Walt Kaiser’s love of journalism dated to high school, when he wrote for the school newspaper and was a member of the yearbook staff. Before working as a pasteurizer with the Menzie Dairy Co. in McKeesport, Mr. Kaiser was a freelance sports writer for the Clairton-area edition of the McKeesport Daily News. Walter E. Kaiser, of White Oak, formerly of McKeesport, died Thursday, June 16, 2005, at his residence. He was 97. Although his freelance writing never evolved into a career, he was proud of breaking the story that two black athletes were invited to join a baseball team in what had been an all-white amateur league in McKeesport, said his daughters Carol Tharp and Suzanne Ray. They described their father as a “newspaperman’s newspaperman” and said he read the daily papers from cover to cover. “When Dad asked us to bring him a souvenir when we returned from our vacations, it was always a newspaper,” Ray said. Mr. Kaiser enjoyed attending sporting events with his family. “I can still remember how Dad would take my sisters, Carol and Barbara Ann, and our brother, Alan, and drive us to Forbes Field for an afternoon Pirate game,” Ray said. Born in Donora, Washington County, and raised in McKeesport, Mr. Kaiser was one of two children of Charles and Mary Rosh Kaiser. His father was an inspector for the National Tube plant of U.S. Steel in McKeesport. While a student at McKeesport High School, Mr. Kaiser had a newspaper route, which whetted his appetite for working on a newspaper. “Dad attended Pitt, where he studied journalism after he graduated from high school in 1926,” said Tharp. “It didn’t work out. He was needed at home.” It was at a meeting of the Young People’s Concordia, a group that Mr. Kaiser organized and which met at the Evangelical Congregational Church in McKeesport, that Mr. Kaiser met Katherine “Kitty” Kalina. They were married in 1936, while Mr. Kaiser was employed at the Fairmont Creamery plant in Detroit, where he worked for four years before returning to McKeesport. “Dad couldn’t get a job locally, so he opted to go to Detroit,” Tharp said. During World War II, Mr. Kaiser was employed in defense at the Christy Park plant of U.S. Steel in McKeesport, which at the time was producing ammunition casings. In 1946, Mr. Kaiser began a 27-year career as a pasteurizer with Menzie Dairy. His daughters said that every Fourth of July until his retirement their father would bring a 10-gallon container of buttermilk to the family reunion. “It was the creamiest buttermilk,” said Ray. “And a big hit with all the relatives.” Mr. Kaiser is survived by his son, Alan W. Kaiser, and his wife, Victoria, of North Huntingdon, Westmoreland County; three daughters, Barbara Ann Pohelia and her husband, Robert, of Tallmadge, Ohio; Carol Louise Tharp and her husband, Robert, of White Oak; and Suzanne Kay Ray and her husband, Clifford, of North Huntingdon; 10 grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren. Mr. Kaiser was predeceased by his wife, who died in 1990, and a brother, Carl W. Kaiser. Friends will be received from 7 to 9 p.m. today and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and 7 to 9 p.m. Sunday at the Jaycox-Jaworski Funeral Home Inc., 2703 O’Neil Blvd., McKeesport. Services will be conducted at 11 a.m. Monday in Evangelical Congregational Church, McKeesport, with the Rev. Glen Irvin officiating. Burial will follow in McKeesport-Versailles Cemetery, McKeesport.

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