Bentley, Helen Delich, 1923-2016

<p>Helen Delich Bentley (November 28, 1923 – August 6, 2016) was an American politician who was a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from Maryland from 1985 to 1995. Before entering politics, she had been a leading maritime reporter and journalist.</p>

<p>Bentley was born in the copper-mining town of Ruth, Nevada. Her parents were immigrant Serbians, and her father was a miner. When Bentley was eight years old, her father died of silicosis, a common miner's disease, and Bentley took a part-time job in a dress shop while her mother took in boarders to support the family.</p>

<p>While at high school, she had her first experiences of journalism and politics while working on the weekly newspaper of Ely, Nevada, which was published by Republican state legislator Charles Russell. She won scholarships to study journalism at the University of Missouri, graduating in 1944 after earning a BA degree with honors. While at college, she worked on the Senate campaign for Democrat James D. Scrugham, and was appointed his Senate secretary.</p>

<p>As a Member of Congress representing suburban Baltimore, Helen Delich Bentley focused on the issues that were at the center of her earlier careers as a journalist and federal appointee—those affecting the maritime industry and American trade. Able to attract blue-collar and traditionally Democratic voters, despite remaining relatively conservative, Bentley’s gruff style and raspy voice seemed the very embodiment of her decades of experience spent on the city docks and plying the oceans. “I am a woman who worked in men’s fields for a long time. I insisted on working on the city side of the paper and not the women’s pages,” Bentley once explained. “I did it all on my own. Women have to be willing to work and produce and not just expect favors because they are women.”</p>

<p>Helen Delich was born to Michael Ivanesevich Delich and Mary (Kovich) Delich, Yugoslavian immigrants, in Ruth, Nevada, on November 28, 1923. She and her six siblings grew up in the neighboring town of Ely. Michael Delich, a copper miner, died of an occupational disease, silicosis, when Helen was just eight years old. Helen graduated as valedictorian from White Pine High School in Ely in 1941, earning two scholarships to attend the University of Nevada. She transferred to the University of Missouri’s journalism school in the fall of 1942. In the summer of 1942, Delich managed the U.S. Senate campaign of James Graves Scrugham in two Nevada counties. Scrugham, a Democrat and five-term U.S. Representative, won the election. When he was sworn into the Senate in 1943, he hired Delich as his secretary. She worked nine months in Scrugham’s Capitol Hill office, before returning to the University of Missouri in the fall of 1943. She earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism in 1944 and worked newspaper jobs in Indiana and Idaho.</p>

<p>In June 1945, Helen Delich was hired by the <i>Baltimore Sun</i>, beginning a three-decade-long relationship with the newspaper. She specialized in labor issues and, in 1947, became the first woman to cover an American Federation of Labor convention. A year later, the <i>Sun</i>’s city editor gave her a new beat: maritime trade. As Delich reported on the shipping industry, she cultivated sources ranging from dockhands to union officials to bureaucrats and local politicians. She educated herself and then the public on issues related to America’s maritime interests, using the port of Baltimore as a prism through which to understand the industry. Her “Around the Waterfront” column was syndicated in 15 newspapers and eventually led to the development of a popular, long-running television show on the maritime industry. She often traveled aboard ships to produce stories, taking her on the high seas around the world. Delich’s demeanor and presentation were as salty and as blunt as the sailors and stevedores about whom she wrote. Over the years, she earned a national reputation as an authority on maritime issues. On June 7, 1959, Helen Delich married William Bentley, a school teacher. They had no children.</p>