The Wisner Bee: December 1928 (Vol. 6, No. 5)

Wisner, NE: The Wisner Bee, 1928. 4to (7½" X 11¼"). Self-cover. 6pp. Advertisements. Goodly only. Age toned, delicate and a tad brittle. Original issue of this extraordinary oddity and a modern newspaper rarity: The final issue of this local newspaper edited and published by brothers Graham and Hutton Howe, begun by them at ages 11 and 9! Graham was born in 1912 and Hutton in 1914, and this juvenile production includes local newsy tidbits, cartoons, poems and a decent number of paid advertisements. Accompanied by a superb content Typed Letter Signed from Graham, 1p, 8½" X 11", Wisner, NE, 31 January 1938. Addressed to Arnold F. Gates (1914-93), noted Lincoln and Civil War scholar. Near fine. On letterhead of "Howe Brothers Printers," Graham grants Gates request for a signed copy of their childhood newspaper (Graham signs the upper left corner of the newspaper, adding "Editor" beneath, and Hutton signs the upper right corner). He then gives a full explanation of the newspaper's history: "My brother Hutton and I published a small monthly newspaper, The Wisner Bee, for about five years when we were of high school age, -- from 1923 to 1928. However, in December, 1928, we suspended publication of the paper because of increasing high school activities (that was the middle of my senior year), and because I planned to leave Wisner the following fall to study journalism at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. Those plans I carried out, being graduated from the University of Nebraska school of journalism in 1933. Since The Bee had been purely an undertaking of a couple of 'kids', it would have been impossible to resume publication of it on the same basis as before. So I looked elsewhere for work. Curiously, I finally secured a job outside of newspaper work -- as bookkeeper in a local bank. I hope someday, however, to get back into newspaper work." He goes on: "Hutton has also attended the university, and is now seeking work. We still have all the equipment we used in publishing our paper, and do job printing whenever we get away -- in our spare time....." Both brothers' names appear in the upper corners of this letterhead (in same positions as they signed the newspaper), but clearly this hobby business could not support them. Hutton served in the U.S. Army during World War Two, then ended up working for Jensen Printing Company in Minneapolis, dying in 2010 at age 96. One of the most peculiar of newspapers from this tiny community in Northeast Nebraska whose population today (1,170 hasn't changed much since "The Wisner Bee" was published.