August 11, 1884: Proprietor of the Boyertown Demokrat Charles Spatz, Sr. Succumbs

By Margaret Leidy Harner from her book One Day at a Time: A Social History of Boyertown, PA.

August 11, 1884: At 10:40 a.m., Charles Spatz, Sr., proprietor of the Boyertown Demokrat, departed this life after a short five-day illness of typhoid fever. He was 49 years old.

In a eulogy, his 19-year-old son Charles, Jr. wrote about his father’s daily struggle to make his newspaper the very best; “since the beginning, he had been pulling hard against the stream, but by the strictest honesty, economy and sobriety, he kept ‘the ship above water.’” Although disabled bodily, “he never lost courage and worked faithfully ahead until the paper is now read in almost every state in the Union.”

Junior picked up the reins as Editor and implored the many subscribers and customers for their continued patronage. In typical Spatz fashion, he wrote, “We would further be pleased if all those who are in arrears in our books would make settlement as early as possible.”

The senior Spatz had made his newspaper a first-class read and Junior continued the family tradition until 1920, when he turned the reins over to the third generation, his son Frederick. Frederick’s brother Carl considered buying back the family newspaper after he retired as the first Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force in 1948, but he accepted a position as the Military Editor of Newsweek magazine instead.

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