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PrintRemembering Adrienne
Adrienne Bosworth Chafetz in 1991, her last year as managing editor of Columbus Monthly.
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Adrienne Bosworth Chafetz, an influential editorial force at Columbus Monthly during its first 16 years, could be as blunt as a hammer. Opinionated and knowledgeable, she didn’t suffer fools or sloppy writers as she held a firm grip on maintaining high standards. She was like the tough teacher you wanted to avoid, but, once in her classroom, realized the wisdom of her ways. Fortunately, as a young writer, I was one of those pupils.
She loved a good joke, and the crackle of laughter would fill the room whenever we gathered to poke fun at the inanities of the passing year during Annual Awards meetings. One recurring punch line about a golf game and a dead guy—Hit the ball, drag Harry—never failed to delight her.
She also loved a good debate, and she was particularly passionate about politics. According to Lennie Brown, longtime editor and co-founder of Columbus Monthly, Adrienne set the tone of the magazine’s political coverage, which was sharp, smart and authoritative. One of our ongoing stories, “Best and worst legislators,” was Adrienne’s baby.
Maybe it was only coincidence, but she died of cancer at age 74 on March 6, an election day. And it’s appropriate that this issue’s Politics department is written by her friend Tom Suddes; in fact, Adrienne first introduced me to Tom, the well-respected Statehouse reporter.
Her obit pointed out that the Brooklyn, New York, native was inspired to become a journalist by her childhood heroine, Lois Lane. “But fighting injustice and protecting the American Way turned out to be a little more complicated. ‘Under the naive misapprehension that if people got the facts and knew the truth, we would create a better society. As a slow learner, I was not disabused of this notion for probably half a century,’ she once wrote. One of the things her friends loved about her was that she never entirely gave up that notion.”
I asked my friend and former colleague Emily Foster, who knew Adrienne well, for her reflections. She replied with an e-mail that captured Adrienne’s spirit and flavor. I can do no better, so I’ll reprint excerpts of her note.
“She spoke forcefully, if not fiercely, and defended her positions to the death. . . . When I visited her at the James [cancer hospital], after sending her some emails about [a mutual friend’s] minor defense of that woman behind the Komen PR fiasco, Adrienne said within a minute or two of my arrival, ‘Margaret is wrong!’ It’s like she had been lying there waiting for the opportunity to make her opinion known.”
“She also loved stories of her own and other people’s crazy lives and minor disasters, like when Lee [Emily’s husband] drank my contact lens or when he drove away and left me at a flea market and didn’t notice I wasn’t in the car. I mean, she would be convulsed with laughter. She could talk about anything. . . . So she was always fun in company. And our lunches together always lasted for hours.”
“I remember of her CM stories (and surely would remember a lot more if I leafed through old copies) her dead ringer portrait of David Milenthal: ‘How am I doing?’ (That wasn’t the title, but the theme of the story.) She skewered the (somewhat) lovable insecurity of a very successful man in a way that everybody who knows him recognized the trait. She was critical but never cynical. And hopeful to the end. When her doctor suggested she talk to hospice, she said, ‘Am I the only optimist in this hospital?’ ”
