Though her 40-year career in public relations was one of prominent clients and national scope, Vernette M. Schultz reserved her greatest energies for the suburb of Oak Park, where she lived for more than half a century and where she will have a lasting impact. That is where she died Monday, Aug. 31.
“She has been ill with a number of maladies for quite some time and, no, we really don’t know how old she was,” said her daughter Susy. “She always said that a woman who would tell her age would tell anything, and she was from that era when women in business were often defined and confined by their age and she was determined not to let that happen.”
A woman of immense and sparkling intelligence, Mrs. Schultz was also a gregarious hostess and friend.
“My many years as Vernette’s neighbor will always be precious to me,” said actor John Mahoney. “She was everything I admired in a woman: smart, opinionated, funny, insightful and fearless. I spent many evenings as her dinner guest and our conversations included everything from politics to Prokofiev. I will miss her every day.”
Vernette Smith was born and raised in Brooklyn and attended St. Mary-of-the-Woods College in Indiana, receiving a degree in English, dramatics and speech, which were also the subjects she pursued in postgraduate work at Northwestern University.
While working in the advertising business as a copywriter, assistant art director and production manager, she met and married Robert G. Schultz, a young reporter for the Chicago Daily News.
While raising four daughters, they were a busy and high-profile couple. He would go on to become a revered editor and political columnist with the Daily News, a career that earned him a place in the Chicago Journalism Hall of Fame. He died in 1989.
She had an active career in public relations, notably as senior vice president and director of public affairs for the Porter Novelli agency and later as co-founder of Partners for Communications.
She represented clients ranging from the Greater State Street Council to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a special architectural section of the Austin neighborhood.
But Oak Park was her real passion.
“We are kind of like the State of Texas. We think there is no other place like it,” she once said.
She served as a village trustee and was one of the first women elected to the board for Oak Park Elementary School District 97. In 1977 she was one of the founders of the Oak Park Exchange Congress, which brought together municipalities from across the nation to discuss issues of racial integration.
She also was the chair of the Oak Park Community Relations Commission during its groundbreaking work in the 1970s to diversify the community by ensuring fair housing opportunities.
“She was a giver,” said Sherlynn Reid, former director of the commission. “She cared deeply about the community and its people — helping to make folks’ lives easier and better. And her energy seemed endless as she went about it.”
Mrs. Schultz served on the Task Force for the Implementation of the Illinois Human Rights Act; was a trustee for Rush Oak Park Hospital, the Women’s Board for the National Conference of Christians and Jews, and the Family Service Mental Health Association.
Her most recent passion was Interfaith House, a transitional housing program for homeless people leaving the hospital. She served on its advisory board.
Mrs. Schultz also is survived by three other daughters, Jeanne Marie, Vicki and Dorothy Sachs; her sister, Jeanne Stoner, and 13 grandchildren.
Visitation will be held from 4 to 9 p.m. Wednesday in Drechsler, Brown & Williams Funeral Home, 203 S. Marion St., Oak Park. Mass will be said at 11 a.m. Thursday in St. Catherine of Siena and St. Lucy Catholic Church, 38 N. Austin Blvd., Oak Park.
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rkogan@tribune.com
