Dorothy Storck, former Inquirer columnist, dead at 88

People here knew Dorothy Storck as an Inquirer reporter whose syndicated columns reached hundreds of thousands of readers across the nation in the 1970s.

But she was, and did, much more, both before and after that time - a strong, swashbuckling presence who embraced life and its challenges.

Ms. Storck, 88, of Chicago, died at home late Sunday, Aug. 2, after a five-year battle with cancer.

In the 1950s, she joined the military and commanded an Air Force squadron, a link in the chain of her military family. In the 1960s, in Chicago, she helped shove open the doors to male-dominated newsrooms, later being honored as a pioneer by Ms. magazine. After leaving The Inquirer, she reported from London and wrote widely on travel, twice being honored by the Society of American Travel Writers.

She was a great friend, a heck of a tennis player, an aficionado of meaningful conversation, and a motherly figure to her brother, 16 years younger.

As a reporter, she covered many of the major events of her time, including the 1968 and 1972 presidential campaigns; the trial of Sirhan B. Sirhan, assassin of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy; and the space voyages of Apollo 10, 11, and 13.

"It was truly a remarkable life, and she shared it with her readers," said her fiance, Dick Simpson, a political science professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "She was a walking history of the last of the 20th and the 21st century."

"She was a distinguished columnist, both in Chicago and Philadelphia," said Eugene L. Roberts Jr., who hired her after he became executive editor of The Inquirer in 1973. "She was a very strong writer, and had a good sense of a human interest story. Many of her columns were very moving, and she definitely had a fan club among readers."

Ms. Storck was born in 1927 in Buffalo and grew up in Bronxville, a suburban village in Westchester County. She earned a bachelor's degree in English literature from Barnard College of Columbia University in 1951, and later a master's degree in radio and TV journalism from Syracuse University.

Her father, Donald George Storck, was a 1924 graduate of West Point who won letters in football, baseball, track, and basketball, and was named to the All-America football team. As a colonel during World War II, he commanded the Army Air Corps Officers Candidate School, training thousands of officers for combat, among them the actor Clark Gable.

Ms. Storck served in the Air Force from 1951 to 1965, rising to the rank of major. She was a squadron commander of 400 women at Olmsted Air Force Base near Middletown, Pa.; an adjutant of a jet-maintenance squadron in Alaska; a public relations officer in England; and chief of public relations for the secretary of the Air Force in the Midwest office, based in Chicago.

In 1965, turning from public relations to news, Ms. Storck was hired as a national reporter and columnist for Chicago's American, which became Chicago Today in 1969.

She was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for her coverage of the 1967 riots in Detroit, one of the most violent events of the age.

"She was very kind to me, motherly, really, but she was always very busy," said her brother, Donald.

When he left the Navy in 1970, he slept on her couch in Chicago while figuring out his next step. Storck recalled his sister pounding out columns on a typewriter and how, in the days before e-mail, her finished copy would be whisked to the newspaper office by cab.

She joined The Inquirer in 1974, becoming a feature writer, national reporter, and columnist. From 1976 through 1987, her column was distributed to about 250 newspapers.

"I saw her columns as an important element of the paper in those days," said former deputy editor Gene C. Foreman, who arrived at The Inquirer four months after Roberts. "She was a significant contributor to what we were doing."

Her series on American prisoners in Mexican jails won an Overseas Press Club award in 1976. The same year, she was again a Pulitzer Prize finalist, for foreign reporting.

Three years later, she was part of the Inquirer staff that won the Pulitzer for public service for coverage of the 1979 nuclear power plant disaster at Three Mile Island.

Ms. Storck was a Pulitzer finalist once again in 1984, for commentary.

After leaving The Inquirer, she moved to London in 1989 to write about politics and the English government under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, filing dispatches to the paper and the Knight Ridder News Service.

She returned to Chicago in 1992, planning to retire, but instead began a new chapter, writing politically oriented travel stories that ran in the Chicago Sun-Times and were distributed by Copley News Service.

At a party in 2006, she met Simpson, who writes widely on political reform. They dated until her death.

"We were very much in love," Simpson said. "She was very vivid, and striking, with a very sharp wit. . . . She had a great emotional sensitivity, to other people and their lives."

In addition to her fiance and brother, she is survived by a sister.

She will be buried near her parents' graves at West Point in a private ceremony. Details for a public memorial service in Chicago will be announced.

215-854-4906@JeffGammage