For nearly two years, one road on Keystone Wayfarer has led us to the women whose lives became part of Pennsylvania’s story. Month after month, we have met women who made their mark in industry, community, government, the arts, and so many other corners of Pennsylvania life. Some were well known in their time. Others were nearly forgotten. Some changed the world in ways that made headlines, while others simply changed the lives of the people around them.

It began with Nellie Bly, and from there the road took us in directions we could never have predicted. We met Isabel Darlington and Rebecca Lukens, women who pushed into worlds that were not always willing to make room for them. We met Betsey Wyeth, whose story reminded us that there is often much more to a woman than the famous name beside hers. We followed Florence Kelley into the fight for reform and Pearl S. Buck into a life that carried her story far beyond Pennsylvania’s borders. We listened to Billie Holiday’s voice and considered the woman behind it. And most recently, we met Joan Jett, still refusing to play by someone else’s rules.

Their stories have taken us across generations and into places we might otherwise have driven past without ever knowing what happened there. But somewhere along the way, these women became more than names on a page. They became people we knew a little better.

And perhaps that is what this series has been about all along: remembering the women whose lives helped shape the places, communities, and history we inherited.

The Pennsylvania Women series is now beginning its final chapter, and it will conclude at the end of this year. But stories like these do not really end. There are women today showing the same strength, determination, compassion, courage, and resilience — women whose stories are still being written, and whose influence may reach generations they will never live to meet. So, as we begin these final three stories, thank you. Thank you for reading about these women, for sharing their stories, and most of all, for talking about them.

Because perhaps the greatest thing we can give someone who came before us is not simply a place in history, but a place in our memory.

There was a time when families gathered each night in front of the television. Familiar faces brought the larger world into their living rooms, reporting on wars and elections, triumphs and tragedies, and moments that would become part of the American story. Douglas Edwards helped establish the nightly television news ritual. Walter Cronkite became a voice of authority for a generation. Peter Jennings guided viewers through decades of breaking news, while Tom Brokaw carried that tradition into the next chapter.

And for many Americans, television news was not simply something they watched. It was how they came to know the world beyond their own front doors. And for a long time, the faces bringing that world into our living rooms were overwhelmingly male.

Then came Jessica Savitch.

She was not the first woman to appear on television news, but Jessica Savitch brought something distinctly her own to the screen. She had a presence that demanded attention, a voice that was unmistakably hers, and an ambition that carried her from local television to some of the most prominent newsrooms in the country.

By the time Jessica reached the height of her career, the woman sitting behind the news desk was no longer an unusual sight. But getting there had required women like Jessica to push through a profession that had not been built with them in mind.

Jessica Savitch was born on February 1, 1947, in Wilmington, Delaware. She would grow up in Pennsylvania, the state that would shape her early life and career.

She was the eldest daughter of Florence Savitch, a Navy nurse, and David “Buddy” Savitch, who owned a clothing store. Her father suffered from nephritis, an incurable kidney disease, and died in 1959 at just 33 years old. Jessica was twelve.

After his death, the family moved from Kennett Square to Margate City, New Jersey. By high school, Jessica was already finding her way toward broadcasting.

She found her first microphone at WOND radio in nearby Pleasantville when a fellow student brought her to the station and gave her the chance to record a show introduction. Hearing her own voice come back through the speakers was enough to make her realize that this was where she wanted to be. 

She went on to Ithaca College, where she studied communications with a focus on television and radio. She worked in both television and radio while she was there, including at WBBF in Rochester, where she was known as “Honeybee.” She also worked as a model and on-camera commercial announcer to help pay for her education.

By the time she graduated in 1968, broadcasting was no longer simply something Jessica wanted to do. She had already been doing it for years.

In 1969, Jessica landed at WCBS radio in New York, where personnel director Joan Showalter hired her as an administrative assistant. Showalter became a mentor. Jessica watched and learned, hoping to find her way into television news.

When she tried to get hired as an on-air reporter, she was told she didn’t have enough experience. So she sent audition tapes to television stations across the country. Fewer than a dozen responded, and only one offered her an interview: KHOU-TV in Houston.

In 1970, Jessica was hired as the station’s first female reporter. During her first weeks, some of the cameramen refused to work with her. She was the only woman in the newsroom besides a secretary, and she still had plenty to learn. Within a few months, she had earned a weekend anchor position, making her, according to multiple accounts, the first woman to anchor a newscast in the South.

A train derailment and fire gave Jessica the opportunity to prove herself under pressure. Her coverage reached a national audience when it aired on the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite.

In November 1972, she returned to the Northeast, joining KYW-TV in Philadelphia as a general-assignment reporter and weekend anchor.

Philadelphia was different from Houston. At KYW, Jessica initially found herself limited to on-camera work and passed over for the weeknight anchor desk. When she received an offer from CBS and tried to break her contract, the station refused to let her go. Instead, they raised her salary and promoted her to the weeknight anchor desk. Soon she was anchoring the noon broadcast as well.

Jessica sometimes went beyond simply reporting a story, putting herself directly into the experience she was covering. One unusual assignment was a five-part series on natural childbirth that followed a local family expecting their second child. There was some question about whether the baby would arrive in time for the heavily promoted series, but the birth came just four days before the first broadcast. On Thanksgiving Day, viewers watched much of the actual birth unfold in their own homes.

