Esther Van Wagoner Tufty.

Esther Van Wagoner Tufty was known to many as "The Duchess." The sister of Michigan Governor Murray D. Van Wagoner, she earned a reputation as a trailblazing journalist who informed Michigan readers as she traveled the globe, covering every American president from Franklin Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan.

Born on July 2, 1896, in Kingston, Michigan, Tufty spent her formative years in Pontiac. She got an early start in journalism, straight out of high school, as assistant society editor of the Pontiac Press for $7.50 a week. In 1921, she graduated from the University of Wisconsin at Madison with a bachelor's degree in journalism and married electrical engineer Harold Tufty.

In 1935, Tufty went to Washington, D.C., as the capital correspondent for 26 Michigan dailies. Eventually, 300 newspapers around the country featured bylined reports from the Tufty News Bureau. Along the way, she acquired the "Duchess" nickname, associated with her distinctive hairstyle featuring blonde tresses in a coronet of braids.

Tufty was in the middle of the action on and off the job. She regularly entertained dignitaries at her residence on the banks of the Potomac in Virginia, including a young Michigan congressman named Gerald Ford and his new bride. "Esther was a very dear friend of Betty and me from the first day we came to Washington D.C. on January 1, 1949," said Ford. "She literally took us under her wing and we were most fortunate, because she was so widely known and so highly respected in the Capital news media."

Tufty's coverage gave Michigan publications a front-row seat to events in Washington, and political leaders like Ford took note. Her independent news service represented the Holland Sentinel, which was the most influential newspaper in Ottawa County, one of the two counties in Ford's 5th House District.

As she followed the policymakers, Tufty maintained her trademark humor while braving numerous hazards. During the 1944 presidential campaign, she was injured during the crash of Michigan-native Thomas E. Dewey's campaign train in the Pacific Northwest. When the Soviets blockaded Berlin after World War II, she flew into the city atop 10 tons of coal aboard an airlift transport. Upon returning home from Vietnam in 1966, she said, "It's my third war, not counting marriage."

In addition to her newspaper work, Tufty was active in the early days of television news. She was an NBC correspondent during the 1952 and 1956 national political conventions and filed stories for the network's daytime Home program. She also appeared as a Meet the Press panelist on March 28, 1961, when former Michigan Governor G. Mennen Williams discussed his findings after a month-long tour of 16 African nations as assistant U.S. secretary of state for African affairs.

Tufty was president of the American Women in Radio and Television, the American Newspaper Women's Club, and the Women's National Press Club. She encouraged young female journalists to follow in her footsteps. The late Liz Carpenter, press secretary to Lady Bird Johnson, described Tufty as a "mentor, employer and friend to dozens of young reporters who, like me, arrived wide eyed in the exhilarating city of Washington. She gave us entrance--to the White House, the Capitol, the Supreme Court--[and] helped us get credentials to cover the newsmakers."

Despite cancer, the loss of an eye, and the installation of several heart pacemakers, Tufty continued working at her office in the National Press Building until the mid-1980s. She died at the age of 89 on May 4, 1986. In 1987, Tufty was inducted into the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame. In a letter of support, former President Ford wrote that she was "fair, but professional. She was a most able digger for the facts and a skillful writer."

By Kendall Wingrove

Kendall Wingrove is the communications manager at the Michigan State Police Office of Highway Safety Planning and a trustee of the Historical Society of Michigan.

Caption: Esther Tufty, c. 1940s. (Photo courtesy of the author.)

Caption: A postcard rendering of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C, where Tufty worked as a well-respected journalist. (Photo courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Tichnor Brothers Collection.)

Please Note: Illustration(s) are not available due to copyright restrictions.

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Title Annotation:	PROFILES
Author:	Wingrove, Kendall
Publication:	Michigan History Magazine
Article Type:	Biography
Geographic Code:	1USA
Date:	Sep 1, 2018
Words:	700
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