A carpenter slid a newspaper between the floorboards during a home renovation in the 1940s — then a common fix for uneven planks. About 80 years later, another renovation at the home in Fargo, North Dakota, revealed the brittle pages, still wedged beneath the wood.
At first, the discovery seemed unremarkable.
“They used to do this back in the day,” said Vincent Vincent, the contractor who pulled up the boards last month. “I find many things like this.”
But then he showed his finding to the homeowner, Casey Chapman. On the front page of the Fargo Forum from Oct. 6, 1946, was an image of Chapman’s late mother. Chapman was dumbfounded, as neither he — nor his family — had a tie to the house before he bought it in 2017.
“It was just a shock,” Chapman, 75, said about the Jan. 14 discovery.
The article featured seven young women who were nominees for North Dakota Agricultural College’s homecoming queen. Among them was Chapman’s mother, Marty Anderson, who had briefly lived in Fargo while attending college and was named homecoming queen that year. (The school is now called North Dakota State University.)
“I looked at the lady on the right and said, ‘Hey, that’s my mom,’” Chapman said.
Other news on the front page included stories about the price of milk rising to 16 cents; cold weather opening the start of duck and pheasant season; and a wire story from New York that read: “This is to warn whoever stole a shiny, black five-passenger sedan … to get out of town. The car belongs to Joe (heavyweight champ) Louis.”
Chapman and his wife, Patsy Chapman, could hardly believe their eyes. It was Patsy who had more ties to Fargo than her husband — he was born there but his wife was raised there.
About a decade ago, the couple moved about 200 miles from Bismarck to Fargo to be closer to Patsy’s mother. They recently decided to renovate the top floor of their home, which was originally built in 1929.
When they bought the house, they were drawn to its charm: the staircase lined with an ornately patterned runner, the grand fireplace in the living room and the formal dining room.
“We walked in, looked around, looked at each other and said, ‘This is the house,’” Chapman recalled.
“We just like the old classic look, the way they used to do it,” said Chapman, who is a lawyer.
They had no prior connection to the home. They certainly never imagined that several years after buying it, they would uncover a small family treasure beneath its floors.
Chapman’s mother died in 2014 in hospice care in Fargo, where she lived for the final 10 years of her life. She moved around a lot as a child, Chapman said, though she lived in Fargo during her college years, and again for about one year after she got married in 1949.
Chapman said his mother was in no way linked to the house he bought after her death.
“I can tell you with absolute certainty,” Chapman said, noting that he and his wife are the third owners of the house, and his family does not know the previous owners.
Marty was a woman ahead of her time, her son said. She studied home economics in college, and taught home economics at a high school in Dickinson, North Dakota, for a year after she graduated. She represented her department at a conference in Chicago, and Chapman still has a recording of a speech she delivered there.
“It’s interesting, because at the time, she was talking about the ability of women to make their way in the world, to be heard,” Chapman said.
After she got married, Marty focused on raising her three kids, but she also got involved with the League of Women Voters, a nonprofit nonpartisan political organization.
“She was very active, and not afraid to take on leadership roles,” Chapman said. “My mother was a wonderful lady.”
In addition to practicing law, Chapman serves as a presbyterian pastor at two local churches. He described finding the decades-old newspaper as a “God wink” — or a sign.
“It was like all of a sudden, Mom was saying ‘You did well, this is good,’” Chapman said. “Patsy and I have endured some health issues and life choices lately, and the timing of this discovery was a reminder that we are never alone in difficult times.”
Chapman was overcome with excitement and began sharing the story. He and his wife have a blended family of six children and four grandchildren. Right away, Chapman said, he sent them photos of the newspaper. One of Patsy’s sons reached out to the Fargo Forum, which published an article about the discovery.
“It’s kind of taken on a life of its own,” Chapman said.
The story was picked up by several television stations, including one in San Jose. It reached an old Army friend Chapman hadn’t heard from in more than five decades. The two now regularly exchange emails.
“I was able to connect with him out of this event after 53 years,” Chapman said. “To me, that is an important part of the story.”
The newspaper clipping has already been framed. Once renovations are complete, Chapman plans to hang it in his bedroom.
“People say it’s happenstance or a coincidence, and I appreciate that belief on their part,” he said. “But I think there’s more to it.”
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