Born To Be a Newspaper Man

by Martin J. McGowan Jr.

College Summers

What to do during three months away from school seemed to pose a problem. While I enjoyed being away from that routine I felt I should be doing something interesting. However, my father had other ideas. Something had come up where he felt I could be useful elsewhere.

When Elmer Benson was elected governor of Minnesota he appointed my uncle, Pat McGowan, to the position of state printer. This was a position where he doled out printing for the state government. My father did quite well at this printing since his brother was in charge. The Appleton Press had to join the state typographical union to get the union "bug," or emblem to put on the printing to show the work was done at a union shop. There was some objection to this arrangement since it seemed to be too cozy. It was written up in the St. Paul paper as being a questionable arrangement.

A reader may wonder what all this has to do with the summer of 1939 but we are getting there. A certain amount of background is needed.

When Gov. Benson lost to Harold Stassen that meant a change of administrations and Pat was out. Pat decided to buy a newspaper and become an editor and publisher. He purchased the weekly Willmar Journal at Willmar, Minn. I never understood why he chose this paper in a large town that already had another weekly paper, a daily paper and a radio station. This meant considerable competition for the advertising dollar that sustained the paper. The price must have been very attractive.

There was one saving grace for all this. Pat published the Minnesota Gobbler, a turkey publication. This came about with the support of Earl Olson, a large turkey processor in Willmar.

Despite some misgivings on my part my father volunteered my services to help promote the Willmar Journal. Pat was a salesman. I was not, though I always handled the big, full age accounts from grocers. When we sold our home on Beaver Lake our realtor said I did the most to sell the home.

I didn't look forward to this assignment. It consisted mostly of making calls on farmers and informing them of the new management of the Willmar Journal and urging them to subscribe. To make these calls I had available a new Chevrolet. This came about because Pat had two good friends from Appleton, Reuben Amundson and Luther Evans who first had the Chevrolet agency in Appleton but later moved it to Willmar under the name of Amundson & Evans. After I used the car for calling on farmers the car was to be given away at the Kandiyohi County Fair in a drawing.

I did make good use of the car for personal jaunts. One night I decided to go to Appleton and visit my girlfriend, Helaine Schendel, and go to the Swift County Fair. On the way to Appleton I picked up a speeding ticket and had to pay a fine at the home of the justice of the peace. While Helaine held the justice's grandchild on her lap I paid the fine.

That was not all. The car had a large triangular sign on the top of the car promoting the Journal. The car was spotted by Mary Harrison, the sister of my aunt Helen. Mary reported my presence in Appleton to Pat and when I returned to park the car at Amundson & Evans garage Pat was not pleased because he wanted to give away a low mileage car. Though that was impossible if I was to be traveling all over Kandiyohi county for the summer. As my sister-in-law, Kay Wetter, used to say, "To make a long story short"-the summer was a disaster. My efforts were cut short and I returned to Appleton.

The summer of 1940 is a blur to me. I don't recall what I did that summer. I must have done some work around the Appleton Press, like helping on publication night, delivering papers to Correll, Holloway and Milan, but I am not positive about that.

It was the simmer of l941 that made up for the previous two failures.

I don't know if my Dad knew "Dinty" Moore, the public relations director for the Great Northern Railroad or whether Dad just sought him out. At any rate Moore was the key to me getting a job for the summer. The Great Northern ran the tracks to Glacier Park and ran the tourist hotels in the park.

The main line of the Great Northern did not run through Appleton. A branch line ran through Appleton from Benson to Watertown, S. D. So early in June Dad took me to Benson and put me on the train to Glacier Park. It seemed like an endless trip through North Dakota and most of Montana to get to the park.

On arrival I rode a tourist bus across Logan Pass to Many Glacier hotel. There I was given a room in the employee's dorm and an ill-fitting gray bellhop uniform. I was to be the night bellhop who worked overnight from 11 p. m. to 7 a. m. and met the incoming tourist buses in the morning to get arriving tourists to their rooms.

This is where some of the tips were made. It could be quite a struggle getting heavy suitcases and bags up the narrow stairs to the second floor in this log style hotel. The tips were very important because we had to work off the train fare both ways through the job. I didn't come out very well financially but I do remember getting a silver dollar tip and that was good money in 1941.

Years later when Betty and I visited the park and went to Many Glacier hotel I noticed that the current bellhops had improved on getting the luggage up the stairs. They installed a rope hoist to the main floor from the higher level. They tied the bags together and hoisted them up by rope.

One of the fringe benefits of being the night bellhop was that I had the concession on bottles of mix for drinks. After the bar closed at 11 p. m. anybody desiring mix for a nightcap drink had to get their mix from me. The bottles were kept under the front desk. It was a lucrative sideline and the tips were good.

The night desk clerk was an older man with an artificial arm. We got along well until one day I discovered some of my bottles of mix were missing. I mentioned this to the night clerk and he thought I was accusing him of stealing from me. I guess I never made it clear that I was not accusing him but he didn't take it that way. Our relations were soured. He spent most of his days fishing in the nearby lake.

The daytime desk clerk was a gregarious fellow named John Kellogg. He became a good friend. At the end of the summer he became a bomber pilot for the Air Force. After the war he purchased an auto dealership in Minot, N, D., and married Justine McNevin the sister of my best friend at Notre Dame, Ken McNevin, of Edina. I had exchanged some letters with Justine but nothing came of it.

After about two months I changed jobs. The income was not very great and the night hours began to wear on me. So, I became the person who cleaned up the employee's dorm. This wasn't a very demanding job and there was an opportunity for some time off.

One of the fellows had his car there and five of us decided to go to Canada. Waterton Lake ran across the border from Glacier Park to a park on the Canadian end of the lake. The combined area was called Waterton-Glacier International Park. We visited the Canadian park and moved on to Banff and Lake Louise. Banff is interesting but Lake Louise has one of the most beautiful spots in North America. Looking across the lake to the glacier on the south mountain is truly impressive.

On this trip I bought what might be called a demitasse cup and saucer of English Spode. I bought it to give to my aunt Gertrude and I managed to get it home unbroken. I acquired it after her death and still have it.

One day I had nothing to do and decided to go up a mountain path to a lake nearby. I forget the name of the lake but it was deep and cold. There was a sheet of ice floating on the lake near shore. Like a fool I jumped on the ice floe and it started to move from shore. I thought I was in a real predicament. The ice was too far from shore to jump across and nobody else was around. I didn't know when if ever somebody might come. But fortunately, the wind came up and it blew me back to the shore. With a prayer of thanks, I wended my way back to the hotel and the dorm.

Speaking of cold and ice, by the third week of August the snow began to appear on the mountain tops to indicate the summer was nearly over and so was my job. We didn't know it then but that was also the end of park services for the four years of World War II.

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