THE FLINT JOURNAL / STUART BAUER Flint Journal reader Margaret VanWormer still has the original special edition coverage of the Beecher tornado in 1953. Her family lived nearby and lost friends to the storm. The special edition cost a dime, did not cover the cost of printing and had no ads.

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By Rose Mary Reiz
Journal Staff Writer

Any news is big news if it happens to someone you love � and Flint Journal readers have the clippings to prove it.

Newspaper clippers face tough foe: time There�s a reason most old newspaper clippings are yellow, tattered and look older than their years. �Because of the type of paper used, newspapers are the hardest things to preserve,� said David White, curator of collections for Sloan Museum. Exposure to air, sunlight � even the ultraviolet rays from indoor lights � all cause newspaper clippings to yellow and deteriorate. �They will yellow no matter what you do,� White said. Some people save clippings between the pages of a book, but the book will not protect the clipping for long, and the newspaper will eventually stain the book, White said. There are ways to minimize the damage. After clipping a newspaper item to save, White suggested keeping the item flat, not folded, and out of direct light. One way to do this is to have the clipping mounted on acid-free paper, using old-fashioned corner tabs. The clipping can then be framed under UV-filtered glass. Acid-free materials can be found in scrapbook supply stores, White said. A simpler way to preserve clippings is to laminate them. Laminating lessens the value of clippings for serious collectors, but is a good way to preserve an item for personal use. �Newspapers really have to be over 100 years old to be valuable for collectors anyway,� White said. �Laminating works just fine for most people.� � Rose Mary Reiz

In response to our request, more than 130 readers wrote, called and e-mailed us to describe the newspaper items they�ve clipped and saved over the years.

�I�m an avid clipper of Flint Journal articles,� said Alta Walls of Burton. �They can be found all around my house � under glass table tops, on the refrigerator, fastened on mirrors and even in the bottoms of the clean clothes baskets.�

Sometimes yellow and cracked with age, clippings serve as a historical record of personal milestones: Births, graduations, engagements, weddings, deaths � and the occasional daring adventure.

�I got married on roller skates in 1979,� said Bethany Harris of Genesee Township. �The Journal came out and did a story on the wedding. Twenty-two years later, I still have people say, �Aren�t you the lady who got married on roller skates?� �

Lottie O�Driscoll, 79, of Flint saved a copy of the 1981 article that featured a cross-country trip she made at age 60 in the sidecar of her son�s motorcycle. O�Driscoll and her son traveled through the 120-degree desert, survived an attack of bees and communicated with each other by means of flash cards that said �restroom,� �hungry,� �thirsty� and �stop!�

Linda Holton�s adventure began when her son, Shane, was born in 1992 weighing just 1 pound, 8 ounces. Shane thrived despite the odds. As his first birthday approached, The Journal featured the family in a full-page, feel-good story about the �Holton miracle baby.�

�I purchased 75 copies of that issue and sent them to everyone I knew,� Holton said.

Shane isn�t the only area youngster who entered the world with reading to catch up on.

Lisa Smothers of Burton has saved 105 Journal sections since 1985, when her son was born. The collection includes accounts of the Challenger crash, Jacqueline Kennedy�s death, the Oklahoma City bombing, General Motors strikes � even boxer Mike Tyson biting the ear of his opponent.

�I thought it would be neat, years from now, for my son to see what was going on,� Smothers said.

Nancy Sodini of Flint Township has saved the front pages from the days of her daughters� first birthdays, along with clips from the day Princess Diana died and news of the recent Florida election recount.

�One of the main reasons I am doing this is that I can remember when I was young and President Kennedy was killed,� Sodini wrote. �Too bad I didn�t save the front page of the paper that day.�

Plenty of others did. The 12-page insert on the life of John F. Kennedy, published in The Journal the day after his death, has been saved by many readers.

�I cherish that insert,� said Sharon Prevo of Davison. �I�d never part with it.�

World War II news � both international and local � was clipped and saved by many.

Janet Mack of Grand Blanc saved this photo of her mother and sister (center) helping celebrate the end of World War II.

John Shanahan, 81, still has a 1944 photograph of 16 soldiers, including himself, who were stationed together in eastern India only to discover they were all from Flint.

Others saved maps, editorials, cartoons and obituaries chronicling the war years. When the war ended, The Journal printed a photograph of some of the thousands who celebrated in downtown Flint.

�My mother and sister are in the front center of the photo,� said Janet Lietch Mack of Grand Blanc, who still has the original clipping.

�It is yellow with age but still is priceless to me,� Mack said.

News of the 1953 Beecher tornado also was worth saving.

