Ione Marie Quinby Griggs (1891-1991) was a crime journalist for the Chicago Evening Post and subsequently wrote an iconic advice column for the Milwaukee Journal Green Sheet for over fifty years.
Moving back to Chicago, however, provided Griggs with a view of other women writing for newspapers, such as Frances Willard and Margaret Sullivan, and she eventually attended the Northwestern University School of Journalism.
Her family tree held a number of members who were involved in newspaper work, including a female relative who published a women's rights paper in Ohio's North-West Territory and a variety of others scattered across the country.
[3] In her early career, Griggs covered the crime beat, specializing in cases where women were tried for murders of husbands, boyfriends, and lovers.
[6] Griggs interviewed Al Capone while he was in jail for tax evasion, shared a candy bar with him, and even covered his sister's wedding.
[7][8] While she has often been classified as a "sob sister,"[3] and embraced dramatic opportunities to write beyond sensationalized murders—such as when she rode an elephant in a parade and subsequently wrote about it[9]—she also covered politics extensively.
[5][2] By January 1934, Griggs moved to Wisconsin to take a job at the Milwaukee Journal, where she was paid "space rates," or only for the portion of her writing that the newspaper ultimately printed.
[14] Originally imagined as help for the lovelorn, in the more than 15,000 "Dear Mrs. Griggs" columns—all signed by "IQG"—she covered a wide range of topics from parenting to why high school classmates who were "wild girls" gained popularity to disability, and gender roles.