I just wanted to thank The Forum for running the story on my grandma, Margaret Nelson in the Forum's 125th Anniversary Special as being a long time subscriber for 74 years.
The story and picture you ran of Grandma was not the first time she has had her picture in your paper. We have an original copy of The Forum from June 10, 1931, that has a picture of a young Margaret Chilton Nelson as an employee of Black's Department Store.
It seems that Black's ran a listing of the personnel at their store and the departments that they worked in and their specialties. Margaret worked in the Men's Furnishings and Work Clothes Dept. What an ingenius way to advertise for the store by making the sales staff really stand out and almost befriend the customers. When you were in need of something in particular, you could go and look up one of the many sales specialists you saw in the paper and get your needs taken care of.
Even though it was just an advertisement, back in those days getting your picture in the paper was a big thing. Times haven't changed that much over the years; it is still an honor to get your picture in the paper. Thank you for honoring my grandmother by putting her picture in your paper again. I find it quite interesting that the young lady in the paper in 1931 is still a loyal subscriber to the paper in 2003. I bet she never dreamt that she would have her picture in The Forum again at the age of 97 for being the longest subscriber!
Over the years we always received letters from Grandma that always contained clippings from The Forum. I am the historian in the family and I have boxes of letters and old clippings that she cut out about people she knew, events that were going on and anything of interest to her. I have used wedding announcements and obituaries from The Forum to piece together my family's history and get dates and names of people that have been lost. I even found reference to my Dad when he was in the Army during the Korean War.
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So truly you can see that The Forum has really been apart of my grandma's life for 74 years. Thank you for running such a nice story on Grandma. Your paper has truly been a joy to her over the years and continues to be even today.
Terri Nelson
Aurora, Colo.
