Good journalist that she was, Isabelle Shelton wrote her own obituary and left the copy in her files for her family to use. "Isabelle Shelton [fill in age], a White House reporter for the Washington Star for many years, covering First Ladies from Bess Truman to Pat Nixon, died [fill in date], in Washington, DC [fill in cause]." After almost a half century in journalism, Shelton was a professional to the end.

She was born Isabelle Shelton Graham in Chicago, on August 29, 1916, the daughter of Isabel Corboy and Jarlath John Graham. She described her roots as "a pioneering Irish- American family whose early members had fled Ireland in the mid-19th century to escape the potato famine." Her early years were spent in several Chicago suburbs. When she was just thirteen, her mother became seriously ill and Isabelle, as the oldest of four children and the only girl, assumed most of the household responsibilities. From then on, she contributed both to the family's stability and its income.

Following graduation from Immaculata High School in 1934, Isabelle attended one semester at Mundelein College leaving to seek full time employment in order to support herself and contribute to the family finances. "Certain by age 14 that she wanted to be a newspaper reporter," as she noted in her draft obituary, the field at first did not offer her employment. Isabelle began working as an addressograph operator for Continental Illinois Bank, where she stayed for several years holding various positions. She nurtured her writing interests by taking courses at Northwestern University's journalism school. Knowing that she wanted a career in journalism, she quit the bank job.

Isabelle's secretarial skills provided the means to attain her goal. Learning in 1941 that Marshall Field III was starting a new newspaper, the Chicago Sun, she applied for a job as secretary. At first she worked in a general secretarial position, but she later became secretary to editor Turner Catledge, who at the time was on leave from the New York Times. It was during World War II when the shortage of male reporters opened the door of journalism for women. "It was a breakthrough enjoyed at the time by thousands of women," Isabelle wrote, "very few of whom had previously crashed the profession." For Isabelle, the break came when she learned that the paper was looking for cub reporters, and she approached Catledge and another editor, Pete Akers, about taking the position herself. But a reporting job would mean a pay cut, and Isabelle could not afford to reduce her income, given that the family still depended upon her. Several days later, Catledge and Akers came back and agreed to let her keep her secretarial pay of $40 a week while transferring to the reporting staff. Looking back on their decision, Isabelle noted that she probably would never have become a reporter if they had not made that allowance.

In March 1943, Isabelle began a five-year stint as a reporter. In a joint letter to her brother, John, and former boss at the Sun, Howard Denby, Isabelle wrote that she had "attained her heart's desire—I'm a reporter." She went on to describe her very first assignment to cover a meeting of the League of Women Voters, where they sent her to the wrong address. "I could just see Mr. Akers or somebody else say, 'So she wants to be a political reporter, eh? We'll show her. Send her out to cover the L of WV and maybe she'll change her mind,'" Isabelle wrote mockingly of her first experience. She had embarked on her life's work.

She covered stories "I wouldn't have dreamed of, as a cub reporter, because so many men were gone," Isabelle wrote years later. Her assignments at the Sun introduced her to numerous issues, many of which were largely closed to women journalists before the war. In particular, she covered political events, including state-wide campaigns and national political conventions. Very early in her career, she accompanied Emily Taft Douglas on her campaign travels for an at-large House seat from Illinois. Isabelle gained experience in many areas as she wrote about wartime topics, the courts, the school board, the Chicago city hall, race relations, labor issues, and what she described as "sob-sistery stuff."

Isabelle resigned from the Sun in January 1948 and made plans to move to Washington, DC, where she married fellow journalist Willard Shelton. At the time, Willard was part of the Washington bureau of PM, a New York City daily newspaper, which was also funded by Marshall Field. Isabelle expected to continue her career as a reporter but encountered great difficulty in locating a job since papers were now overstaffed due to the return of the war veterans. She briefly worked at Congressional Quarterly, and in September 1948 got a job in the Cincinnait Enquirer's Washington bureau. Once again, her secretarial skills came in handy as she was offered a position that was half-secretary, half-reporter. She was expected to write a weekly society column to keep the hometown in touch with the social activities of their senators and representatives. While social news was more limiting than her previous assignments, as always Isabelle took full advantage of every opportunity. She learned the "ins and outs" of Capitol Hill, which would benefit her future job hunts.

