Chester Chatter: The beginnings of a writer

By Ruthie Douglas
©2022 Telegraph Publishing LLC

Recently, while going through some old papers I came across a scrapbook of my early writings for the newspaper and recall the time in 1978 that I came to work for The Springfield Reporter.

My dear friend Adoree Allen, who was a writer for The Springfield Reporter, asked me to fill her space while she and her husband went to Florida for two weeks as they looked into buying some property. I did it because she told me, “Nothing happens in Chester.” How wrong she was. The first week I had to cover a murder, a rape and a bad car crash.

I did my best to cover it all. Later the editor, Lee Maldrand, asked me to work part time for him. And then we created the Chester Sentinel as an insert for the Reporter. My husband shot many of the pictures and I wrote the stories.

Then I came up with the idea of writing a weekly column. Chester Chatter had been the name of Chester High School’s yearbook and its newspaper. But those names ended with the new Green Mountain High School. My column was to be about joys and concerns but not gossip. So much time has passed but I am still trying to bring news to our town.

Scene and heard

I saw two robins in my garden last week.

My great grandson, Cassius, is 3 years old. Happy birthday, honey.

Many people are having so much fun playing corn hole at the American Legion.

My home health care person Linnea Palmer is home after a two-week vacation in Florida. Boy am I glad to have her back. I missed her terrible.

Tim Palmer has fallen on the ice and broke his wrist. Here is to his speedy recovery!