Holmberg, Ruth Rachel Sulzberger, 1921-2017

Ruth Sulzberger Holmberg (born Ruth Rachel Sulzberger; March 12, 1921 – April 20, 2017) was a newspaper publisher and member of the Ochs-Sulzberger family.

Biography
Sulzberger was born to a Jewish family on March 12, 1921 in New York City, the second of four children of Iphigene Sulzberger (née Ochs) and Arthur Hays Sulzberger.[1][2] Her father served as publisher of The New York Times from 1935 to 1961 and her maternal grandfather was Adolph S. Ochs, the owner of The Chattanooga Times and The New York Times.[1] Her brother, Arthur Ochs "Punch" Sulzberger served as publisher of The New York Times and chairman and CEO of the Times Company; her sister Marian Sulzberger Heiskell (married to Andrew Heiskell) was a philanthropist; and her other sister, Judith P. Sulzberger was a doctor.[3]

Sulzberger attended the Lincoln School and Brearley School; and then graduated from Smith College in 1943.[1] She worked as a Red Cross volunteer during World War II in England and France assigned to the 394th Bombardment Group of the Ninth Air Force.[1] In 1946, she moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee with her then husband, Ben Hale Golden, who was to train to become the eventual publisher of The Chattanooga Times.
In 1984, she was elected president of the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association.[1] In 1987, she was elected a director of The Associated Press, the second woman to do so after Katharine Graham.[1] In 1997, Sulzberger and her siblings transferred ownership of The Chattanooga Times to their 13 children who sold it to Walter E. Hussman Jr. of the Wehco Media Company who merged it with The News-Free Press to form the Chattanooga Times Free Press.[1] She served on the board of The New York Times from 1961 to 1998.[1]

Philanthropy
Sulzberger served as director of various organizations including the Smithsonian Institution, the Hunter Museum of American Art, the Chattanooga Symphony and Opera Association, the Chattanooga Community Foundation, the Tennessee Aquarium and the Chattanooga Area Beautification Committee.[1] She also served as a trustee of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, was a founding member of the Tennessee Arts Commission, was a member of the Tennessee Higher Education Commission, served as chairwoman of the Public Education Foundation, and was the first female president of the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce.[1]

Personal life
Sulzberger was married twice. Her first husband was Ben Hale Golden (died 1970), a Christian and Army Air Force officer whom she had met while she was in Europe during World War II.[1][4] They had four children before divorcing in 1965: Stephen Golden; Michael Golden; Lynn Golden Dolnick (married to Edward Dolnick); and Arthur Sulzberger Golden.[1][4][5] In 1972, she married Albert William Holmberg Jr. who was initially in charge of production, advertising and circulation at the paper; and was later named president.[1][6][7] She had three stepchildren from the marriage: Jeanne Holmberg Johnson, Meg Holmberg Duckworth and Elin Holmberg-Rowland.[1]

Ruth Sulzberger Holmberg, who challenged racial barriers, political skulduggery and environmental adversaries as publisher of The Chattanooga Times in Tennessee for nearly three decades, and who was a member of the family that controls The New York Times, died on Wednesday at her home in Chattanooga. She was 96. Mrs. Holmberg, who was publisher of The Chattanooga Times from 1964 to 1992, stayed on as publisher emeritus and chairwoman until 1999, when it was sold to a small chain and merged with a rival newspaper. (Though it was owned by her family, the paper was never part of The New York Times Company.)

She was a granddaughter of Adolph S. Ochs, who bought The Chattanooga Times in 1878 and The New York Times in 1896, and the second of four children of Iphigene Ochs and Arthur Hays Sulzberger, the publisher of The New York Times from 1935 to 1961. A Smith College graduate who had been a Red Cross volunteer in England and France during World War II, Mrs. Holmberg (her name from a second marriage) was a 25-year-old Sulzberger heiress when she and her first husband, Ben Hale Golden, arrived in Chattanooga in 1946 — not to take over her family’s newspaper but to begin Mr. Golden’s career on it. With no journalistic experience, he was to be groomed for the publisher’s post. Mrs. Holmberg was on the board of The New York Times for 37 years. Stepping down in 1998, she remained a principal owner of the company under a trust that had passed to her and her three siblings on the death of their mother in 1990.

Ruth Rachel Sulzberger was born in New York City on March 12, 1921. She and her siblings grew up surrounded by maids, butlers, nannies, chauffeurs and other servants. She attended the Lincoln School, an experimental adjunct to Columbia Teachers College; and Brearley, a private school on the Upper East Side, before enrolling at Smith, in Northampton, Mass. At the military base, she met Ben Golden, a married Army Air Force officer who had been a manager for the Tennessee Valley Authority. After the Normandy invasion in 1944, they moved with the 394th to France and stayed for the duration. Mr. Golden’s first marriage ended in divorce, and within a year after the war, Ruthie, as her father affectionately called her, was married and in Chattanooga, where she would settle, raise her children and make her mark.