NORTHFIELD — John C. Donahue Jr., editor and publisher of The Northfield News and Transcript until he sold it in July of 2008, a newspaperman whose career spanned 75 years from 1933 to 2008, died Saturday, October 4, 2008, of cancer, at 134 Donahue Drive. He was 88 years old.

That career started and ended in Northfield, but took him over the years to Boston, New York, Washington and Paris, where he was a foreign correspondent for the old United Press.

His interest in printing and journalism began in Northfield Falls when he and a cousin, the late Thomas A. Donahue, each almost 13, established the Falls News on July 15, 1933. It was a summer weekly that continued for five years.

He started The Northfield Transcript in retirement in 1999 to demonstrate what he believed a newspaper should be. He was forced to give it up in 2001 after he came down with myasthnia gravis, a neurological disorder that affected his eyesight. But when the 129-year-old Northfield News came on the market, his myasthenia in remission, he bought the paper in January 2007 and combined it with the revived Transcript.

Mr. Donahue worked his way through high school and college on various newspapers, and after his service in the U.S. Coast Guard in the European Atlantic during World War II he returned to Vermont as sports editor of the old Burlington Daily News.

He was editor of Bostonian magazine and managing editor of the Boston Transcript magazine.

At one time or another he covered events in every major country in Western Europe. He left United Press to return to the Burlington Daily News and Vermont Sunday News as managing editor.

He was later national editor of The Washington Post for six years.

He was founding editor and publisher of the Braintree, Mass., Sunday Forum and worked for a time on the day desk of the Boston Evening Globe. He was editor and publisher of Suburban Trends, Butler, N.J., one of the newspapers published by the late Ralph Ingersoll. Mr. Donahue taught journalism at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind., and served as publisher of the student daily, the Purdue Exponent.

Mr. Donahue retired in 1992 and returned to Northfield after nine years on the Daily Record of Morristown, N.J., where he was successively copy desk chief and editor of the editorial page.

During his long career, Mr Donahue also worked for: Foster’s Daily Democrat, Dover, N.H.; The Union Leader, Manchester, N.H.; The New York Times, New York, N.Y.; The New York Times News Service, New York, N.Y.; Pawtucket Times, Pawtucket, R.I.; St. Albans Messenger, St. Albans; Orangetown Telegram, Pearl River, N.Y.; War Assets Administration, New York City [copy and art chief]; summer theaters, as press agent, in North Tarrytown, Suffern and Blauvelt, N.Y.; and during his college years, as a Broadway drama critic for suburban newspapers.

He was born July 24, 1920, in Lynn, Mass., son of Kathleen (Martin) Donahue and John C. Donahue Sr. The senior Donahue came from Northfield and the family always considered it their home.

Mr. Donahue Sr. was an electrical engineer in charge of power station construction in many locations, so young John was educated in schools in Northfield Falls and St. Albans, in Massachusetts, Ohio, New York and New Jersey. In Northfield, he was an altar boy at St. John the Evangelist Church.

He was graduated from Manhattan College in New York in 1942 with a bachelor of arts degree in English and history. He did graduate work at the New School for Social Research in New York, at the University of Vermont, the University of Rhode Island, the Institut d’Etudes Politiques of the Université de Paris and the Università Italiana per Stranieri in Perugia, Italy.

He married Marie Maurice Christiane de Vitry d’Avaucourt in Paris in 1953. She survives him.

He is also survived by three sons, John C. III of Denville, N.J., Pierre M. of Takokma Park, Md., and Marc T.C. of Monticello, Ind.; three daughters, Anne de la B. of Northfield, Christiane K. of Northfield, and Mayalen Mary of Tampa, Fla.; a sister, Meg Donahue Davis of Northfield, and seven grandchildren as well as many cousins and other relatives in Northfield.

He was predeceased by his parents and a sister, Frances D. Leach of Burlington.

Mr. Donahue was a member of the O'Donoghue Society — Royal Order of Eoghanacht O Donnchadha of Ireland, the Manhattan College Alumni, the Northfield Historical Society, St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church and Sorrel-Maynard Post 63 American Legion.

Visiting hours will be at the Donahue home, 134 Donahue Drive, from 6 to 8 p.m. on Sunday, October 5. A Mass of Christian Burial will be held at 10 a.m. on Monday, October 6, at St. John the Evangelist Church, Vine Street, Northfield, with burial following at Calvary Cemetery.

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Edit: For the record, because there is some question, this is the official obituary. I did not write it; I don't know right now who did, but *I suspect he did*.

Edit x2: Yeah, he did.

Tags: donahue, obit, pop
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