Daily Herald columnist drew material from everyday life

Back in the late 1950s and through the 1960s, Daily Herald readers enjoyed a series of human interest columns written by Betty Mae Ainslie.

The columnist had honed her journalism skills at Ohio State University, where she graduated in 1938, but she drew her material from her busy family activities as well as from events going on in the local community.

Mrs. Ainslie died Feb. 5, less than three months after her husband of 68 years, Fred Ainslie, died in November. The former 30-year Arlington Heights resident, most recently of Minnetonka, Minn., was 91.

One of the last projects Mr. Ainslie completed, was a book containing samples of his wife's writing.

"Bits and Pieces: Writings and Life of Betty Ainslie in the 20th Century," was published in 2006.

A copy of it was submitted to public libraries in all of the communities where Mrs. Ainslie had lived, including the Arlington Heights Memorial Library, which continues to carry the book in its collection.

The book contains nearly all of her Daily Herald columns, called "Anklin' Around with Ainslie," as well as other articles published in different publications.

Her oldest son, Michael, remembers his mother as an avid reader who strongly promoted the activity with her children.

"We spent our childhood reading more than anything else," says Michael Ainslie, now a pediatrician and chairman of the Minnesota Medical Association. "When everyone else on the block got a television set, we were the last ones to get one, and even then we had only certain hours we could watch."

He remembers a room set aside in their Arlington Heights home for his mother's office.

"She wrote most everything in long hand and then pecked it out on the typewriter," her son recalls.

Many of her columns were written in the first person, ranging from New Year's resolutions to observations on raising four children.

Others were more like small features. Her son recalls one in particular on Komodo dragons, for which she traveled to Brookfield Zoo with her camera to take photos to accompany the story.

While his mother wrote, his father served on the plan commission in Arlington Heights, bringing his experience as an engineer to the group.

Their children were among the first graduates of Our Lady of the Wayside School and St. Viator High School, both in Arlington Heights.

Besides her son, Mrs. Ainslie is survived by a daughter, Diane (Bob) Diedrich, and sons Thomas (Flo) and Bill, as well as seven grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

Services have been held.