Bailey M. Eck, retired journalist
Bailey M. Eck, a retired journalist who served on the boards of the Walters Art Museum and WYPRFM, died Nov. 24 of acute myeloid leukemia at her Washington home. The former longtime Butler resident was 77.
The former Catherine Bailey Morris Urban, the daughter of Dr. George Urban, and his wife, Ellen Urban, was born in Baltimore and raised in Catonsville.
She attended Notre Dame Preparatory School and was a 1963 graduate of Newton College of the Sacred Heart in Boston. She began her journalism career as a stringer for The Wall Street Journal and later held editorial positions at The Cincinnati Post and the old Washington Star.
Two years after The Star closed in 1978, Ms. Eck was named economics correspondent for The Times of London, for which she worked for many years. She subsequently worked at the Institute for International Economics and from 1996 to 1998 for the Brookings Institution, from which she retired. She had held positions in the Democratic administrations of Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.
Ms. Eck, who lived at Good Fellowship Farm in Butler before moving to Washington in 2017, had in addition to serving on the boards of the Walters Art Museum and WYPR, been on the board of Salzburg Global Seminar. She was a longtime trustee of the Capital Group and a founding member of the International Women’s Media Foundation.
She was known for her gracious dinner parties and hospitality to new friends as well as old ones. She was recalled by family members for her “enthusiastic dancing and relentless optimism.”
Ms. Eck, who was a world traveler, was a member of the Green Spring Club, Chevy Chase Club, Cosmos Club and Sulgrave Club.
Her husband of 20 years, C. Franklin Eck, a businessman, died in 2015.
Plans for a memorial service to be held in the spring of 2020 are incomplete.
Ms. Eck is survived by a son, Giles Morris of Charlottesville, Virginia; a daughter, Caroline Morris of Austin, Texas; two stepsons, Eben Eck of Baltimore and Charles Eck of Boca Raton, Florida; two brothers, George Urban of Silver Spring and John Urban of Gloucester, Massachusetts; a sister, Carol Barton of Baltimore; and eight grandchildren. An earlier marriage to Wilson Morris ended in divorce.