Columnist Sally Friedman offers one final peek at life as 50-year career comes to a close

Witty, genuine, professional, a local legend, a reason to buy the paper — family, colleagues and readers alike gush with reverence for columnist Sally Friedman.

However, the beloved writer was nothing but humble when reminiscing about the highs, lows and end of her 50-year career.

“I am so grateful that I can listen to people’s stories,” said Friedman during an interview at her Philadelphia apartment. “It’s a gift, it’s wonderful; it’s very dramatic sometimes and sometimes it’s very annoying.”

Friedman, 83, has written for the Courier-Post, Bucks County Courier Times, The Intelligencer, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the New York Times and at one point had more stories in the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” series than any other writer in the world, according to her daughter Jill.

Yet, she is also simply the dear friend and neighbor who happened to write a cherished column every week for the Burlington County Times. From historical society news and teen scholarship nights to interviews with Holocaust survivors, Friedman wrote about a bit of everything.

“There are so many (stories). I’ve been writing for all these years,” she said. “I cry a lot. I think a lot. I just feel so grateful that this is my life, and I feel awed that people will tell me their stories.”

She is best known, though, for offering intimate looks into funny, fraught and familiar moments in her family’s life. Often thought-provoking and sometimes tear-jerking, these columns have resonated with thousands of readers every weekend for decades.

Spinning stories of family life into a career

While Friedman was “always in love with writing,” she didn’t sell her first story until the age of 25: a personal account of giving birth to her second daughter Amy at home with her husband serving as an impromptu obstetrician. The piece appeared in Baby Talk magazine and garnered her a payment of either $12 or $12 worth of diapers. She chose the latter.

But her storied career wouldn’t begin for another couple years; she had three quick-witted, “smart and really sassy” daughters to take care of, after all.

The need to put pen to paper finally struck again after dropping her youngest daughter, Nancy, off at kindergarten. Friedman sobbed, went home and poured her emotions onto yellow legal paper. The story, “The Last First Day,” would become her inaugural column, appearing in the Burlington County Times in 1971.

Her daughter Jill Friedman, a Rutgers Law School dean, joined Sally Friedman while she spoke to the Burlington County Times. Jill Friedman said she never knew what would turn into a column — and that she wasn’t always comfortable with that.

“We had many, many discussions on what would be appropriate to include in a public newspaper,” said Jill Friedman.

“You think?!” quipped Sally Friedman.

Friedman, ever a journalist, turned to Jill and asked a hard-hitting question: what story about her made her the most uncomfortable?

“Sixth grade first date,” Jill Friedman said without hesitation.

“OK, I plead guilty!” said Sally Friedman.

“To the Moorestown Strawberry Festival,” her daughter elaborated.

“I told who your date was?”

“And you told about my date!”

She then asked about the story that made her daughter the happiest.

“The best story you ever wrote specifically about me was about packing me up and taking me to college,” she said. “I still cry. You talked about your own emotion, my emotion, dad’s emotion. That was a beautiful, beautiful story.”

Besides her daughters, Friedman drew immense inspiration and even more support from her husband Victor Friedman, 89. He had a public persona as a Burlington County Superior Court judge, but she introduced readers to the domestic life of “Vic.”

He’s been like her right arm, she said; a “sensible and calm” confidant to her “slightly hysterical” nature.

“I am chaotic, I am disorderly and (as a judge) Vic talks about people’s lives and serious, serious, serious things,” she said. “I am so grateful that he’s my husband — and I don’t want to sound like a goody two-shoes — but I am not easy to live with.”

Choking back tears, she then turned to her husband, who was listening to the interview, and said, “you have been wonderful, I love you.”

“Do you hate me Vic? For being so annoying?” she asked.

“I’m very proud of everything you do,” he said.

As writing became a way of life for Friedman, workshopping stories became a family affair. After clacking away at her typewriter for hours, she would read aloud what she’d written to her daughters and husband.

“We would all make suggestions,” said Jill Friedman. “That’s how we have written everything we’ve ever written: school papers, professional papers, we always read each other’s work.”

After finalizing familial edits, Sally Friedman would hand deliver her columns to the Burlington County Times around 10 p.m. Not wanting to make the late-night drive alone, she’d often bribe her daughters to join her; sometimes with the chance to drive before they were old enough.

