[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 150 (Monday, September 22, 2008)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1854-E1855]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         RECOGNIZING THE ORFORDVILLE JOURNAL AND FOOTVILLE NEWS

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. TAMMY BALDWIN

                              of wisconsin

                    in the house of representatives

                       Monday, September 22, 2008

  Ms. BALDWIN. Madam Speaker, I rise today in tribute to the 
Orfordville Journal and Footville News, which ceased publication on 
August 15, 2008, after nearly a century of chronicling the lives of 
families in the Orfordville area of Rock County, Wisconsin. Its 
dedicated owners and publishers, the Stewart family, kept the small 
weekly newspaper alive for 92 years. Upon its closing, the Journal-News 
was the second oldest business in Orfordville.
  The first issue of the Orfordville Journal debuted on December 17, 
1908, but it was not until 1916 that the Stewart family became its 
owners, when Ward A. Stewart purchased the struggling newspaper at age 
22. Later that year, a young woman named Rose came to work for the 
Journal. Rose and Ward soon married on a Wednesday night in 
Orfordville, but only after the printing of that week's paper was 
complete.
  This and countless other Stewart family anecdotes illustrate a 
behind-the-scenes picture of the Journal-News as a quintessential 
family business rooted in the community that

[[Page E1855]]

it served. Early on, the Stewarts relied on the assistance of several 
local women to create the weekly Orfordville Journal. The labor was 
painstaking and slow--all of the typesetting was completed by hand, 
letter by letter, and pages were printed using hand-rollers.
  When the newspaper added the Footville News section in 1925, the 
Stewarts upgraded to a linotype typesetting machine to speed production 
and accommodate the growing territory. Rose Stewart typically ran the 
linotype with her son, George, by her side, sleeping in a cradle, and 
as he got older, standing by in a playpen. At age 8, George had already 
written his first story. When he later entered journalism school at the 
University of Wisconsin, he found himself firmly upon the path to a 
career in the newspaper industry.
  George Stewart and his wife, Betty, eventually succeeded his parents 
as owners of the Journal-News. George and Betty ushered the Journal-
News into the 21st century with modern, computer-aided production 
processes; even so, the paper never lost its community focus and 
homegrown appeal. I commend the Stewarts on their service to their 
community and look forward to their new venture, an online Orfordville 
area news website.

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