Henkel, Eloise, 1923-1995

Biography

Journalist Eloise Elizabeth Henkel, born on April 23, 1923, to parents Milford Franklin and Eloise Lewis Henkel, graduated from Northwestern University with a BS in Journalism in 1944. During her time at Northwestern, Henkel participated in many different student groups. She was a reporter and desk editor for the Daily Northwestern, as well as a feature editor for a single quarter. She was publicity chairman for the Y.W.C.A. and also participated in many other student organizations, such as the Student Governing Board, Northwestern University War Council, Northwestern Association of Independent Students, and the Intervarsity Christian Fellowship.

After graduating from Northwestern University, she worked as a reporter for a variety of newspapers, such as United Press in Chicago and Omaha as well as Enquirer News in Battle Creek, Michigan. In 1950 Henkel worked as a public relations officer for the International Refugee Organization, a specialize agency of the U.N. in charge of information offices in camps in northern Germany. After doing that for a year, Henkel then became a free-lance correspondent in Europe, North Africa, and the “Near East” for the Worldwide Press Service. She also did free-lancing work in Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, and Iran. Later, she then attended graduate school at the University of Chicago, where she received a MA in English in 1964.

In 1967, Henkel embarked on an intended one year trip to Southeast Asia and Vietnam to investigate the effects of the Vietnam War on the people that lived there. Her stay in Southeast Asian lasted a total of two and a half years. While there, she reported on a wide range of topics, such as injured children in a hospital in Quang Ngai, the point of view of the solders both American and Vietnamese, as well as relaying details of the aftermaths of major battles of the war. In Vietnam, she did most of her traveling with James Fred Deckard, a journalist that was filming the war as it unfolded. Most of what Henkel wrote while in Vietnam was for newspapers such as the Grand Rapids Press, the Montreal Gazette, and well as many other newspapers.

Henkel later worked at the University of Chicago as a media specialist in 1979. She continued to write various stories and articles until she passed away at the age of 72 in 1995 after a long struggle with inoperable lung cancer.

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