An 'obligation' to make people feel important

As a journalist, “you learn how amazing people are,” said Friedman. “I know it sounds so corny, but people will tell you anything, and they will be so grateful.”

There are so many people who’ve never been told they’re important, she said. Because of this, she said she’s felt an obligation to let them know how important they are.

“I feel so honored that I can talk to people in my own community every week,” she said. “I just love listening to other people’s stories, and I feel like there is nothing more exciting, interesting and also hard.”

Her hardest but most important work, she said, was interviewing Holocaust survivors for what’s now the University of Southern California Shoah Foundation. Established by Steven Spielberg in 1994, the institute seeks to document the stories of survivors and witnesses to the Holocaust, called the Shoah in Hebrew, as well as other genocides. 

“In the process of that experience, I sat opposite men and women with stories so horrific that it was difficult not to gasp,” wrote Friedman, who is Jewish, for the Jewish Community Voice in 2016.

“I have never forgotten any of them because once you do this work, it is impossible to ever leave it behind. It was also, for me, the greatest privilege I’ve ever known as a writer.”

'A reason to buy the paper'

From former colleagues to devout readers, respect and admiration for Friedman is almost as prolific as her writing.

“You’d be pressed hard to find anybody saying anything bad about Sally Friedman,” said Shane Fitzgerald, who worked with Friedman when he was executive editor of the Burlington County Times and Bucks County Courier Times in the mid-2010s.

“She writes like she is. She’s a nice person — well, in fact, she’s a tremendously nice person, and I really enjoyed the times I got to spend with her and sometimes with her husband,” he said.

Readers on both sides of the Delaware River told him: “she was a reason to buy the paper.”

When asked how this made her feel, Friedman said she was “totally overwhelmed.”

“I don’t know who they’re talking about,” she said. “I am so flawed; I don’t do things right; I’m very quiet. But people are so generous.”

Her writing transcended boundaries, borders, gender and age, because of the everyday connections she made with readers, said Fitzgerald.

“She’s given her best her best for decades,” he said. “I hope she knows how beloved she is by her editors, her readers, her coworkers. We all think ‘what a good person she is.’”

Stanley Ellis, former publisher of the Burlington County Times from 1991-2008, said she has an “amazing ability to make people feel at ease.” Talking to her was like talking to a friend, he said.

“She gave you the impression that she genuinely cared, and I think it’s because she did care,” he said. “When you assigned her a story, she felt it was her job to do everything she could to tell that person’s story in as meaningful of a way as possible.”

She was also loved by editors for her incredible ability to “put out good copy quickly,” said Ellis.

Like Fitzgerald, Ellis also received feedback from readers about how much they loved Friedman.

“I probably got more comments from readers about how much they looked forward to that Sunday column from Sally as much as anything we had in the paper,” he said. “It was a tradition for a lot of people on Sundays.”

Even when she took a week off and the paper reprinted one of her older columns, readers weren’t upset. If anything, they were nostalgic and fondly recalled 15-to-20-year-old columns, he said.

Audrey Harvin, executive editor of the Burlington County Times, has worked with Friedman for more than 20 years but understood why readers loved her column shortly after meeting her.

“Her wit, sensitivity and understanding about marriage, motherhood, career and family resonates with all walks of life,” said Harvin. “When you read one of her columns, you either laugh out loud or you shed a tear because more than likely, you've experienced what she's shared in a few paragraphs.”

Harvin called Friedman a “consummate professional and lovely person,” and said she’ll dearly miss the endearing family moments Friedman shared.

“Fifty years is a lifetime in journalism,” she said. “So, I thank Sally for sharing those years with her readers and may her retirement be as fulfilling as her career.”

Toward the end of the Burlington County Times’ interview with Friedman, Jill Friedman proved herself a reporter’s daughter.

“Why do you think people love your column so much?” she asked.

“I have no idea,” said Sally Friedman. “I never expected this, and I am so grateful for it.”

Aedy Miller is a multimedia journalist covering education, labor, climate change, mental health and the intersections thereof for the Burlington County Times, Courier-Post and The Daily Journal. Reach them at amiller4@gannett.com.

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This article originally appeared on Burlington County Times: Columnist Sally Friedman is 'so grateful' for her five-decade career