NORTHAMPTON — Stories about the workplace dominated the news in 2021 once again. Employers struggled to find workers across many sectors of the economy. People left or lost jobs in the pandemic. Some institutions, notably hospitals, remained short-staffed as they dealt with waves of COVID patients. Many employees continued to work remotely from home for a second year. Others opted to retire.
The Gazette’s news pages were filled with such stories and they were usually tied into a larger theme or trend. But one local story about “work” shone particularly bright during the past year. It was about Jonathan Weinmann, a longtime newspaper carrier for the Daily Hampshire Gazette, who retired in July after nearly 20 years on the job.
Weinmann was no stranger to the Gazette, particularly in the circulation department here, and there was no internal pitch to do a story on his retirement. Here in the newsroom, we learned about his decision to stop delivering newspapers directly from the people whose lives he impacted. Over the course of a day, I must have received a half dozen emails and phone calls from Gazette readers after Weinmann, of South Street, let them know he would no longer be their newspaper deliveryman.
I heard about Weinmann’s attention to detail, his commitment and dependability, and his professionalism. As outgoing Northampton Mayor David Narkewicz put it in a story by reporter Brian Steele about Weinmann’s last day delivering papers, “Working as a well-oiled team with his mother, Ellen, driving him from street to street, you could literally set your watch by Jonathan’s early morning deliveries.”
Weinmann, who was diagnosed with autism at the age of 2, had walked into the Gazette’s offices at age 29 in February 2002 and asked for a job application. He delivered his first newspaper on Fort Hill Terrace on April 1, 2002 and his first paycheck was $10.86. On the day he retired, together with his mother, the pair were delivering up to 220 newspapers a day, and Jonathan, 49, hand-delivered every paper by himself. He worked in all weather conditions, from about 3:30 a.m. to 6 a.m., every day of the year except for Sundays and Christmas, and never overslept. Ellen said they only took two days off during a 12-year run.
In all, Weinmann carried more than 800,000 copies of the Daily Hampshire Gazette to homes and businesses in Northampton during his tenure. After learning of these numbers and his incredible work ethic, it was no wonder we were hearing from his customers, one of whom described being “spoiled” by his service.
As for Weinmann, in an interview upon his retirement, he couldn’t have been more modest: “I’ve done a pretty good job of getting the paper delivered on time,” he said.
In a year of relentless stories about the workplace, this deeply local one stood out above the rest.