Letter to the Editor; Reader wants the Record to keep going even if rates rise

To the Editor:

“Five years and counting” [title of the editorial in last week’s Record] is so true, as social media is making it hard for small-town newspapers to continue giving us current news. What keeps me subscribing to The Record is that I keep hoping to see something in the history section about my great grandparents, grandmother and maybe my mother, aunt and uncle. My great grandparents owned the Irby Hotel, which they bought around 1904. They came to Irby by train from Hebron, North Dakota. I remember my grandmother telling me, “You could still smell the fresh paint,” speaking of the hotel.

You probably wonder why I would pay more to keep receiving The Record, as I live in Gig Harbor, Wash.

I have a lot of memories of Irby. I still remember coming to Irby for the first time in 1946. Gas rationing was over, so my mom talked my dad into packing me, my brother, my mother and himself into his 1936 Hudson Terraplane coupe. I remember it was dark, and my mother thought she had found the road to Irby, but my dad almost drove into a pond. But luckily he found Irby, and this was the beginning of a love affair with Irby and the surrounding area. Joanne has also found it interesting and enjoyable to visit Irby with Chuck.

I am very willing to pay more, as I hope others will, to keep The Record going. I will contribute pieces of history to the paper as I locate them.

Chuck Wood/Joanne Kingsbury

Gig Harbor