That willingness to step inside a story was even more apparent in Rape… the Ultimate Violation. For the series, Jessica trained at the Philadelphia Police Academy, learning to handle a handgun and completing the physical obstacle course, before spending two weeks working as a decoy with an undercover police unit.

The series won a 1974 Clarion Award from Women in Communications, Inc., but its impact reached well beyond the award. KYW received requests to rebroadcast the series, and it was later screened by community groups and state legislatures in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware, helping bring attention to changes in rape laws and the need for rape crisis centers.

Before long, Jessica had become a genuine local celebrity, drawing crowds simply by appearing on the street. The girl who had once sat at her kitchen table listening to her own voice was now a familiar face in Philadelphia living rooms.

In 1976, Jessica’s voice reached a national audience. She was covering the presidential debate between Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter in Philadelphia when the broadcast suddenly went silent. For 27 minutes, the candidates continued speaking, but viewers at home could hear none of it. KYW needed someone to fill the dead air, and Jessica was one of three reporters who stepped in front of the cameras and kept talking.

There was no script to follow and no time to prepare. A KYW producer later remembered her as someone who could think fast, ask the right questions, and genuinely listen to the answers. Her performance under pressure caught the attention of the national networks, and by the following year, Jessica was on her way to Washington.

She left KYW in August 1977 and joined NBC the following month, moving to the network’s Washington bureau under a three-year contract. There, she covered the U.S. Senate and began anchoring the weekend editions of NBC Nightly News.

Jessica Savitch was the second woman to anchor a national weekend newscast for NBC, following Catherine Mackin. She soon appeared on Meet the Press, contributed to Prime Time Saturday and Prime Time Sunday, and in 1979 became co-anchor of the Sunday program. She also became the familiar face behind NBC News Digest, a series of one-minute live news updates that aired during prime time.

A 1982 TV Guide poll ranked Jessica fourth among the most trusted news anchors in the country, ahead of a number of the men whose names had once seemed inseparable from television news.

In 1978, following the Jonestown massacre and the killing of Congressman Leo Ryan, Jessica was asked to narrate graphic footage that had just arrived at NBC. She had never seen it before, and there was no opportunity to preview what was about to appear on the screen. She watched the footage for the first time while narrating it live.

Four years later, Jessica published Anchorwoman, a bestselling autobiography tracing her journey from a teenager fascinated by radio to one of the most recognizable women in American television news. After spending so much of her career asking other people questions, she was now telling her own story.

Behind the woman viewers saw on television was a personal life that had become increasingly complicated. Jessica married Philadelphia advertising executive Melvin “Mel” Korn in January 1980, but the marriage ended in divorce in March 1981. Just weeks later, she married Dr. Donald Rollie Payne in Washington, D.C. Less than five months later, Payne died by suicide.

In January 1983, Jessica became the founding host of PBS’s new documentary series Frontline, giving her the opportunity to explore stories in greater depth.

That same year, NBC renewed her contract, with plans for her to serve as a substitute anchor for NBC Nightly News and continue with Frontline. But the network was moving in another direction. In June, Connie Chung took over Jessica’s Saturday evening anchor position, narrowing her role at NBC. She remained the familiar voice of the brief NBC News Digest segments, but the prominence she had once enjoyed was fading.

Then, on October 3, Jessica’s delivery faltered during one of the broadcasts. Words were slurred, others skipped, and at times she seemed to be ad-libbing rather than following the script. Later that evening, she appeared on another broadcast without the same difficulty.

Jessica attributed the incident to a teleprompter malfunction. Her agent said she was taking pain medication following facial reconstructive surgery after a boating accident. The incident raised questions about what viewers had witnessed, but its cause remained unclear.

Less than three weeks later, Jessica was back in Pennsylvania. On the evening of October 23, 1983, she had dinner in New Hope with Martin Fischbein of the New York Post. Heavy rain was falling as they left the restaurant. Fischbein was driving the station wagon when it left the unlit parking lot and ended up on the pedestrian towpath alongside the Delaware Canal. The vehicle plunged roughly 10 to 15 feet into the canal and landed upside down in the water. Jessica, Fischbein, and her dog were trapped inside. None survived.

Jessica Savitch was 36 years old.

Savitch’s family and friends later sued the New York Post, Fischbein’s estate, Chez Odette, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The case was settled in 1988 for $8 million, with most of the payment coming from the Post. A portion of the money was used to establish scholarships for women pursuing careers in broadcasting and journalism, including at Ithaca College.

And Ithaca, fittingly, became one of the places where Jessica’s legacy continued. Her family, friends, and colleagues helped establish the Jessica Savitch Communications Scholarship through the Roy H. Park School of Communications. The school’s Studio A was named in her honor. The endowment continues to fund Women in Media Month, journalism lectures, and awards in Jessica’s name.

Her Philadelphia connection was remembered as well. In 2006, Jessica was posthumously inducted into the Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia’s Hall of Fame.

Today, the world of broadcasting looks very different from the one Jessica entered. Technology has changed, as has the way news reaches us and the role of the television anchor in our lives. But the challenge Jessica understood has not.

She knew what it meant for a young woman to enter a profession where she was not always expected to belong. She knew what it meant to be told she wasn’t ready, to be passed over, and to have to prove herself again. And she knew what could happen when someone finally opened the door.

More than forty years after her death, another young woman can walk into a studio bearing Jessica’s name, pick up a microphone, and begin finding her own voice. Jessica Savitch is gone, but what she helped make possible remains. Other women are walking the road she helped open.