A potent mix of curiosity and fearlessness fueled Dorothy Collin’s career as a journalist and her obsession for off-the-beaten-path travel.
While working in the Washington, D.C., bureau of the Chicago Tribune in the 1980s she had a knack for forming relationships with elected officials, such as Congressman Dan Rostenkowski, and zeroing in on influential staffers who could tell her the real story behind the story.
She began phone conversations with a quick “What do you know?” and was deft at tapping shoulders in the halls of the Capitol.
“She knew everyone,” said her friend Lynn Martin, who served as secretary of labor under President George H.W. Bush. “And sometimes members (of Congress) are in a different world, and staff are the people who make it all work. And if there was some sort of political feud, Dorothy would find out what it was really about. She viewed politics as both a philosophy and a game and just loved it.”
Sprinkled throughout her career, and in her retirement, Ms. Collin took unique vacations.
She visited Vietnam long before it became a regular tourist destination. She was in Tunisia during the Arab Spring. She visited Libya after the fall of dictator Muammar el-Qaddafi.
On trips to Paris she visited areas where Arab migrants were burning cars. Another time she went to the offices of Charlie Hebdo, the satirical weekly magazine that was the site of a 2015 terrorist attack.
“Even though I was terrified, whatever she wanted to do was always a lot more interesting than whatever I wanted to do, like go shopping,” said her friend Leslie Hindman.
While on a solo trip to Afghanistan during a time in 2008 when American forces were clashing with Taliban fighters, the Jeep she was riding in turned over in a ditch. A bit battered and bruised, Ms. Collin, who was in her late 60s, dusted herself off and finished her trip.
She didn’t mind traveling alone but often went with her former Tribune colleague and current Sun-Times columnist, Mike Sneed.
“I’ve seen her through lots of stuff, all kinds of countries, a lot places people just didn’t go to, and we’d go with a journalist’s mentality, even though we weren’t necessarily working for the paper on these trips, we’d just go and see things and talk to people,” Sneed said.
Ms. Collin died Jan. 22 from natural causes. She was 85.
Former Tribune colleague Jim O’Shea, who later became managing editor, learned the ropes in Washington from Ms. Collin.
“She introduced me to Sen. John McCain once. She said, ‘You guys would like each other’ and just walked away,” O’Shea recalled.
“She was a reporter’s reporter,” he said. “She didn’t make a big deal about being a woman in a man’s world … and she worked a story hard enough that she was considered an equal or superior in many cases.”
“She loved hanging out with the boys after work in Washington, especially at a place called the Class Reunion where she went with other reporters from the Trib,” Sneed said.
She also enjoyed a glass of wine at the deck of Martin’s D.C. townhouse.
“We’d sit out there under the Washington sky and talk about the world, and she loved her world, and her world started in Chicago, not Washington,” Martin said.
Ms. Collin was born Oct. 10, 1939, and raised in Rogers Park and later north suburban Golf by her mother, Maybele Collin, and stepfather, Paul Collin, who owned a company that manufactured components for windows and doors.
She attended the now-shuttered Niles East High School and the University of Iowa.
During her decades-long tenure with the Tribune Company, in addition to covering the Capitol, she wrote profiles of famous and everyday people, had her own column, served on the Tribune’s editorial board and co-wrote the INC. gossip column.
She was part of an informal group of Chicago women with mainly political and journalism backgrounds who call themselves “The High Hens.”
“She had a very Irish charm and a very dry wit, which you could almost miss if you weren’t paying attention … funny, cantankerous and wonderful,” Martin said.
Ms. Collin was a resident of Lincoln Park for nearly two decades before she died. She loved stopping for ice cream. And for years, she drove a little red convertible that she assigned a special name that her friends couldn’t quite remember.
“She was our Brenda Starr,” said her friend, Chris Dudley, who formerly served as executive director of the Illinois Republican Party.
“She just had a way of inviting people to talk about their lives and what they did, and most people are sort of happy to talk about themselves,” said former state Rep. Judy Erwin.
“She was smart as hell and just had a way of telling a story. People were fascinated by her, and she made you part of the story,” Sneed said. “I was always in awe of her ability to do that.”
Ms. Collin’s nephew Philip Collin brought her as his show-and-tell guest to his high school government class.
“She lectured the class. But she was terrified to face 30 kids. I said, ‘Just be my Dorothy, and you’re going to kick ass in there.’ And she did.”
A memorial service is being planned.