While on maternity leave, Isabelle continued to write for the Enquirer, answering veterans mail in a feature column for the minimal salary of $10 a week. Her daughter Gale was born on January 23, 1950, and although Isabelle planned to continue working she resigned the following year to move to St. Louis where Willard had joined the Star-Times. Their plans changed suddenly when the paper was sold, and Willard no longer had a job. They never left Washington, and once again Isabelle was on the job market.

Following the advice and encouragement of her friend, Liz Carpenter, Isabelle applied for a job on the women's page of the Washington Star. While she did not want to be confined to writing wedding and engagement announcements, which were in her words, "a stultifying thing to do," she saw that a wider range of possibilities might exist for her in the paper's "Women's Department." It was an interesting, expanding time in Washington, and she sought to seize the opportunity to grow and change with the times. In December 1951, Isabelle began a nearly 30-year tenure at the Star, covering First Ladies at the White House as well as many other events involving and affecting women. Her second daughter, Diane, was born in 1956, while Isabelle was a Star reporter.

Isabelle's job at the Star allowed her to combine her two foremost passions— writing and politics. She described herself as a political junkie. She got to know all the presidents and their families, and was involved "on the fringes" of many big stories, including Watergate. Covering the White House from the Trumans to the Carters, there was never any doubt for Isabelle that the Lyndon Johnson years were the high point of her career. She toured the country with Lady Bird Johnson and considered Lyndon Johnson "the single most fascinating human being" she had ever met.

Her story about her interview with President Johnson, and the conflicts of career and family, became legendary in Washington, and was widely reprinted. Unlike male reporters, who could more easily separate their public and personal lives, Isabelle tried hard to fulfill both roles. She was remarkably successful at balancing both, most notably when a long-coveted presidential interview became available the same day as her daughter's fourteenth birthday. With food to be ordered and prepared, and guests arriving, Isabelle was at the White House, keeping in touch with home by phone. When the presidential motorcade whisked her along with the Johnsons to a wedding, Isabelle on the way back arranged for the motorcade to drop her off in time to make the birthday party. The next week, another White House journalist stopped her and said, "I understand that you're the only reporter in history who voluntarily broke off an interview with the president." It may well have been true, for how many other reporters ranked a daughter's birthday as highly as a presidential interview?

Isabelle moved eventually to the City Desk, where she covered such local issues as transportation, which she found less satisfying than her political assignments. Feeling that the paper was trying to force her out, she left the Star in 1980 (shortly before the paper ceased publication). Isabelle joined the staff of the newly created Department of Education as a special assistant to Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Liz Carpenter. She retired with the end of the Carter administration in January 1981.

For twenty years, Isabelle also wrote a weekly syndicated column for the North American Newspaper Alliance. She free-lanced for other newspapers, including the Louisville Courier-Journal and the New York Post, and for such national magazines as the Saturday Evening Post, McCall's, Ladies Home Journal, and the Economist. She also wrote a book, The White House Today and Yesterday.

Isabelle Shelton led an active and productive life. Even in retirement she never stopped. She took classes, traveled, entertained, researched her family's history, and stayed in close touch with her daughters.

In preparation for doing her oral history interviews for the Washington Press Club Foundation's Women in Journalism Oral History Project, Isabelle gathered together her personal papers and clippings covering her full life and rewarding career. From her early days as a cub reporter at the Chicago Sun through many years at the Washington Star, she had saved copies of most of the articles she had written. Isabelle thoroughly and patiently checked facts and accumulated data on every topic she covered. Her materials offered invaluable information and insights into every aspect of her journalism.

Isabelle welcomed me to her home and generously rearranged her study to accommodate the overflowing boxes and oversized scrapbooks for my work. I spent considerable time reading and researching, and getting to know Isabelle prior to our first interview in the summer 1992. Over the next months, we completed three interviews. Isabelle's full and busy schedule made setting up an interview a challenge. Her travel required her to rearrange our appointments, and while we were in touch at least weekly, we had to delay further interviews. In March 1993, we participated on a panel at the University of Maryland's College of Journalism for women's history month. Isabelle's stories delighted the students, who saw her as a real role model.

Sadly, Isabelle suffered a stroke in April 1993, and never recovered. She died on May 25, 1993. Since here interviews were never completed, I compiled a selection of her writing to demonstrate the scope of her career. Some of these articles she had identified as her favorite stories and best writing. Finally, I helped to organize her papers for transfer to the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library in Austin, Texas, where they will be available for research. Her life and her writing were of one piece, and so in many ways are her oral history and the written documentation that she left behind. Isabelle, after all, even wrote her own obituary.

Anne G. Ritchie
1993