Gwendolyn Gibson, 93, former Washington correspondent

Gwendolyn Gibson, a pioneer female journalist whose career took her from the New York Herald Tribune to United Press International, died Monday from complications due to vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. She passed away in the home of her daughter in Austin, Texas, surrounded by family and in the care of home hospice and her immediate family.

She was a former vice president of the Washington Press Club and a lifetime member of the National Press Club.

Gibson moved to Austin from Washington in 2005 where her only daughter and granddaughter lived and where she worked as a part-time freelancer. More recently, she began writing her memoirs, which she jokingly titled, “A Life Misspent.”

Born in Durant, Oklahoma, on June 17, 1925, she was an only child. Gibson grew up in Hugo, Oklahoma, before joining the United Press in Oklahoma City in 1950. She worked for UP throughout the west and in Washington before joining the Washington bureau of the New York Daily News, where she covered the White House and Congress for nearly a decade.

She met her first husband, professional pianist Sidney Schwartz, in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, while she was covering one of President John F. Kennedy’s Cape Cod vacations. The couple moved to New York City and Gibson joined the New York Herald Tribune as a staff writer and reporter.

After the Herald Tribune ceased publication in 1966, Gibson worked as a freelance writer, contributing to numerous national magazines including the Saturday Evening Post, Ladies’ Home Journal, New York magazine, and the Daily News.

After her marriage to Schwartz ended, Gibson continued to freelance while moving from New York to Los Angeles to Denver with her daughter before returning to Washington.

Her second marriage in the late 1980s to Grant Dillman, a former UPI Washington bureau chief, lasted until Dillman’s death in early 2001. The couple worked together for Maturity News Service, established by AARP and specializing in coverage of seniors.

She is survived by her daughter, Eileen Anne Schwartz; her stepson, Joel Stewart; and a granddaughter.