers, journalists, and wordsmiths. I was steeped in it all, from the beginning. It is no wonder that I ended up joining the crew myself, which I did in 1990. I hadn’t meant to, really… I didn’t start out thinking, “Oh, I will make my career in hometown news reporting.” But I was 28, married to my love John who for better or worse had agreed to living in my home county, and we were hoping to start a family. A writing job opened in the newsroom, and there I went. Now, nigh on 30 years later, I am walking away.

I really left a year ago, mostly, after we sold the company to NCWV Media, a Clarksburg-based newspaper company. We came to that decision over years of wondering what we were going to do. Newspapers are on the wane, and have been for quite a while. And the print shop had struggled for years. Everyone does their own printing, or goes online to find the cheapest available. The days of the local friendly printer have gone the way of the local haberdasher, shoemaker, and wheelwright. We could have continued to publish the paper — which had become quite arduous as getting the materials to do it was getting more difficult and costly— until we all three just dropped over dead. Instead we searched for someone who might want to buy an established, long-running publication, and keep it going. We were lucky to find that someone in Brian Jarvis, the owner of NCWV. But selling a family business is not without pain and angst.

I worked for a few months as the editor, but my philosophy of county journalism, drilled into me over the decades by my family, did not weave well into the new company’s ideas. We all have our beliefs in how things should be done, and to alter mine to fit the new folks’ vision was, in the end, impossible. So I left as editor, but remained as a writer of the arts activities of the Garrett County mountaintop, and as a columnist once a month. For a bit longer than a year I have done that, diligently. But it is time to go. I have put a great deal of energy and hard work and dedication into my job. I think I have done well. And it is now time to put it to bed, and to wake up to something new. I once wrote a column about the difficulty of transition — in childbirth, and in life. This is one of those times. Letting go of such a significant piece of my heritage is bittersweet. I do not miss the stress or the in-office spats. I do not miss the unreliable equipment that could so frustratingly interrupt the flow of our day. I do indeed miss the people with whom I worked to get the paper out each week. I miss the newsroom chats on politics or the news of the day. I miss the feeling of producing something each week that did help people of my community in many ways. I think I did okay with it over the years. I know I did, in fact. And so, now I must let it sleep.

On I go.