Doris Fleeson
Doris Fleeson (May 20, 1901 – August 1, 1970) was an American journalist and columnist and was the first woman in the United States to have a nationally syndicated political column. Early life. Fleeson was born in Sterling, Kansas, to clothing store manager, William Fleeson, and Helen Fleeson (née Tebbe). She was the youngest of six children. In 1918, she graduated from Sterling High School, where she was the class valedictorian. In 1918, Fleeson attended Sterling College, then known as Cooper College, for an academic year. Fleeson went on to attend and receive a B.A. in Economics from the  University of Kansas in 1923. Career. Early career. Fleeson's first journalism job was at the "Pittsburg Sun". She moved to Evanston, Illinois, to become the society editor of the "News-Index" and then to Long Island, New York to be an editor at "Great Neck News". In 1927, she joined the "New York Daily News" as a general assignment reporter, eventually moving to the newspaper's Albany bureau to cover state politics. Washington career. Fleeson and her husband, fellow "Daily News" reporter John O'Donnell, moved to Washington D.C. to work on at Daily News' Washington Bureau in 1930. They  started a column together called "Capital Stuff" in 1933 that was published until their divorce in 1942. She left the "Daily News" in 1943 to be a war correspondent for "Woman's Home Companion". She reported from France and Italy during the war before returning to Washington to write a political column for the "Boston Globe" and "Washington Evening Star". In 1945, the column was picked up by the Bell Syndicate and distributed across the country. At its height in 1960, her column ran in about 100 newspapers. Personal life. In 1930, Fleeson married "New York Daily News" colleague, John  O'Donnell, with whom she had a daughter, Doris O'Donnell. The marriage ended in divorce in 1942. In 1958, Fleeson married Dan A. Kimball, who had been Secretary of the Navy from 1951–53, and later was President of Aerojet. Eleanor Roosevelt attended the wedding, as did financier Bernard Baruch. In 1970, Fleeson died of complications from a stroke.