On Monday, April 13, members of the Greenbelt News Review and City of Greenbelt Horticulture Crew gathered to replace a memorial tree for Elaine Skolnik Nicholson, longtime News Review reporter, news editor and board president. This article is based on Sandra Lange’s 2021 obituary of Elaine (see January 21, 2021 News Review), which noted, “Perhaps no single Greenbelt figure has been as influential in the News Review’s history over more than six decades than Elaine Ruth Skolnik Nicholson.” Elaine and her husband and board president Al Skolnik led the News Review through the years-long legal battle when it was sued in 1965 for libel.
Elaine’s pink and Al’s white memorial dogwood trees are on the grassy bank between the Community Center parking lot outside the News Review office and the Roosevelt Center parking lot. Elaine’s original tree died after being vandalized, and the News Review board coordinated with the city to replace it.
Early Days
Elaine and Al moved to Greenbelt with their children in 1952. She remembered how she fell in love with Greenbelt. “Oh, those tall pines and oaks, the lake, the large green areas, the playgrounds. … It was such a sweet life.” Al’s full-time job was chief of inter-program statistics at the Social Security Administration, but Elaine said his dream job was to be a journalist. She claimed she had no talent for writing.
When they began working with the News Review, Al focused on hard news about Greenbelt Homes, Inc. and the city council, and Elaine helped write the Our Neighbors column. Not long afterward, she saw a moving van in her court. The main Our Neighbors columnist was departing, and Elaine nervously became “it.”
Anguish and Recognition
In 1965 the newspaper and Al were sued for $2,000,000 for libel by local developer Charles Bresler, who charged that the paper had published defamatory remarks made by residents at a city council meeting. Thus began a four-year legal battle where lower courts awarded Bresler $17,500 in damages, which was upheld in Maryland’s highest court. With pro bono representation from Washington Post attorneys, the U.S. Supreme Court vindicated the News Review in a 1970 landmark unanimous Freedom of the Press decision. The legal battle impacted Al’s and Elaine’s private lives. Meanwhile they were assisting the lawyers and raising funds to cover court costs in case they lost again. The anguish was long lasting.
In 1974, Al and Elaine were named Greenbelt Outstanding Citizens, for which News Review Editor Mary Lou Williamson today remembers a rule change making multiple persons eligible. In addition to her newspaper work, Elaine served on the Park and Recreation Advisory Board and as Co-op Nursery School president. She was active in the movement to preserve Greenbelt as a planned community during the 1970s and early 1980s when the city endured many development issues. She also worked behind the scenes for city council and GHI board candidates, organizing GHI court captains to ensure voter turnout. Spending hours on the phone from her 474-6060 phone number, she became known as Agent 60. Williamson remembers Elaine as a champion arm-twister, saying, “You’d go to the office to do one thing” and end up with several more to do.
Next Chapters
In 1977, her world collapsed when Al died of a heart attack, possibly contributed to by the legal battle. But she had great reserves of strength and perseverance and reluctantly became the president of the News Review for nine years. She became a guru on sewage treatment when Greenbriar was built during a 1970-1977 sewer moratorium. She took pride in unbiased, factual reporting, and lawyers and developers noted her fairness, sensitivity and caring.
By 1986, Elaine had moved from Greenbelt and married Victor Nicholson, who drove her to the News Review office every Tuesday. Vic died in 2005 and Elaine in 2021.
In Memoriam
Former editor Harry Zubkoff once wrote, “The News Review is the major unifying element within the city, the force which has done more than any other single civic activity to make a city out of a housing project.” Today many residents of Greenbelt are unfamiliar with Elaine’s and Al’s achievements. But without their leadership, the News Review might not have survived and maintained its decades-long influence. We are grateful for their examples and honor their service.
