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Celina Dumpster diver finds a trove of historical treasures
Rito Gomez examines some of the history treasures he recently recovered, including newspapers dating back to the 1930s and with World War II memorabilia. Jim Kilpatrick/Staff photo
By Jim Kilpatrick, McKinney Courier-Gazette
Rito Gomez, 42, a Celina city employee, discovered a treasure from the past when he pulled a large plastic bag from a Dumpster, which contained old newspapers of The Celina Record as well as other area newspapers.
“I do what is called ‘junking’ for scrap iron and metals and stuff to haul it to the scrap yard,” Gomez said. “I found some bags that contained these newspapers in the city Dumpster after work one day.”
He called his junking “just a hobby of mine.”
The newspapers were yellowed and falling apart, but careful handing revealed headlines telling of the invasion of Europe on June 6, 1944, the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt along with local news of Celina from the 1930s to the 1990s.
The V-mail letter, written Dec. 26, 1942, described a very meek Christmas for Celina, with few relatives visiting because of gas rationing. A V-Mail letter was one piece of paper with one side provided to write a letter and once folded up the paper became the envelope to be mailed. The letter usually had red lettering with a large V printed on it indicating it was V-mail.
Many of the newspapers were rolled up and Gomez didn’t want to unroll them for fear the newsprint would fall apart.
“Someone who knows how should do it,” he said.
When Gomez found the historical treasures he decided to donate them to the Celina Area Heritage Museum so that others could see and read the history.
“I have had them for about two months,” he said. “But the museum should have them.”
Gomez was surprised when he opened the ration cards from 1943 and found they still had the tickets in them. The ration booklets were for Lura Miller and David O. Biggerstaff of Celina.
The 1943 graduation announcement was for Bill R. Lafferty.
“These things need to be preserved so that future genera-tions can see these things,” Gomez said. “Knowing that someone else can see it is so important.”
He added that he enjoys reading about history especially the Vietnam War.
“We are always pleased when we get donations like these,” said Bob McKnight, a Celina Area Heritage Museum member.
McKnight added that the association would carefully handle and preserve the donated items.
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