Grunwald, Dolores Anslinger
The Last Town Crier
It's somewhat strange to be sitting here, very much alive and well, writing my own obituary. Obviously, I left blanks for others to fill in as appropriate. So here goes: I, Dolores A. ("DL") Grunwald, died peacefully during the morning of Thursday, August 17, 2023. Shocking, I know, but once one reaches the ripe old age of 90, these things are not exactly unforeseen. I'm sure I left with a certain degree of sadness but with a much greater degree of satisfaction. It's okay to be sad for a while but please limit your grieving because I led a full life and have been very blessed.
I was born on September 4, 1932 on S. Plum St in Germantown, OH to Dan and Virginia Anslinger. I got into some trouble but not too much and eventually made my way to Miami University to major in English Literature. Somewhere along the way to graduate school for Library Science (yes, absolutely true!), I met, fell in love with and married Harry H. Grunwald, Jr., a dashing Marine Corps fighter pilot. It was Officer and a Gentleman and Top Gun all rolled into one. I was swept off my feet, out of Ohio and into the life of an officer's wife at bases across the U.S. and in Japan. Fritzi the super dachshund was our first family addition followed soon by the red MGTD convertible. Both were just barely eclipsed a few years later by the arrival of Number One Son and then Number One Daughter.
Tragedy struck, however, on May 3, 1962, when Harry was lost at sea off the U.S.S. Shangri-La in the Mediterranean. We three happened to be visiting Mother and Dad in Germantown at the time. After the shock receded enough to let me even begin to contemplate the future, I realized almost immediately that we needed to move back to the community where I grew up, to the family and friends I knew this young widow and her two toddlers could count on to help build a new life. Little did we know what would ensue.
A few years after settling into the new family home on N. Cherry St., my cousin George Kuhn called to gauge my interest in helping him save the local weekly newspaper, The Germantown Press, from financial ruin. I thought over the proposition and understood that we had to try to save the venerable community newspaper that had been in continuous publication since 1874. And with that I jumped in with both feet (and two typing hands!) to become the editor and co-publisher of The Germantown Press. Our first issue was published on March 14, 1968. Believe you me, there were not nearly enough journalism courses in the world to sufficiently prepare someone to be an effective grassroots editor of the hometown newspaper. The esteemed newspaperman, author and professor, Neale Copple put it best: "Thou shalt try like hell to be fair under the current and local circumstances, knowing all the while that to do so in the relative anonymity of a large city is much easier than in your hometown."
I had the pleasure of interviewing Woody Hayes at the local athletic banquet and the pain of coping with an outspoken Jane Fonda at Camp Miami during the height of the Vietnam War protests. We helped save the Florentine from demolition, the Rohr Mansion from becoming a gas station, fought the natural gas pipeline and landfill, helped organize the Historical Society of Germantown and cheered when the Valley View Spartans won their first state football championship. But through it all, the late-night knocks at the door by people who had nowhere else to turn, natural disasters, threats from angry readers, problems with printing presses, Number One Son painting the basset hound green, both Number Ones plastering the neighbor's new aluminum siding with mud pies, I am very proud that we never missed a single issue in our thirty years of publishing The Press.
In 1998 I put the editor-publisher moniker behind me to begin a new life of becoming a better mother-grandmother-sister-aunt and friend, cherished positions to which I had devoted too little of myself. But even after the transition to so-called "private life" (no such thing in a small town!), I remained dedicated to the motto that had appeared on the front page nameplate of The Press: "For the cause that lacks assistance; for the wrongs that need resistance; for the future in the distance, and the good that we can do." They were excellent words to live by then and are even more so today.
For many years now I have equated life with the daily route of the sun, from the predawn glow to the peace of sundown. Just think of me as going down with the sun, but never forget how much I enjoyed the sunrises on the beach and the splendor of the sunset in the hills. It was a beautiful trip and I thank you all for it.
DL was preceded in death by her brother, Dan Anslinger, Jr., her sister, Phyllis Anslinger Moyer and her son-in-law Dennis Stone. She is survived by Number One Son Erik Grunwald and his wife Crystal, of Raleigh NC; Number One Daughter Katharine Grunwald Stone of Macon, NC; Number One Younger Sister Diane Anslinger Hayes of Germantown; granddaughter Katie Grunwald and her husband Ryan Kirkpatrick of San Francisco, CA; grandson Harrison Grunwald and his wife Jasmine of Cary, NC; granddaughter Eliza Farrell and her husband Shay of Surf City, NC; great grandson Levi Jameson Grunwald of Cary, NC; much loved nieces and nephews and grandnieces and grandnephews and many, many friends.
A memorial service and celebration of life will be held later this fall in Germantown, OH with final inurnment in Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, DC. In lieu of flowers, DL requested that donations be made in her memory to The Historical Society of Germantown or to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press {www.rcfp.org/donate/}.
Grunwald, Dolores
