Dave Osborn

dave.osborn@naplesnews.com; 239-263-4896

She took on generals, sexism and worked in a war zone.

Anne Morrissy Merick was a pioneer. She was the first woman to become sports editor at a college newspaper and later fought for equal treatment for women covering the Vietnam War.

“She was a tough cookie," said her daughter Katherine Anne Engelke. "She had a lot of energy. When she set her mind to doing something, she usually did it.”

Merick, who died May 2 at age 83 from complications from dementia at Vi at Bentley Village in Naples, inspired many, including Engelke.

"She’s just a great mom," she said in a telephone interview Tuesday from her Baltimore home. "She really tried to instill in me you can do whatever you set your mind to doing. It doesn't matter where you come from or what gender you are.”

Morrissy Merick was the first woman to become sports editor of Cornell University’s student newspaper, in 1954. She later was hired as the sports editor of the New York Herald Tribune international edition.

By 1961, she began working with ABC News and covered the civil rights movement and the space program.

ABC sent her in 1967 to cover the Vietnam War. There, she took on U.S. commander Gen. William Westmoreland, who ordered that female reporters could not spend a night with troops in the field. That meant women would miss some of the better stories because they could not go on many combat missions.

Morrissy Merick and eight colleagues co-wrote a book that detailed their experiences, "War Torn: Stories of War From the Women Reporters Who Covered Vietnam," in 2002. Morrissy Merick referred to Westmoreland's order as a "knockout blow" to their careers.

Even so, she and another reporter organized with other women covering the war to challenge the general. They appealed to the Defense Department, which later overrode Westmoreland's order.

“She was very proud," Engelke said. "She wanted to tell the story. She didn't think that being a woman should keep her from telling the right story.

“She definitely had some instances where she was fearful of her life. It was a perilous time.”

While in Vietnam, Morrissy Merick met her husband, Engelke's father, fellow journalist Wendell "Bud" Merick, a correspondent with U.S. News and World Report.

Engelke was born in Saigon in 1970. The family eventually moved to Australia once American news outlets closed their Vietnam bureaus, and the family returned to the U.S. in 1977.

"She loved Vietnam," Engelke said. "When you talk to these war reporters when they come back, they were all so sad about what happened. She loved the country and the people."

Her dad died in 1988 at age 60, and her mom later remarried Dr. Don R. Janicek and lived with him in Naples until his death in 2016. Morrisy Merick had lived in Naples since 2001, Engelke said.

She said her mom was a winter resident in Naples for four, then six, then eight months and became a resident who enjoyed playing tennis and golf year-round.

Engelke, 46, a physical therapist, said her mom would tell stories about the war.

“She was very proud of it and very proud to have made all of those accomplishments," she said. "But it wasn’t like she talked about it all the time.

“She inspired a lot of people.”