COEUR d’ALENE — When Richard Symons reflects on his father, he thinks of a man of strength and honor.

“He was a good man,” Richard said. “A real good man.”

His father, John Symons, died Tuesday at the age of 84.

He worked as a truck mechanic at Kaiser Aluminum for more than 40 years.

“My uncle said he put them big truck tires right on his stomach and then put it right on the truck,” Richard Symons said.

His father’s work ethic can be traced back to when he was a boy growing up in Coeur d’Alene. He delivered the Coeur d’Alene Press — by horseback — in the early 1950s.

Richard Symons shows a black-and-white photograph taken by Connie Trembly of his father, a teenager, maybe 14 years old, sitting on his horse, holding a Coeur d’Alene Press carrier bag, that day’s newspaper in his hand. Behind him is a large home, presumably a subscriber's.

The photo is from the archive of the North Idaho Museum.

They were simpler days, when newspapers relied on kids to deliver their product chock full of news and advertising to the doors of customers.


“The good old days,” Richard Symons said.

John Symons’ route was the Best Avenue area. Richard Symons wasn’t sure how long his father delivered the papers or how many subscribers he had, and his father didn’t say much about his days as a Press carrier, but Richard Symons knows he delivered his papers without fail.

Such was his dedication as a paperboy that in the winter, when John Symons finished his route, his mom had to come outside and lift him off the horse — for good reason.

"He almost froze," Richard Symons said.

John Symons' funeral is Monday at Rimrock Cemetery in Garwood.