This truly is an “In Retrospect” column, as I’m taking the opportunity to reflect on my years at the Camera. I’m moving on to other freelance opportunities, but I’m not going away.

I got hooked on researching and writing about Boulder history in the 1970s. As a then-recent University of Colorado graduate, I was given a copy of John Schooland’s book “Boulder Then and Now.” The photo comparisons gave me a new and different perspective on Boulder and Boulder County, and I was eager to learn more.

A few years later, as a stay-at-home mom with my first husband and two young children, I started interviewing old-timers and gained an appreciation for the past. Then I typed out a story I had written that related to gold mining history.

With one child in a baby pack and a 3-year-old in tow, I visited the Daily Camera newsroom, then located in a since-demolished building on the southwest corner of Pearl and 11th streets, in Boulder.

This was in pre-computer and pre-internet days. The place was noisy, with a roomful of reporters at their desks, talking on phones (with cords) and typing on real typewriters.

Photographers rushed in and out of the darkroom where they developed their film. I met with an editor and was thrilled when he ran my story as a feature.

Meanwhile, I knew the “Focus on Food” columnist who was leaving her position. I would have preferred to write about local history, but the food column was available. Every week, I had to find new people to talk to about their cooking specialties.

By that time, my older child was in pre-school and my baby had grown into a toddler. She accompanied me on my interviews.

I continued to work from home, then handed in my typed columns. Once received and edited, they went to a Linotype machine operator who had to retype everyone’s stories in preparation for printing on a gigantic press. The process was not without error.

The most unforgettable moment of my food column career was the story I wrote in 1978 on a delightful elderly woman’s “Never Fail” rolls. Once the story was in print, she, I, and the newsroom all were flooded with angry callers. What none of us knew at the time was that, because of a typing error, the published recipe called for eight times the amount of water!

And, yes, the Camera did publish a correction stating that the recipe would fail unless the water was reduced.

A few years later I was at the Longmont Times-Call where I finally got to write more historical features. In the mid-1980s, I got my first computer. Meanwhile, I researched and wrote a number of local history books.

Then, in 1996, I teamed up with the “Boulder Planet,” an independent newspaper, where I started a history column. My first story, “Parking downtown with a horse” was about livery stables in Boulder’s early days.

In 1998, I returned to the Camera and began writing the column for them. I alternated for many years with former Camera librarian Carol Taylor, but I’ve been writing “In Retrospect” ever since.

I wish to thank you, my loyal Camera readers, and I hope you will email me and/or check my website to see what I’ll be doing next.

This is Silvia Pettem’s last “In Retrospect” column. She can be reached at silviapettem@gmail.com or through her website, silviapettem.com.