The article that I mentioned the other day was one of those short around the town type of stories that local newspapers are filled with.

In 1954 a reporter stopped into one of those old fashioned mom and pop type of stores run by Tillie Line in Myerstown, Pennsylvania, and asked to take her photograph. She demurred. But five year old Mary Kopala happened to be in the store at the time, so Tillie agreed to have her picture taken if young Mary would pose in it with her.

Here is the story as published on July 17, 1954.

A charming slice of 1954 Lebanon County life.

When Mary asked me to search for the story, she mentioned that it had been James Shelhamer, the father of one of my high school classmates, who was the reporter with the camera in the store that day who snapped the photograph.

But the story appeared as part of a column by someone named Hal Fox with the title Farm Editor. Could it be that he didn’t actually write the column but merely compiled or edited the work submitted by several other staff writers?

Here is the entire column. Oh, yes, it has a brief mention of a cousin of mine, Clarence’s son Byrd (in the “On Monday” section), which I didn’t even notice until I added it to this post.