Opinion: Remembering our colleague and friend, Ina Jaffe

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Scott Simon (top right) and Ina Jaffe (center left) pose for a picture with other NPR Chicago Bureau staff. / Jacki Lyden

I think Ina Jaffe would want me to remember today that the first time I saw her, she was onstage and unclad. It was the 1970s, and she was in a science fiction production called "Warp! My Battlefield My Body" at the Organic Theater in Chicago. Ina was an early member of the company, along with her husband, Lenny Kleinfeld.

The next time I saw Jaffe, a few years later, she was smartly dressed and had a portfolio under her arm, like artists carry. It was full of clips from a scrappy local weekly, on theater, local politics — which, of course, can also be theater in Chicago — and heart-stopping crimes and colorful characters. The more I read through Jaffe’s clips, the more I thought: Of course they’d be in an artist’s portfolio. She had an artist’s eye for detail, and a performer’s ear for the ring and rhyme of human speech.

Jaffe became part of the group who began NPR’s Chicago Bureau, planting an outpost in Mid-America when the network wasn’t quite yet mainstream. We all saw each other through long election nights, trials, loves, losses, Cubs games, and a full hug of all the complexities of life in a great city.

Primary election night for Chicago mayor, February 1983. I rushed over to meet Jaffe at Harold Washington’s campaign headquarters. The crush was so great, she couldn’t get through the crowd to put up her mic. So Harold Washington supporters lifted her up and passed her along over their heads, to reach the stage just in time to record a moment of history.

“Now that’s an entrance,” she said.

We both came to Washington. Jaffe was the first editor of Weekend Edition. In many ways this program grew out of our Chicago Bureau, and the style of reporting we tried to practice there. “Make ‘em laugh, make ‘em cry, make ‘em come back for more,” Jaffe used to tell us. I hope you hear that in this show to this day.

Jaffe went on to our Culver City studios, where she created her own beat to cover the challenge and complexities of growing old in America. She made people who can be easily overlooked and lumped together as “seniors,” vivid, unique, and compelling. Jaffe used her skills and stagecraft to bring us stories that will play on in our hearts.

Jaffe died this week, at the age of 75. Thinking about her today will make us laugh, cry, and wish she could come back for more.