Remembering Journalist & Preservationist Deborah Fitts Farewell To A Fellow Journalist & Friend
By Julio C. Zangroniz
(September 2008 Civil War News)

It’s hell getting old, but it sure beats all the current alternatives. And as you are getting older, you cannot help but bear witness to the passing of many acquaintances, relatives and people that you admire and respect.

That was the case when I learned about the July 17 death of my journalism colleague and friend Deborah Fitts.

Deborah was one of those individuals whom you can’t quite remember when you "first" met, for she had the uncanny, wonderful gift of making you feel that you had been friends forever.

Because of the fact that Deborah and I started collaborating with the Civil War News in the late 1980s/early 1990s, our first meeting is a bit easier to place in time, more or less: it took place sometime between 1989, when she got her start on these pages, and in late 1990, when I got mine. It was friendship at first sight.

Because we were both based in essentially the same geographic area, the Northeast, Deborah and I coincided at many Civil War reenactments, living histories, preservation-related events, even book and relic shows. 

I never felt that she and I were in competition — a good thing, for she could have “beaten” me with any story or even photographic assignment with one hand tied behind her back!

It was certainly much better to know that we were fellow contributors to the same publishing effort. Members of the same team!

Deborah encouraged new talent, such as me. She always made useful suggestions, in my case going above and beyond the call of duty, to help me find my way along the vast, wonderful and then thoroughly unknown (to me) world of American Civil War history and, of course, the great cause of recreating and reliving those times.

I fully credit Deborah and the late Brian Pohanka for getting me personally interested and involved in historical preservation endeavors, a love — no, a mission — that endures to this day. For I feel I owe at least that much to the U.S.A., my adopted country.

Early in our relationship, in 1992-1994, while Deborah performed the duties of director of communications for the Civil War Trust in the District of Columbia, she and I realized during a casual telephone conversation that we worked less than three blocks from each other (at the time I was, officially, a bilingual editor with an international bank in that neck of the woods).

We took advantage of a small city park adjacent to her office building to meet there for frequent brown-bag lunches, as we sat on a blanket. We spent our time together talking primarily, of course, about American history and journalism.

And laughing, always laughing. It is hard to think of Deborah without that perennial laughter. For me, those memories are truly the highlight of those years.

In May 1997, Deborah asked me to provide some "muscle" for one of her projects, as well as a few garden tools, when she volunteered to be the chief representative of Civil War News after Gettysburg National Military Park — her favorite location in the entire National Park Service system — began its “Adopt a Position” program.

This effort was designed by the park to engage volunteers who would help provide grounds maintenance in specific locations of the battlefield. Sometimes, the “position” included a monument, sometimes not.

To this day, hundreds of individuals and organizations continue to provide thousands of hours on an annual basis to maintain this park in as pristine a condition as possible.

Our job that day consisted of showing up with gigantic hedge clippers, axes, shovels, even a rusty machete —and thick work gloves — to help clear out the overgrown brush and brambles around a particular monument. Ours was the marker of the 5th Massachusetts Artillery, the one with a Maltese Cross on the top, east of the Peach Orchard, on Wheatfield Road.

Even though I didn’t feel any particular sense of duty to Massachusetts (a state that I had only visited once, during my college years), I decided to show up and help Deborah with her labor of love, for she told me she felt “very much alone” and perhaps a bit overwhelmed by the magnitude of the task. Deborah herself was a native of Massachusetts, and that was good enough for me.

We spent a few hours cleaning methodically around the monument and then up and down a long wooden fence, whacking away at the invading weeds, raking leaves, collecting and bagging refuse, and so on. At one point, I insisted that we stop to pose for a couple of photographs, though Deborah usually was loath to have her picture taken.

“But this is part of our history, Deb, and we have to document it,” I argued. Somewhat reluctantly, she agreed and she patiently posed in her blue overalls. One of those images accompanies this article.

To me, it’s a priceless memory, and I hope it will be just as precious to her myriad friends and relatives.

When we finished the cleanup work, Deborah gave me a hug and with a hearty “Thanks for showing up!” she invited me to join her for some pizza and a cold soda.

I felt truly proud of our achievement. It had been hard work, indeed, but Deborah had been most charming and cheerful throughout. It seemed as if we had spent the whole day laughing about something or other and chatting most animatedly, rather than engaged in fairly demanding physical work. She literally made the time fly that day.

Only a month before that May 1997 meeting in Gettysburg, she and I collaborated on a story about a company in Conshohocken, Pa., that manufactures pumps for fire trucks. She was masterful doing the interviews and moving amongst the huge fiery furnaces, and the gigantic presses, drills and other heavy machinery, while I did the photography.

The feature story appeared on page 1 of the June/July 1997 issue of Fire Apparatus, a sister publication to the Civil War News. It was a joy to be able to work with Deborah, a consummate professional.
Many times, our bylines would appear side by side in the Civil War News, some times on page 1, and it always made me feel wonderful to know that my “stuff” was considered good enough to be placed right next to what I felt was the newspaper’s top star.

She seemed to read everything, too, for invariably she would regale me with words of praise about particular stories or photography I had done.

In October 2000, Deborah and I met in Virginia to cover a Preservation March organized by Civil War reenactors. We held a brief get-together just before the event began, to discuss how to accomplish the task at hand.

Our agreement: I would write a feature story about the top individual fundraiser, as well as do the bulk of the photographic coverage, since I was going to be following the group of marchers, while she would write an overview of the entire weekend.

Our efforts resulted in two bylined stories, accompanied by a total of 10 photographs, including one on page 1, with all the important details of the effort that raised over $50,000 for historical preservation. Some of the "Notes from the Field" carried our joint initials, for we collaborated on those, as well.

As a result of our cooperation, the December 2000 issue of Civil War News had the most thorough and complete coverage of the event, bar none.

Deborah’s work ethic was prodigious. One of the latest, and perhaps best, examples of that fact is that, even after her death in July, she still had at least FIVE bylined articles in the August issue of the Civil War News — more than any other single contributor.

And she did it all, year after year after year, with tremendous grace, competence and dignity. Her laughter was infectious, never-ending, bolstered by an endless supply of charm and encyclopedic knowledge of whatever the subject at hand. I hope that, when I grow up as a journalist, I will be a lot more like her.

My deeply-felt sympathies to her husband, the estimable Clark “Bud” Hall, and all other family members. A lot of us will miss Deborah deeply, but I have no doubt that she will live forever within our hearts.

I am greatly honored to have known Deborah and to have shared some time on this earth with her.

Thank you, Deborah, for everything. I know you are watching.