Edith Skom (1929–2016)

Edith Skom, née Rosen, was born in Elkhart, Indiana. At age 15, she enrolled at the University of Chicago, where she earned a bachelor's degree in English with a focus on Victorian literature. She later received a master's degree and a doctorate in English at Northwestern University. In 1978, she joined the faculty of Northwestern's writing program and served as a longtime chair of the program's essay awards committee. She rose to become distinguished senior lecturer at the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, and retired after more than 30 years of teaching in 2012. Dr. Skom was a novelist herself, publishing three literary mysteries: The Mark Twain Murders (1989), The George Eliot Murders (1995), and The Charles Dickens Murders (1998). All three were set at the fictional Midwestern University, with a 19th-century literature theme, and featured amateur sleuth Beth Austin. The Mark Twain Murders was nominated for three Best First Mystery awards: an Agatha, a Macavity and an Anthony. Dr. Skom was married to Joseph Skom, MD, a professor of clinical medicine at Northwestern, with whom she had two children.