Margaret McManus is shown with her husband, Jim McKay, at the BSO's annual gala in 2000. McManus died early Thursday at her home in northern Baltimore County. She was 89. Jim McKay died in 2008. (Sun file photo / September 9, 2000) |
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Margaret Dempsey McManus, a former Evening Sun reporter and syndicated columnist who was the widow of sports broadcasting legend Jim McKay, died Thursday in her sleep of congestive heart failure at her Monkton home. She was 89.
Born Margaret Mary Dempsey in Baltimore and raised on Park Avenue in Towson, she was a Towson Catholic High School graduate and basketball team captain. She earned a degree in 1942 from the College of Notre Dame of Maryland, where she was editor of the school newspaper. She later became a trustee of the school.
Determined to become a newspaper reporter, Mrs. McManus related in a 1995 memoir how she badgered Sun executive editor Neil Swanson for months before he gave her a job. On her first day, she recalled, was "the perfection of it, the thick haze of cigarette smoke, the clatter of the typewriters, the paper coffee cups on every desk." She became a reporter and feature writer for the Evening Sun in an era when few women reporters worked at the paper.
She met a young James McManus - he had not yet changed his name to McKay - in 1946 when her future husband, hired as a police reporter, took a place on the city desk.
"Excuse me," she said, "You are sitting in my chair."
At the time, she was the better-known journalist of the pair. Among her achievements: an exclusive story about the birth of Baltimore's famous Henn quadruplets. While other reporters flocked to St. Agnes Hospital, she earned her scoop by camping out at the family's Stafford Street home for hours and interviewing the father of the four infants as he stumbled home.
"She considered herself a newspaper lady until the day she died," said her son, Sean McManus, president of CBS news and sports.
After a while, her future husband mustered the courage to ask her out, he said in a 1992 Sun profile.
"On their first date - which appropriately enough took place at a Colts game - he had an inkling this might turn into more than a casual relationship," the story said. "Riding to the stadium, Mr. McKay was explaining how unevenly the Baltimore and San Francisco teams were matched when Ms. McManus interrupted with her prediction for the outcome: The teams would wind up tied 28-28."
That turned out to be the score of the game. "I knew then destiny had arrived," he said.
The couple married in 1948, less than a year after he began appearing on Baltimore's first television broadcasts on WMAR-TV.
She also made her debut on early live television. They broadcast a teen forum as a husband-and-wife team.
When her husband was hired by CBS in New York, they moved to Westport, Conn., and she began writing a syndicated celebrity interview column for the Bell Syndicate. Her husband later became one of television's most recognized faces on ABC's "Wide World of Sports."
A working mother, she wove celebrity interviews into her day by conducting them over lunch and rushing home to be with her children in the evening. She rode the old New Haven Railroad into New York City to meet her sources, and typed her stories on the family kitchen table, with a pot of coffee warming on the stove, family members said.
She would take her daughter on interviews, meeting Bing Crosby, Janet Leigh, Michael Landon, Bob Hope and Alfred Hitchcock. Judy Garland welcomed them on her plane for her engagement at the London Palladium.
"Mom took me to meet Gene Kelly," said her daughter, Mary McManus Guba of Monkton. "He had on a white linen suit; I smeared chocolate all over it."
After giving up the celebrity column in the mid-1970s, she wrote a second series of articles, entitled Women in Washington.
She and her husband vowed to return to Baltimore, and more than 25 years ago bought Bellefield Farm in Monkton. They immersed themselves in the Maryland thoroughbred racing and breeding scene.
"They were perfectly complementary to each other," said Sean McManus. "They were inseparable. She was strong and had a great business sense about her. He almost never wrote a check."
Jim McKay died in 2008.
A funeral Mass will be held at 10 a.m. Monday at Our Lady of Grace Roman Catholic Church, 18310 Middleton Road, Parkton.
In addition to her son and daughter, survivors include her sister, Elizabeth Dempsey Anderson of Cockeysville; and three grandchildren.
Born Margaret Mary Dempsey in Baltimore and raised on Park Avenue in Towson, she was a Towson Catholic High School graduate and basketball team captain. She earned a degree in 1942 from the College of Notre Dame of Maryland, where she was editor of the school newspaper. She later became a trustee of the school.
Determined to become a newspaper reporter, Mrs. McManus related in a 1995 memoir how she badgered Sun executive editor Neil Swanson for months before he gave her a job. On her first day, she recalled, was "the perfection of it, the thick haze of cigarette smoke, the clatter of the typewriters, the paper coffee cups on every desk." She became a reporter and feature writer for the Evening Sun in an era when few women reporters worked at the paper.
She met a young James McManus - he had not yet changed his name to McKay - in 1946 when her future husband, hired as a police reporter, took a place on the city desk.
"Excuse me," she said, "You are sitting in my chair."
At the time, she was the better-known journalist of the pair. Among her achievements: an exclusive story about the birth of Baltimore's famous Henn quadruplets. While other reporters flocked to St. Agnes Hospital, she earned her scoop by camping out at the family's Stafford Street home for hours and interviewing the father of the four infants as he stumbled home.
"She considered herself a newspaper lady until the day she died," said her son, Sean McManus, president of CBS news and sports.
After a while, her future husband mustered the courage to ask her out, he said in a 1992 Sun profile.
"On their first date - which appropriately enough took place at a Colts game - he had an inkling this might turn into more than a casual relationship," the story said. "Riding to the stadium, Mr. McKay was explaining how unevenly the Baltimore and San Francisco teams were matched when Ms. McManus interrupted with her prediction for the outcome: The teams would wind up tied 28-28."
That turned out to be the score of the game. "I knew then destiny had arrived," he said.
The couple married in 1948, less than a year after he began appearing on Baltimore's first television broadcasts on WMAR-TV.
She also made her debut on early live television. They broadcast a teen forum as a husband-and-wife team.
When her husband was hired by CBS in New York, they moved to Westport, Conn., and she began writing a syndicated celebrity interview column for the Bell Syndicate. Her husband later became one of television's most recognized faces on ABC's "Wide World of Sports."
A working mother, she wove celebrity interviews into her day by conducting them over lunch and rushing home to be with her children in the evening. She rode the old New Haven Railroad into New York City to meet her sources, and typed her stories on the family kitchen table, with a pot of coffee warming on the stove, family members said.
She would take her daughter on interviews, meeting Bing Crosby, Janet Leigh, Michael Landon, Bob Hope and Alfred Hitchcock. Judy Garland welcomed them on her plane for her engagement at the London Palladium.
"Mom took me to meet Gene Kelly," said her daughter, Mary McManus Guba of Monkton. "He had on a white linen suit; I smeared chocolate all over it."
After giving up the celebrity column in the mid-1970s, she wrote a second series of articles, entitled Women in Washington.
She and her husband vowed to return to Baltimore, and more than 25 years ago bought Bellefield Farm in Monkton. They immersed themselves in the Maryland thoroughbred racing and breeding scene.
"They were perfectly complementary to each other," said Sean McManus. "They were inseparable. She was strong and had a great business sense about her. He almost never wrote a check."
Jim McKay died in 2008.
A funeral Mass will be held at 10 a.m. Monday at Our Lady of Grace Roman Catholic Church, 18310 Middleton Road, Parkton.
In addition to her son and daughter, survivors include her sister, Elizabeth Dempsey Anderson of Cockeysville; and three grandchildren.
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Edwin, If you'd check your facts before posting, then you would know that the Colts played in the All-america conference BEFORE the NFL. They indeed did play San Francisco on Oct. 5, 1947 and tied 28-28. The article above is correct
Kenwoodgrad (10/16/2009, 1:32 PM )