RIP An Extraordinary Person
Writing about someone whose extraordinary life challenges your ability to express it in words is hard. Dorothy Collin, my friend and Chicago Tribune colleague, who passed away Wednesday at age eighty-five, fits the bill.
A political reporter with the instincts of a jaguar, Dorothy loved covering the tug-of-war of politics. She worked hard, played hard, traveled the world, and made friends and sources feel they were as much a part of the story as she was. She was a bright and gifted writer.
As much as she liked politics and politicians, people were her true passion -- people who made things work, got bills passed, wrote great stories, and got stuff done. She was a trailblazer, a woman in a business dominated by men. She elbowed her way into the room by working harder and writing better than the guys.
For a time, we covered Capitol Hill together for the Tribune. I can still see her slogging through the halls of the nation’s capital, her back aching as much as her sore ankle, searching for the correct quote or insight. She was dogged, determined, and relentless to get it right. She could write under tight deadlines because she had mastered her subject.
Politics wasn’t her only passion. She loved to travel, often with her friends, such as Mike Sneed, the Chicago Sun-Times columnist whose friendship dates back to when they both worked at the Tribune. She didn’t settle for comfortable places—no spas or resorts for her. She wanted to travel to destinations that most people consider uncomfortable, such as Afghanistan.
Once, in 2008, when Dorothy was in her late sixties, she took a solo trip there as a tourist while American forces fended off numerous deadly attacks by the Taliban. During the trip, the vehicle in which she was riding capsized and ended up in a ditch. Bruised, battered, and sore in all the wrong places, she completed her trip, satisfied that she had a good story to tell friends over many glasses of wine.
“We had so much fun together,” said Sneed, although they once wrote competing columns during Chicago’s bare-knuckled newspaper wars. The competition created tension in their friendship, but they remained true friends and traveling companions.
Sneed, Dorothy, and others, such as Leslie Hindman, the Chicago auctioneer, traveled near and far, from Libya to India and the Middle East. One time, she and Sneed were in Jordan when a right-wing Israeli killed Yitzhak Rabin, the former prime minister. They quickly changed plans and attended Rabin’s funeral. Sneed wrote a story for the Sun-Times, but Dorothy didn’t write a word. She lived the moment. She experienced history.
“Dorothy was great to be with,” Sneed told me. “She could be self-deprecating and pleasant. She made people feel like they were part of her story instead of her being the expert. “
Dorothy could be cranky, too, particularly if you challenged her knowledge of politics. Even after she retired, she would sit in her apartment watching congressional hearings or sessions on C-Span.
“Can you believe it,” she once asked me. “I sit around all day and watch C-Span. There’s got to be something wrong with me.” But she knew everything about which bills passed, which ones didn’t, and the roles of the key players.
She had her favorites, such as Senators Howard Baker, Bob Dole, John McCain, Sam Nunn and Dick Durbin. She ruthlessly defended the late Chicago political powerhouse, Dan Rostenkowski, when federal prosecutors convicted him on two counts of converting office funds for his personal use, a charge that seems quaint in the current political context. She could not stand blowhards, such as President Donald Trump, who preened for the cameras.
At her happiest when covering Congress, she knew the players and where to find them. Just after I started working with her on Capitol Hill, she told me to follow her to the Senate gallery. Sitting on the couch was Sen. John McCain. “Hey, Senator,” she said as she casually approached him. “I’ve got someone I want you to meet. You two would like each other.” She then abruptly walked away, leaving me to chat with McCain. She was right. We did like each other.
Her passion for the halls of Congress faded when the candidates and the political press corps hit the campaign trail. Dorothy would take to the road with the other political reporters she knew well. When I ribbed her that she left me to cover both houses of Congress while she followed the irresistible call of the fun stuff, she just laughed and joked: "You’ve got to be kidding me.”.
Dorothy and I often broke bread, downed wine, shared stories, argued, laughed, and had fun doing a job she loved until she retired many years ago. After that, we’d see each other at parties or dinners, boring our friends with new and old war stories.
After she retired and I became an editor, I tried to get her to write columns for the Tribune during national election campaigns. She demurred, saying she had better things to do, like watching C-Span.
Dorothy was an old-school journalist who took all the courses and passed all the tests to become a class act. Her family will organize a memorial service, and I and her many friends will be able to express how much we miss her. I will definitely attend. The service is a great idea to memorialize someone I will never forget.
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—James O’Shea
James O’Shea is a longtime Chicago author and journalist who lives in North Carolina. He is the author of several books and is the former editor of the Los Angeles Times and managing editor of the Chicago Tribune. Follow Jim’s Substack, Five W’s + H here.