A Printer's Daughter

So how did I get interested in printing? I was lucky enough to catch the printing bug from my dad, a longtime letterpress enthusiast. In both houses where I grew up, the printing press was in the basement directly below my bedroom. Dad was an insomniac, so most Saturday mornings the press was running by 6:00am. I’d sneak downstairs in my pajamas and go, “Whatcha doing, daddy? Can I help?” And he’d let me. As a little girl I put paper slip sheets between his printed pieces as he ran them off. From there I graduated to distributing type, with a diagram of the California Job Case in front of me. Then he taught me how to set type, first ragged right and then justified.

My first printed piece was a fairy tale I wrote when I was eight, called “What You Get Depends On What You Do”. With much help, I set the straight matter in 18 point (big type for little fingers). Dad set the title page and colophon, and did the lockup. Then he hand-turned the flywheel of the 8x12 Chandler and Price while I stood on a stepstool and fed each piece of paper to the press.

Growing up with a printer father meant I had birthday napkins with my name on them; a printed license plate for my blue pedal car; and when I got older, business cards for babysitting. I remember Dad and I printing a poster with antique type and a clipper ship for my history class, and a menu for a Latin club banquet. I liked to set and distribute type, so I was a good helper, or “printer’s devil”(printing apprentice). Plus I learned about design, lockup, and impression through watching Dad print.

One bigger project we did together was an ambitious Christmas card when I was in college. I wrote and set “Green is for Christmas”, and helped with cut choice and layout. Dad’s skill in printing the many multi-color cuts in the booklet was amazing to me. He printed a lot, almost every weekend and some weeknights, so I suppose his abilities grew with practice. As I look now at his earliest printed pieces, I can see his printing evolving. By the time I was learning, printing was second nature to him.

After I got married, my husband Bob caught the printing bug. We acquired our first press, a tabletop Kelsey which was hard to get to print well. The only way to get a decent impression was to pad the platen with Kleenex. We had our share of printing bloopers, including printing a piece on erasable bond typing paper with ink that refused to dry. Dad came to the rescue, offering an ink that would work with our dubious paper choice.

I was lucky enough to grow up with printer’s ink in my blood. Now I share the hobby with a husband who is equally enthusiastic. We’re happy to carry on a family tradition of printing just for fun!

My first printed piece, "What You Get Depends on What You Do".


Latin Club Menu cover. My Latin teacher also taught my father, and was a family friend.


Latin Club menu interior. Don't ask me what all we had: the main course was KFC with side dishes, but this menu made it look elegant.


"Green Is For Christmas": this card included five pages of text and five multicolor cuts.


"Green Is For Christmas" interior: Dad's ability to print in close register is something I admire to this day.

Purple Ink and No Composing Stick

Seventy-six years ago my late father Gary Hantke became a letterpress printer, trading his chemistry set for a 5 x 8 Baltimorean hand press, two fonts of Caslon, a tube of purple ink, some leads, and a lead cutter. The year was 1934, and he was 14 years old. Dad had become interested in printing through advertisements in the Kelsey catalog, which urged depression era boys to earn extra money with their own press.

With no type cases, no composing stick, and no instruction, the would-be printer faced challenges. The first time Dad printed his name, it came out upside down and backwards. But he was determined to learn. A school friend’s father owned a print shop, so Dad started helping out. Gradually his printing got better, as he termed it, “slowly, painfully, and without sensational results.”

The young entrepreneur discovered a gold mine in printing graduation name cards for seniors at his high school. He charged 40 cents a hundred and made a grand profit of 18 cents on every order. But everybody needed graduation name cards, and 1935 wasn’t a time of great wealth. Dad was encouraged by the jingle of change in his pockets. He bought a little more type, a composing stick, and a tube of black ink, “having gotten tired of purple by now.”

Then came a huge order for 50,000 envelopes. Dad started printing as fast as he could pump the handle of the little Baltimorean press. After several thousand pumps, though, he started thinking of ways to mechanize the operation.

A little cobbling came to the rescue. As Dad writes in his booklet, “Brief Biography of a Basement Printer”: “Quite by chance, our old washing machine, after years of faithful service, chose this time to spring a rather bad leak, necessitating replacement. With parts from the old washer and some odds and ends the press was motorized, and I was clicking off a thousand impressions per hour almost without effort. Although the press lacked a throwoff, misfeeds caused me little trouble, for by use of the washing machine’s wringer control gear mechanism, I was able not only to stop the press, but even reverse it when necessary.”

So the young printer’s hobby was launched. Dad printed for 56 years of his life, until his death in 1990. Along the way I learned from him, as did my husband Bob after we were married. We owe our printing heritage to my father. His Baltimorean hand press resides in our basement along with his other presses, and it is still being used.

Dad passed away 20 years ago today, on May 12, 1990. This series of printing remembrances, past and present, humorous and serious, is written in his honor. Dad, we hope you’re puttering around somewhere in an incredible print shop in another world with all your old friends. What marvelous things you’d be creating! Without you we wouldn’t be printers. Thank you for teaching us, and giving us this wonderful hobby to enjoy!

Dad's autobiography, "Brief Biography of a Basement Printer", printed in 1958.


Carole in the printshop with the Baltimorean, shortly after moving it in.