As we’ve reconnected with former Call and Post employees in celebration of our 95th Anniversary, I have been in awe of the style, class and grace of the women who have come in – not to mention the clarity of which they recall their time spent with the paper.
By KEVIN ‘CHILL’ HEARD
Managing Editor
As we’ve reconnected with former Call and Post employees in celebration of our 95th Anniversary, I have been in awe of the style, class and grace of the women who have come in – not to mention the clarity of which they recall their time spent with the paper.
The youthful resilience these women display is to be held in the highest of regards.
Maybe it’s the ink on the paper they come in contact with that acts as a fountain of youth, maybe it’s our noble cause of service, celebration and advocating on behalf of our community that serves as an anti-aging serum and our most recent encounter with Mrs. Hannah Brown-Manuel continues this tradition.
The day Hannah came into the C&P to share her story, she lit up the room. Her warmth and style was an easy tip-off of a past life as a model and debutant.
But, just as many before her, her first connection with the newspaper started off as a delivery girl. It would seem that the moniker of “newsboy” often belies a bit of a misnomer when it comes to the dispersal of the Call and Post newspaper throughout the community, especially in the ‘40s and ‘50s.
Hannah easily recalled being a top and dedicated “delivery girl” in the mid ‘50s.
“I was a 10 year-old little girl pulling a wagon [with Call and Post newspapers]” relates the easy-going former debutant and teenage model.
She proudly pulled that wagon of papers around the 130th street areas of Signet, Imperial and Lorenzo.
Years later, after her loyal service of lugging the C&P from house to house as a child, fate and circumstance would bring her back to the paper in a more regal capacity.
The occasion of her return was the open house for the new Call and Post location on 105th and Chester Avenue in the early ‘60s. The move from our early digs on 55th and Central must have been held with all the excitement and expectation that encompassed our most recent move to our current Shaker Blvd. location.
It was at the open house that Hannah was again called into duty but this time as a hostess, gracefully escorting various dignitaries around the new facilities. To meet Hannah Brown Manuel today, it is easy to evoke her days as a young model. Her whole demeanor exudes a smooth and charismatic essence.
In our 95 years of existence, we are certainly proud to have been associated with women such as Hannah Brown Manuel.
If you worked for or at the Call and Post newspaper over the last 95 years in any capacity, contact us by email at info@call-post.com or call us at (216) 588-6700. Don’t let the next 95 years come and go without you checking in at least one more time. History is calling you. You have a story to tell and now is the time to tell it.
Yes, we are looking for you and your story.
