There is only one Madonna, one Oprah Winfrey, one Angelina Jolie. Love them or hate them, they're each a part of American history. And, there was only one Rosemary Entringer.
Rosemary, the "First Lady of Trains," as former editor David P. Morgan called her in her obituary published in the October 1977 issue, worked as its managing editor from August 1948 to her death on July 29, 1977. "It was Rosy who dotted the i's and crossed the t's, straightened out the syntax, corrected the spelling, policed the parallelisms, checked the tenses — the invisible, painstaking, thankless work which is editing and which, if done as she did it, makes a publication worthy of the language," Morgan wrote. He goes on to write, "Tough as spikes, the Puritan work ethic personified, she brooked no compromise with quality." Quality. That hasn't changed. For 75 years, no matter who made up the staff, we've always strived to give the readers a quality product, filled with analysis, grit, emotion, history, and reflection, alongside compelling imagery.
It's not easy, even all these years later, 38 to be exact, to follow in this woman's footsteps. I am no Rosemary Entringer. I've been indirectly told this many times in the past few years. She had a handle on grammar, Trains style, and the readers. She was special. A legend. The entire staff during her reign was legendary. (I assume you've heard of David P. Morgan?) She was something else. I never met her, but I know she had the same pride in this magazine that exists today in these offices.
Rosemary was not perfect. I'm sure she missed a comma or two over the years. (In fact, I know she did. I've come across the MIA punctuation while looking in old bound volumes.) But she had faith in herself and a respect for this magazine to give it all she had … and then some.
I've been privileged to work for this magazine for 14 years as of September 18. The experience has been both challenging and fun. The magazine is like a child that our team nurtures each month. We feed it, we clothe it, we teach it, and push it out the door to face the world of readers, where it is subject to both praise and ridicule. But we welcome it back home and find a nice place in history to put it down for a nap.
I am no Rosemary Entringer. And I never will be. But I am honored to be a part of our 900th issue, the November 2015 75th anniversary issue, making it as imperfectly perfect as possible.
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