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Our People of the Century     
Max & Cecelia Leuchter: 
Dedicated Newspaper Couple     

For more than 50 years readers were greeted by this familiar phrase on page one of the Vineland Times Journal.

They were the first two words of the daily “Keeping Up With The Times” editorial column. Written by Max Leuchter, and later, his son, Ben, the column became, not only the voice of the paper, but in many ways the voice of Vineland.

“The welfare of Vineland Borough, Landis Township, and the surrounding communities is the welfare of this publication, and only as it thrives to be of service, in furthering that welfare does it deserve to succeed,” wrote Max Leuchter in his first editorial on Oct. 15, 1925.

The paper, then known as the Vineland Times began as a weekly publication. Leuchter, a former Courier Postcolumnist and editor, and his wife Cecelia, a Philadelphia attorney, first published the Times from the Bullock Chevrolet dealership building on Landis Avenue.

Cecelia Leuchter helped finance the venture with $25,000 she saved from her legal career. As one of only two Philadelphia female attorneys, she commuted to her practices by day and acted as the newspaper’s business manager in Vineland by night.

Max set a fair objective news tone for the paper while always crusading for the improvement of his community.

He worked to secure better street and traffic lights, was seen as one of the prime factors in the formation of Vineland’s National Guard outfit, and entered the fight for equal representation of all creeds on the school board.

The paper grew to a daily publication in a larger plant on South Seventh Street. In 1942, it merged with the competing Vineland Journal and became the Vineland Times Journal.

Tragedy struck in May 1949 when Max Leuchter died from injuries suffered in a car accident. Leuchter’s son, Ben, took over as managing editor and Cecilia’s brother Abraham Bass served as publisher until his death. In 1958, Cecilia herself assumed the title.

“She was a very astute business woman and she had an understanding of people that was almost uncanny,” said the late Mayor Patrick Fiorilli in 1982 when Cecilia Leuchter died at 86. “She did a lot of community work behind the scenes. She never wanted credit for it. She felt, as owner of the newspaper, that she should do good works without her name on it.”

Son Joel eventually succeeded his mother as publisher, although she continued to play a role in the company until she was in her late 70s.

Ben continued as editor while Joel headed expansion and construction of the three-story press building on Oak Road.

Joel Leuchter retired in 1977. In 1999 he suffered a fatal heart attack while he was visiting Ben, who now lives in Key Biscayne, Fla.

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