Madeline Green, 84, aide to columnist

Madeline Shaw Green of Ridgefield, former secretary to the first syndicated woman journalist and a longtime community volunteer, died Thursday, June 27. She was 84 years old and the widow of Richard E. Green.
In the late 1930s and the 1940s, Mrs. Green was the personal secretary to Dorothy Thompson, the newspaper reporter, author and columnist who by 1937 had some 10 million readers a day and was getting as many as 700 requests for speaking engagements a week.
“She met many, many interesting people,” her son, Douglas Green, said of his mother’s work with the writer. Among Mrs. Green’s friends was novelist Sinclair Lewis, who was Ms. Thompson’s second husband.
A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., Mrs. Green was born on Nov. 29, 1917, a daughter of the late Albert and Frances Chapman Shaw. She grew up in Pelham, N.Y., and graduated from Katharine Gibbs School. “Dorothy hired her right out of Katie Gibbs,” her son said.
Mrs. Green often traveled with Ms. Thompson, including spending summers at the writer’s farm in Vermont. It was at a square dance in Vermont in the summer of 1948 that she met Richard Elliot Green. The two were soon married, and Mrs. Green left her job with Ms. Thompson.
In 1953, the Greens moved from Vermont to Ridgefield Road in Wilton. (The driveway to their home, since subdivided, is now Rossimur Court.) In 1974 the couple moved to Ridgefield.
Always an avid sportswoman, Mrs. Green was the top seed tennis player at the Wilton Riding Club in the 1950s. When her back started bothering her, she switched to golf, joined the Silver Spring Country Club, and became at one point the club champion. In her youth in Pelham, she had been a champion badminton player.
Mrs. Green’s community interests included the Vitam Adolescent Rehabilitation Center, the Norwalk drug treatment center for teenagers. She volunteered there from 1970 until 1991, including service on its executive committee for 11 years, and as its vice chairman and its secretary.
She was also a longtime member and former treasurer of the Ridgefield Garden Club, a volunteer at the Ridgefield Library, a lay Franciscan, and an active member of St. Mary’s Parish, where she served as a lay lector.
Perhaps because of her background with Ms. Thompson, Mrs. Green enjoyed writing letters. “She was a great correspondent,” Douglas Green said. “She wrote many letters to many people — and her handwriting was always perfect.”
Mrs. Green is survived by two sons, Richard Green and his wife Leslie of Fullerton, Calif., and Douglas Green and his wife, Kimberly, of Kittery Point, Maine; a daughter, Liza Green of Boston, Mass.; a sister, Virginia Shaw of Pelham; and four grandchildren, Natalie and Aubrey Green of Fullerton, and Chloe and Sophia Green of Kittery Point.
Her husband died in 1997.
A Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated on Monday morning in St. Mary’s Church. Burial followed in St. Mary’s Cemetery.
Contributions in Mrs. Green’s memory may be made to the Vitam Center Inc., 57 West Rocks Road, Norwalk, CT 06851.
The Kane Funeral Home was in charge of arrangements.