Subscriber reads paper with daughter in the morning

“Without that, breakfast just isn’t any good.”

“Without that, breakfast just isn’t any good.”

Margaret J. Arnold said in the early days, the Dayton Daily News was one of the only ways her family had to learn any of the news in the city, the nation or the world.

“It was the only medium to find out about sales at all the department stores. A television set in a home was rare, as were the programs,” Arnold said.

Arnold, who will be 90 years old next month, said she has been a subscriber since moving to Dayton as a new bride in 1949 and still feels that the newspaper is a daily must.

She and her daughter like to read the paper together; her daughter does the crossword and Arnold said the first thing she wants to do in the morning is the Sudoku.

“Without that, breakfast just isn’t any good,” Arnold said.

With her family’s home next to a Superfund environmental cleanup site in Old North Dayton, the former Valley Crest Landfill, she said it’s important to know what’s going on. And while she’s gone to some meetings over the years about the cleanup, she said the paper is what really helps them keep up on the news.

She said even after attending meetings about the landfill, she feels she learns even more from the newspaper report later and the context it provides.

“We learn more when the article comes out in the newspaper,” Arnold said.

About the Author