Yellow Pages
Bernice Dolin of Mount Vernon remembers the Skagit Valley Herald from her childhood in the mid 1930s.
Each evening, after supper, her father sifted through the daily news while sitting at the kitchen table in their Fir Island home.
Having been born and raised in Skagit County, the Skagit Valley Herald, among other regional newspapers, was a staple of reading material for the family.
At 84, Dolin has traced her father’s footsteps as she’s been reading the Skagit Valley Herald since 1962.
“It’s been a source of knowing what’s going on around the county and around the world,” Dolin said.
She said reading was something that was very important to her family.
Local news, obituaries, letters to the editor and the comics are the sections she reads most. On Sundays, she’s sure to keep tabs on how state representatives have voted.
“I like to know what’s going on around here,” she said. “I’m curious, I guess.”
Over the years. Dolin has seen history unfold through the pages of the Skagit Valley Herald.
She remembers reading about Hitler and World War II and seeing the effects of the war close to home.
“I was at an age then when a lot of boys I knew were dropping out of high school and joining the service,” Dolin said. “A certain amount of them didn’t come back. That was very sad.”
For the past 47 years, Dolin has met many of her newspaper carriers. She said she got to know a few of them well when the paper was delivered in the afternoons.
If carriers have missed her house, they usually have done everything they can to get her a copy.
She remembers a young boy who missed her house one day.
He was out of copies and purchased an issue himself in order to deliver her paper.
“It was nice, and then I felt guilty,” Dolin said. “He was spending his own money to make his customer happy.”
Dolin said when she was younger, her family relied on the radio and newspapers to receive their news. She’s seen the shift to a combination of both, including televised news.
Although the majority of news is acquired from the Internet, she said newspapers are necessary.
It’s been sad to see so many newspapers closing, Dolin said.
“If it’s up to me, the newspapers would keep publishing forever,” she said.
“I just hope they don’t go by the wayside.”
But Dolin, who doesn’t have a computer, said she will always rely on the in-depth coverage in her local daily as she continues the family’s love of reading.
* This report is part of a special section celebrating 125 years of news coverage by the Skagit Valley Herald. To see others, click on the headlines below:
Newspapers have become a multiplatform business
Family’s newspaper lineage dates back to E.W. Scripps in 1878
Longtime carrier learned about dependability
Back in time, A look at some notable businesses of yesteryear
Company ‘lifer’ never planned to stay long
Readers share opinions of the newspaper, positive and otherwise
