Rafael Cartagena loved newspapers so much that he kept hundreds of them stuffed in his locker at work. He would sit at his kitchen table or in the backyard at his home in the San Fernando Valley, clipping out articles that he wanted to keep, sometimes telling family, this is something that will go down in history, this is something to remember.

It was a passion, and a trade: Cartagena, who died from COVID-19 in Los Angeles on May 17 at the age of 66, was a roll tender at California Community News, where he’d walk in the door around 5 a.m., shout hello to his boss, and do a fist pump and a wave.

For more than 25 years, his job was to keep the printing presses running, and he was the best at it.

“He was a high-energy guy,” said his supervisor, press manager Perry Kirkpatrick. “That’s how he was all day.”

When a printing press was running at the Irwindale facility, it was Cartagena’s job to keep loading paper into the enormous machinery so that a printing run can continue uninterrupted.

In went an 800-pound roll of blank paper, carefully guided into place by Cartagena; out came more copies of the Daily Pilot or the New York Post, or the comics sections for the Los Angeles Times and the San Diego Union-Tribune, ready to be enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of readers across Southern California.

If the paper rolls aren’t prepared correctly, the printing run gets interrupted and the workers have to shut down the process and make fixes. Cartagena’s relentless diligence made such mistakes rare.

“He always had the best percentage of non-breaks in the whole department for years,” Kirkpatrick said.

Cartagena was born Oct. 5, 1953, in El Salvador, where he grew up in the small town of San Pedro Perulapán and drove a bus to support his family. Fleeing the civil war there, he immigrated with his partner, Coralia De Paz, and their daughter to the United States in 1985. He soon found the job printing newspapers in Los Angeles County.

Cartagena was not just a skilled producer of newspapers but an avid reader and collector of them, particularly La Opinion and the New York Post.

“He loved to be informed, he loved to read,” said his daughter, also named Coralia. “People would tell him, ‘You should be like a history teacher, you have so much knowledge, you know so much.’”

He particularly enjoyed articles about his favorite soccer clubs, Real Madrid and the Brazilian national team. He would have his daughter help translate a word in Los Angeles Times stories to make sure he understood them properly.

“We would say, ‘What is it with you and newspapers?’” Coralia Cartagena said. “Maybe because he worked there. I don’t know, I don’t know. He had a passion.”

Cartagena also enjoyed dancing to cumbia and playing poker, as well as helping out family and friends when they were in need, including in his hometown in El Salvador.

“Every year when he went to visit his homeland, he was so kindhearted that he would throw a party for the neighborhood he lived in, and he would pay for everything – the drinks, the barbecue, because he was that kind of person,” said his longtime colleague, lead press operator Gabriel Guzman.

He would also give money to friends who couldn’t afford medication, and took responsibility for caring for his nephews when one of his brothers died, said Coralia Cartagena, whom he pressed to be ambitious in America; he had dropped out of school in El Salvador in order to take care of her.

“When we came here, he would always motivate me, ‘I want you to be somebody in life, I don’t want you to struggle how I struggled,’” she said. “He would always push me and tell me, ‘You have so much potential.’”

He was filled with pride when Coralia graduated from Cal State Northridge, as well as when she had a daughter. He had proclaimed, “I pray to God I don’t leave this world until I meet a child from my daughter,” according to Coralia. (His son had already given him four grandchildren.) He got his wish; Coralia had a girl.

“He enjoyed my baby for a year and a half,” Coralia Cartagena said. “At least he left with meeting his wish.”

Rafael Cartagena is survived by his partner of many years, Coralia De Paz; one brother; a daughter, a son; and five grandchildren.