Be they Democrats or Republicans, reporters or lobbyists, a future presidential candidate or a government aide a long way from home on the holidays, there was always a plate for them at the table in Ann Downing Schmidt’s Washington townhome.
She died Feb. 10
at her home on Washington’s Capitol Hill from complications of a stroke, her family said. She was 85.
Her columns ran under the title “Ann’s Washington,” a city she made her own and managed to make a lot more like Colorado, said those who knew her.
Pat Schroeder, a Colorado congresswoman from 1973 to 1997 and a presidential candidate in 1987,
said Schmidt turned being a hostess into being an advocate for Colorado.
“She would collect folks for Thanksgiving that weren’t able to get home,” Schroeder said.
“Her home was always a Colorado oasis, almost like an embassy, for all of us swimming in those political waters. A total giver and wonderful soul, she also wrote and was an excellent journalist.”
Schmidt was a mentor, and likely a mother figure, to younger reporters in the Washington press corps. By the time she joined the Fourth Estate, Schmidt was in her 40s and had raised four children.
A third-generation Coloradan, Schmidt had studied drama at Carleton College, graduating in 1947, then performed in summer stock theater in Stockbridge, Mass. She met her future husband, Richard M. Schmidt Jr., while she was working for Denver radio station KMYR. They were married in 1948. He preceded her in death in 2004.
Richard Schmidt was a First Amendment lawyer who represented press organizations and companies. The Schmidts moved to Washington in 1966, when Richard became general counsel for the U.S. Information Agency in the Johnson administration.
Ann Schmidt soon started covering the Washington news for smaller papers, including the Longmont Daily Times-Call, the Loveland Reporter Herald and the Colorado Statesman. She joined the staff of The Denver Post in 1972.
As a person and a reporter, she had a natural gift for bringing people together — with a kind word, a giant smile and a willingness to accept people at face value, without prejudgments, said her son Gregory Schmidt of Washington D.C.
She and her husband were staunch Democrats, but it played no role in her reporting or the family’s hospitality toward others, her son said.
“Their house was a place where Democrats and Republicans could sit together, talk together and just be together,” he said. “I think it was a different time, when things like that could happen.
“It made her sad the way the city divided over politics later on.”
In addition to her husband, she was preceded in death by a son, Rolf, in 1972. In addition to her son Gregory, she is survived by son Eric Schmidt of Beaverton, Ore.; daughter Heidi Van Genderen of Washington D.C.; six grandchildren; and two brothers.
Joey Bunch: 303-954-1174 or jbunch@denverpost.com
