The license plate said it all: "Papers."

Everyone who saw the station wagon coming down the street in the afternoons knew it was Coeur d'Alene Press carrier Kathy Pierce on her route, ready to deliver the day's news in a world before Facebook, smartphones and 24-hour media coverage.

"I loved my job," Kathy said Jan. 3 while seated next to her husband of 48 years, John, at a dining room table topped with Press clips in their Coeur d'Alene home.

Pierce's route started in Fernan Village. She'd deliver to Stanley Hill, cruise around Lake Coeur d'Alene to bring newspapers to Sunnyside Road and Wolf Lodge residents, then out to Hauser. She drove over 100 miles a day.

"There were 17 speedbumps on the Blue Creek Bay bridge, 'Bump, bump, bump,'" Kathy said. "My kids would count 'em every day."

Kathy's route connected her to the old Wolf Lodge owners who offered her a part-time evening job as she worked to save up for a house. As a new divorcée with two young children, she was about $500 a month short to qualify for a particular home loan. The route and the serving gig helped her with the loan and led her to meet John in 1976 when he and his coworkers stopped in for a beer.

Their paths became forever intertwined; the two later married at the home of one of Kathy's substitute drivers.

"I looked behind the bar and here was this cute little blond," John said. "She took my breath away and I haven't gotten it back since."

“He married me because I had a house,” Kathy said, smiling.

Kathy delivered the Coeur d'Alene Press from the time her son and daughter were little in the mid-1970s until her daughter's first child was born about two decades later. If John had a day off, he would ride along to help.

"She always said she'd give up her husband before she'd give up her route," John said, grinning.

This was before The Press was a morning paper.

"I'd drive up to The Press about noon and all us carriers lined our cars up," Kathy said. "Everybody knew everybody."

It was a tight-knit crew in the days when Coeur d'Alene was a tiny lakeside town largely unknown to the outside world, its neighboring towns separated mostly by hills, trees, meadows and occasional railroad tracks. 

"We'd leave in the order of who had to go the farthest," she said. "I always had my 18-month-old daughter sitting on the front seat on top of the newspapers. She'd lean out the window and poke the papers in the box, as long as there wasn't a spiderweb across it."

Each carrier intimately knew their routes and the specifics for how each customer wanted their newspapers delivered. When substitute drivers were called in to cover this daily job, Kathy would tape record instructions for them to follow. Everybody had their own idiosyncrasies, she said. Some wanted the paper on the porch, some on the driveway, some tucked into the screen door.

“We did all of our own billing," she said. "I would go to Bonanza 88 Store where Pilgrim’s was, buy five boxes of envelopes for the month and I’d hand-write out on the back flap the number and the name with what they owed. Some people paid three months in advance, some people three months in arrears. But they were always there.”

She would stamp envelopes so her customers could just toss their payments in the mail. 

“Or they could put it in the press box with a clothespin," Kathy said. "A lot of people did that. We were old school.” 

Kathy was rewarded for her diligence when she won the "Day by the Bay" contest for signing up the most subscribers. She and John flew aboard the late Duane Hagadone's private jet to spend an all-inclusive day in San Francisco.

"Everything was paid for,” Kathy said. “We went to the wharf. We went to Alioto’s; we could have whatever we wanted to order. Mr. Hagadone was a class act. He rented a tour bus and took us on a Greyhound tour to see the zoo. This was just the Coeur d’Alene Press carriers who won this contest. It was an amazing day.”

The paper route life wasn't always smooth. Kathy said she believes an angel was on her shoulder when she drove up on the guardrail in front of Tony's Supper Club. The steering wheel broke and her daughter went under the dashboard when she hit. Her son, then 4, was launched forward from the backseat. No one was seriously hurt, but Kathy walked away with a good scrape that left a scar on her face that is still visible.

"It could have been catastrophic," she said.

Talk about dedication — she finished the route.

She said she was lucky to have only gotten stuck in snow or had other issues when John was with her, including one snowy day when no shovel could be found.

"I said, 'I have an empty Press box,'" Kathy said. 

"I was digging out snow with it," John said with a laugh.

Only one day did the carriers not deliver the Coeur d'Alene Press — when Mount St. Helens blew in 1980.

"But we did it the next day," Kathy said. "Mr. Hagadone had scarves made that said, 'We lasted through Mount St. Helens.'"

When Kathy finally gave up her beloved route, she made over $2,200 a month, "which was a lot," she said.

But it wasn't about the money for Kathy. It was about the people.

"I remember all of the customers in Fernan Village," she said.

One customer who couldn't drive befriended Kathy and John, who would drive her to the Spokane Airport when needed. Another elderly customer with a sweet-tempered dog became immobile one winter after a bad fall.

"It was Christmastime, and she didn't have any family around, so we went to the store and bought a Christmas tree. It was all decorated, we gave it to her," Kathy said. "She was so thankful. And in the final time of her life, she had to find a home for this little dog. So we took it and we found it a home at an Arabian horse farm in Liberty Lake."

"People at that time would go out of their way to help other people, not get in their way," John said.

Kathy's customers would show their appreciation through cookies, donuts and homemade goodies around the holidays, something her grandfather was well aware of when he'd offer to accompany her on the route during December.

Kathy, who has been in Coeur d'Alene since the cold, snowy winter of 1968, said the town has changed a lot since then. 

But she will always cherish the experiences she had and the friends she made delivering the Coeur d'Alene Press.

"It was a magical time," she said.

    Kathy Pierce was featured in an April 28, 1984 Press article headlined, "Driving motor route takes dedication, strong stomach."
  

    Kathy Pierce loved her Press route so much her license plate read "Papers." This photo is from a 1984 article highlighting her work as a longtime Press carrier from the mid-1970s to the 1990s.
  

    Kathy Pierce points out her "Papers" license plate Jan. 3 while seated next to husband John Pierce in their Coeur d'Alene home as they share stories of their paper route adventures.
  

    Coeur d'Alene Press carriers were gifted special commemorative scarves for making sure the news was delivered the day after Mount St. Helens erupted.