�At the time, we lived less than a mile away, lost friends to the tornado and grieved for them but were grateful it wasn�t us,� wrote Margaret VanWormer of Burton, who still has The Journal�s special tornado edition.

After 35 years as a Buick employee, Bonnie Petee of Clayton Township saved articles relating to the closing of Buick City.

�It was a very sad and very momentous day in our lives,� Petee wrote. �Sad for those who knew not what was coming next, and joy for those of us who had put in our years and were moving into retirement.�

Some articles were published at just the right time, like the 1989 piece on the benefits of quitting smoking, which helped Carolyn Nicks of Swartz Creek kick the habit.

�I cut the story out and stuck it on my refrigerator door with magnets,� Nicks said. �I looked at it several times daily, whenever I really wanted a cigarette. That article helped me quit smoking more than gum or patches ever could have.�

Other clippings represent dreams that never quite came to be.

In 1977, Katharyn Brown of Lennon fell in love with plans for a rustic house featured in The Journal�s home improvement section.

�I kept it because I had hopes of building a retirement home up north somewhere my husband and I both liked,� said Brown. �But I�ve never retired, and my husband has no desire to go north. He says it�s too cold.�

Some clippings have been discovered in unusual places. Gloria Watters of Davison received a copy of her 1950 engagement announcement after it was found between the walls of a home being remodeled by her cousin�s friend.

�Because the name in the article was Vohwinkle and my cousin�s name is Vohwinkle, the man knew it had to be some relation,� said Watters, who celebrated her 50th wedding anniversary last year.

When Milton and Azalia Powers died a few years ago, their daughter, Janet Lieffers, inherited the home she grew up in � and the newspaper clippings her parents saved.

�I�ve found complete newspapers on tornadoes, floods and snowstorms back in the �40s and �50s,� said Lieffers of Mt. Morris.

�My father would clip out car accidents and pin them to a wall downstairs so us kids, when we were teens, would see what could happen to us. They are still there.�

Lloyd and Ramona Hemingway of Otter Lake have saved grocery advertisements as well as news clippings since 1937 � just so they can remember the days when ketchup cost 19 cents a bottle and onions 14 cents a pound.

Mary Burrows of Davison still has a 1954 insurance advertisement in which teenagers were warned of the responsibilities and dangers of driving.

�When this was published, my son was 14 years old,� Burrows wrote. �I knew that when the time came to give him the car keys, my husband and I could never say it as well as this article did. I don�t remember if we ever did show it to him � I probably forgot I had it. It�s been hidden away all these years.�

On the back of the article is a list of show times for the movie, �Gone With the Wind,� and an advertisement for dance lessons � four sessions for $3.

Estelle Kaufman has a clipping of a photo from Oct. 6, 1976, of herself as a cast member of Gore Vidal�s �The Best Man� by the Flint Community Players. Her cousin, Judith Kasle, had saved the clipping in a large Ziploc bag and gave it to her after Kaufman�s house burned in 1994.

Kaufman said she is amused by one memory the picture brings back: The photographer assumed by the title that the play was a romance, and kept trying to get her and the male lead together for a tight shot. When he realized the play was a political satire, he had to shift gears.

Over the years, the newspaper has inspired as well as informed.

Connie Kramer of Grand Blanc has saved a 1997 article about the spiritual journey of a local man with multiple sclerosis.

�I have been on dialysis 11 years,� Kramer wrote. �I reread this article for encouragement and inspiration.�

The advice of syndicated columnist Ann Landers has been fastened to many a refrigerator over the years, as have recipes and comics.

Margaret Abrams of Burton saved a two-page comic tribute to Charles Schulz of �Peanuts� fame that The Journal ran last year. Sue Sarka of Flushing saved wise words from a �Calvin & Hobbes� comic in which Calvin remarks, �There is never enough summer to do all the nothing you want to do.�

Our call for clippings inspired Jacqueline Lee of Montrose to write a poem explaining why she clips newspaper articles � and how a recent cleaning frenzy has dwindled her collection.

�For forty years � well, maybe more � I�ve clipped and stored away
Ten thousand articles to keep, reread and sort one day.
But then this mania did hit � various clutter I would trash,
Included were unfiled clips � I never dreamed you�d ask.�

Vivienne Richardson of Flint (above at 22) is now 77 years old. This photo was taken in August 1945 at her parents� house on Chevrolet Avenue with a Journal headline proclaiming the end of war. She knew it would become a historic document.

 Feature writer Rose Mary Reiz started at The Journal in 1986. She can be reached at (810) 766-6353 or rreiz@flintjournal.com.