The First Lady of Television News
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Dorothy Violet Snell Fuldheim was born June 26, 1893 in Passaic, New Jersey.
Her family was extremely poor. They moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin where she spent her childhood. Her German-born father loved the English language and took her to courthouses to hear lawyers’ rhetoric. In 1912, she graduated from Milwaukee Normal College with a teacher’s degree in English. Dorothy taught elementary school for two years and also acted in plays, another love of hers.
In the 1920’s she married Milton H.Fuldheim and they moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where she continued her theater acting. In an anti-war play in Chicago, she attracted the attention of the famous social worker, Jane Addams, who asked her to present a lecture on social reform. Over the years, Dorothy gave 3500 lectures. To get material, she began interviewing her subjects, including Adolf Hitler.
She started her broadcasting career in radio, hosting a biography program for WTAM, and later, the ABC Radio network, where she was the first female broadcaster. The theater and lecture experience imparted to her a new way to present the news other than the objective style of other newscasters.
She said, “If what you say is dramatically presented, the impact is far greater.” She was then approached by Scripps-Howard and “The Cleveland Press” to do journalism, and travelled around the world conducting interviews.
At the age of 54 in 1947, she signed a 13-week contract to do a 15-minute evening news show with WEWS-TV, Channel 5 in Cleveland, also owned by Scripps-Howard. That program ran for 17 years. She kept up her travel schedule as well as presenting the news on TV, often inserting her own opinions/commentaries.
She was the first woman in the United States to anchor a television news broadcast and also to have her own television news analysis program, “Highlights of the News.” Over the years (15,000 interviews), she interviewed many worldly figures, including the Duke of Windsor; Helen Keller; Martin Luther King, Jr.; John, Robert and Ted Kennedy; James Hoffa; Winston Churchill; Albert Einstein; etc.; and every U.S. President from F.D.R. to Ronald Reagan.
In the 1960’s, she teamed up with Cleveland radio personality Bill Gordon to host “The One O’Clock Club” on WEWS. The station was loyal to her and she was to it, even refusing higher salaries from other companies.
In 1980, she was inducted into the Ohio Women’s Hall of Fame. Towards the end of her career she still travelled. She covered the royal wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana in London in 1981, and the funeral of assassinated Egyptian president Anwar Sadat.
Shortly after her 6pm news broadcast on July 27, 1984, she suffered a stroke, at age 91. She never fully recovered and after 37 years with WEWS she never returned to TV. That afternoon she had also interviewed her last subject, via satellite– President Ronald Reagan.
After a second stroke, she died on November 3, 1989 (age 96) in Cleveland. Dorothy’s first husband Milton H. Fuldheim had died, and in 1952 Dorothy married William L. Ulmer. He died in 1971. Her only child, Dorothy Fuldheim-Urman, preceded her in death. She had only one grandchild, who was severely handicapped.
Written by Gay A. Christensen-Dean
Sources: www.nytimes.com, www.odjfs.state.oh.us, en.wikipedia.org,
Encyclopedia of Cleveland History, www.cleveland.com
The Primett Building
The Primett Building (rhymes with “limit”) was the first masonry building in Rocky River and is still standing today in 2013. Archer Primett was born September 11, 1869, in Lakewood, Ohio. Anna Saunderson was born on October 23, 1870, in Lakewood. When they were young they both lived on what is now Arlington Road in Lakewood. They were married on February 11, 1890.
Both Archer’s and Anna’s families were in the meat business. Archer had his first meat market in a small building on Detroit Road in Rocky River, a couple of blocks from Blount Street.
In 1899/1900, Archer and Anna bought a meat market from her brother John Saunderson on Blount Street, opposite the Silverthorn, and they lived upstairs in the back. They owned the building and rented the land. In addition to selling meat from the meat market, they also made deliveries by wagon. The horses were kept in a stable behind the building, which included a pigeon loft where Archer raised squabs to sell. The beef came from the Webb Beef Company, Herbert Primett, John William Saunderson (They all were related), and other slaughterhouses in Cleveland. Archer also sold vegetables from his garden, and avocadoes and macadamia nuts were shipped in from his relative (Albon) in California. Seafood came from the Brandt Company.
In 1909, Archer built the masonry Primett Building (two stores downstairs with apartments above each) at what is now 19064 – 19070 Old Detroit Road. Before that, buildings were built of wood. The family lived in the apartment upstairs on the east side and the meat market was underneath. They rented out the other apartment and the other street-level space to grocers. One of the grocers was Clarence Mercer. Tom Woods bought the old building on Blount Street and used it for his barbershop. Later, he moved the building around the corner to Detroit Road.
At various times the meat market was called Oakwood Market or Primett Market. Customers came to the meat market every day because they did not have a good way to keep meat in their homes.
In 1921, Archer and Anna built a home on Lake Road in Sheffield Lake. Archer continued in the meat business for a few more years until they moved to Sheffield Lake permanently in 1924. They sold the business to employee Charlie Thomson, who worked in the meat business for over 58 years.
Archwood Drive in Rocky River is named after Archer Primett and his grandson George Archer Christensen. Archer was also one of the organizers of the Lakewood Yacht Club, now the Cleveland Yacht Club, in Rocky River.
The Rocky River Public Library, as part of their artwork collection, has three tin ceiling tiles from the Primett Building displayed on the wall of their Auditorium.
Written by Gay A. Christensen-Dean