Isabel Baumgartner, Noted Episcopal Communicator, Dies in Tennessee
Episcopal News Service. May 10, 1990 [90025_Z]
Linda Logan, Editor of The East Tennessee Episcopalian
Isabel Ingham Baumgartner, one of the Episcopal Church's most noted journalists, died in Kingsport, Tennessee, on April 18 at the age of 73.
Baumgartner created the Tennessee Churchman, a diocesan monthly tabloid, and served as editor from 1963 until her retirement in 1982. She was showered with recognition for her editorial work. In 1964, for example, the paper received the Presiding Bishop's Award for most improved newspaper. "It was my baby -- and it was the best job in the world," she said of the paper.
For 22 years Baumgartner covered meetings of the House of Bishops for the national church. At the 1971 meeting of the house, the bishops asked her to write a definition of the church's mission. The statement, which she wrote in 20 minutes, is still used throughout the church.
In 1971 Baumgartner and 10 other editors founded the Episcopal Communicators, an organization that has grown to a membership of 160 print and broadcast journalists. At its annual meeting in Nashville, the organization honored her memory in its celebration of the Eucharist.
Baumgartner also served for almost 20 years as a director on the board of The Episcopalian, the church's national newspaper.
In Knoxville, Bishop William Sanders of East Tennessee said Baumgartner had "a formative influence on the church in Tennessee over the last three decades and, for that matter, a significant influence on the Episcopal Church at large." He said that she "brought to her work as journalist exceptional gifts as a writer and editor -- and an informed and inquiring mind. Her written words will continue to inform and strengthen us, as will our recollections of her. God has been good to us through her presence and good work among us."
Baumgartner was born in New Britain, Connecticut, graduated from Middlebury College in Vermont in 1937, and taught in Connecticut and Pennsylvania. She was a radio copywriter and managed her own advertising agency before joining the diocesan staff in Tennessee.