Jean Carrelli - special in every way

Another once-close-to-me reporter has joined the growing heavenly corps of old-school journalists from Newark. Jean Carrelli, whose name was for years a familiar byline, died yesterday, 1/13/09, after one of those wretched, heart-breaking illnesses.

Jean was diminutive (5 ft. 1 in.) and humble, but she reached far and deep with her humanistic-oriented newspaper reports and spoke to the multitudes - many times, over many years, for the Advocate, Ace News, Our Town, and maybe others.

Jean migrated from England to the U.S. as the wife of Al Carrelli when he was in the Air Force. I loved her accent; maybe it was Cockney, I'm not sure, but it was one of the sweet fringe benefits of my job.

I hired Jean away from her job at the (Heath) Ace News in April, 1977, where she had been making $2.50 per hour. We paid her $130 a week. Two years later, she confided to me that John Ashbrook, a publisher of local weeklies, offered her $200 a week, but she preferred to work for the Advocate.

She covered the Heath beat, wrote various columns, worked the copy desk, did general reporting and edited the Church Page. She was respected by her news contacts, people like Bill Mason, a Newark Schools administrator, who wrote that she "is the nicest, most personable school reporter we've had in 10 years."

Jean loved and lived her job - early, late, whatever it took. She was a news horse like few others I've known and special in every way. She's earned her rest and my most heart-felt thanks for a job well-done.