February 26, 2023
By Arthur H. Gunther III
The daughter of a Rockland Journal-News colleague from long ago when the community newspaper still existed at 53 Hudson Ave., Nyack, N.Y., recently sent me an unidentified photograph of her as a very young child, taken in the newsroom. Her mother is gone now, but this discovered picture has her wondering about it, and so her mom.
Since I was there, in the same newsroom, toiling in the daily birth of news, she wanted to know if I could provide information about the photo.
Sure. It was taken by the late Andy Dickerman, a fellow photog who usually roamed the city room and snapped pictures of everyone and anyone. I was able to tell the daughter, who was cleaning out her mother’s Cape Cod home, who the lensman was and who the reporter was in the photo.
Very small thing, of course, and happy to provide the information. Yet for the daughter of my late colleague, a precious gift, for filling in the details helps her write the book of her life and so connect with the memory of her mom as she heals from her loss.
Humanity seems to provide these moments of small but important reassurance. That also restates individual worth for the receiver as well as the giver.
The writer is a retired newspaperman. ahgunther@yahoo.com
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