On June 10, 2024, my Mom, Lorraine Logue, passed away at the age of 95. She lived to see a lot of things in her lifetime.

One part of her life that I want to share is her work at the Times News. Back in the 1960s and ’70s, my mom worked first in the billing department; then, later, she became circulation manager. She was very creative in her work, and she took care of the newspaper carriers who passed her way. She had contests for them and took them on field trips to places like Angela Park.

One aspect of her job that I appear to have copied is that she used to take photographs of events and have them published in the Times News. I tagged along on a few such trips. The one I remember most was a gathering of snowmobile enthusiasts who were meeting at a snowy field somewhere in Schuylkill County. They had a bonfire going and that was the first time I ever tried homemade ham and bean soup.

Ironically, because of her, my left arm became very popular. We were delivering newspapers on a driver’s route, and she decided to take a photograph of my hand holding a copy of the Times News, ready to insert it into a customer’s newspaper box. For the next 10 years or so, whenever the paper advertised for a new route driver, they used that photograph.

Her camera of choice was a Polaroid 103 folding land camera. You took the picture, pulled it out of the camera, allowed it to develop, then peeled the photo from the backing and the negative. Then you had to go over the photo with a coater to protect the photo.

Other memories of her work at the Times News included newspaper supplements, like the supermarket inserts. Before they had machines to do it, they would set up an assembly line around the circulation area, and we would go around and insert them into the newspapers.

She also learned how to drive a car very well, since she often had to go out and deliver a driver’s route if they could not do it. One winter morning, on her way to work, she came across one of her co-workers from another department whose car had slid off the road. He could not get the car out no matter what he did. She got into his car, put it in gear, and it came right out for her.

I inherited the photography from her and from my Dad, also a photographer. So it is to both my parents that I offer my thanks; not just for the photography, but for their love and for teaching me things I needed to learn.