Elaine joined the National Amateur Press Association in 1936, sponsored for membership by the great aj printer, Ralph Babcock. In those days hobby journals were all letterpress, and Elaine joined with enthusiasm, publishing her handset journal Inklings, and doing printing for others as well. Inkings ran at least 25 issues in the NAPA bundle mailings (#1 in 1936; #25 in 1980), followed by offset-produced journals, Glimpses from Peck's Peak and Peck's Patter, plus various issues of Inklets, MissELAINEous Photo Static, Haiku, and Mailing Matters. She served NAPA various times as President, Official Editor of The National Amateur, Mailing Manager, and unofficial master of recruitment, among other offices. She attended numerous annual conventions, and developed life-long friendships - stellar aj names pop into my head! Willametta and Martin Keffer, Victor and Rowena Moitoret, Harold Segal, Tillie and Bill Haywood, Sheldon and Helen Wesson, so many others she loved and spoke of often. She engaged for many years in a Round-Robin correspondence (before email!) with a small group of these friends; she contributed pages for Bill Haywood's collective annual, It's a Small World; joined the Amalgamated Printers' Association (#516) and added to APA's annual Treasure Gems; she wrote and printed pieces as well for Alf Babcock's Alf's Cat, and continued to joke sweetly about the relative merits of the wild letterpress habits of Alf and his brother. Ralph, Dick Fleming, and others visited her home printshop over the years, and handset and printed journals together with her on such visits. These connections enduring more than 65 years - in August this year, she happily showed a recent letter she got from Ralph Babcock; we read together his recent journals, Weaker Moments now #700+!

Over those years, Elaine was employed in a variety of printing-related jobs: copy-editing, proof-reading, at the Denver daily newspapers, a local publishing firm. (In 2000, she proudly claimed her 50 year International Typographical Union pin). Her husband Jess was linotype operator for the Rocky Mountain News. Her growing letterpress shop and Jess' TV repair business filled the garage and add-on patio room, books everywhere, music, children Jerrolyn (now Shivani Kumar) and Larry helping with the mailing of aj bundles (Larry did several issues of The Rocket for NAPA, and offered business card printing on his Pilot press!), ink, ink in the blood, proof-reader extraordinaire, lover of puns and books about writing, all things family, all matters aj, every available typeface and dingbat of interest.

Perhaps the names of her journals suggest the generous modesty that was most characteristic of her: Inklings, Glimpses, Peck's Patter - her press offerings were heralded as Tiny Treasures Press. Yet her contributions were not modest. When she moved to Denver in 1953, she began to organize a local group of letterpress printers and writers, the Columbine Amateur Press Club. She recruited Stan Oliner and others into involvement with this hobby, and did editing and printing for a regional journal, Colorado Roundup. Twenty substantial and beautiful issues followed, over three decades of activity, involving work by Pauline Kerr, Raymond Meyer, Joy and Karl Edd, Stan Oliner, Bob Coppin (who provided beautiful lino cuts), Emmie and Anton Bohm (who wrote, hand printed & bound three amazing books about printing and literary matters, as well as an extensive run of his journal Sans Souci), Ken and Helen Monson, and others. Such was the stimulus of this modest printer.

In 1987, Colorado book artist Gail Watson got her first press through a Master/Apprentice program with Elaine (sponsored by the Colorado Council on Arts and Humanities), which has led Gail to organize the annual Ephemera Exchange through the Colorado Book Arts League, among other projects. In 1989 Elaine talked me into joining NAPA, which has led to multiple levels of continuing involvement. Even wheelchair-bound, she recruited the receptionist at Mapleton Care Center into NAPA, and she was working on another new employee there in recent months as well!

At the NAPA convention in 2000, this modest friend of letterpress and hobby journalism received the Gold Composing Stick Award, a tribute given only nine times since 1953 by the historians of amateur journalism, The Fossils. I was honored to present her award. And I feel privileged that she agreed to let me purchase her presses and type and wonderful collection of cuts, and keep together her collection of amateur journals and books on printing. Her piles of papers and books include casually autographed copies, correspondence on type, pamphlets and samples, lists of things yet to be done. Her bound copies of The National Amateur are penciled with exacting proof-reader corrections. Born 1916, Brigham City, Utah, died November 28, 2001, Elaine J. Peck, open-spirited, inquisitive, interested in all things, an inspiration and a treasure, letterpress printer and amateur publisher, will be missed among friends.

Tom Parson
November 30, 2001

Now It's Up To You Publications, 157 S. Logan, Denver CO 80209 (303) 777-8951 typetom@aol.com http://members.aol.com/typetom