Margaret Linton-Lanier, businesswoman, journalist, dead at 95

YOUNGSTOWN — Private services will take place at a later date for

Margaret Reynolds Linton-Lanier, one of the city’s first black businesswomen and a pioneer in local broadcasting. She died Monday in a Cleveland suburb.

Linton-Lanier, 95, died at Grand Pointe Healthcare Community in Richmond Heights. She had lived in the Cleveland area for several years.

“She is the reason why I’m sitting here at this desk,” said Madonna Chism Pinkard, community relations director at 21 WFMJ-TV and host of the local show “Community Connection.” Chism Pinkard had kept in close contact with Linton-Lanier over the years.

Linton-Lanier was the former operator of Linton Funeral Home on Belmont Avenue on the North Side and was one of the first licensed women morticians.

She also was a former publisher of The Buckeye Review weekly newspaper that reports on local, national and regional matters pertinent to the black community.

For the complete story, read Friday's Vindicator and Vindy.com