Biography
Born in Connecticut, Godden's family moved many times before she graduated from high school in Virginia due to her father's job as a surveyor.
After two Seattle school levies failed and her son's kindergarten class disappeared, Godden and other parents mobilized and she ended up as PTA president. Godden then joined the League of Women Voters; Citizens Against Freeways; the Municipal League; and the United Way, where she helped to organize the Lake City Community Council, wrote its bylaws and served as one of its first directors.
In the late 1960s Seattle Mayor Wes Uhlman appointed Godden to his charter review committee. She was also named to the City's Board of Adjustment.
Godden attained celebrity status in Seattle as a columnist for both daily newspapers, first for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and most recently for The Seattle Times. Godden reached that status after years working in other positions with the paper, including as a business editor, editorial page editor, real estate and urban affairs reporter and restaurant critic. Godden was one of the P-I's early female staff members and one of two women in her class at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. She would eventually graduate from the University of Washington's School of Communications. She started her newspaper career at the University District Herald as a 19-year-old, joined the P-I in 1974 as a temporary staffer, had her first column published in the P-I in 1983, and finally switched to The Seattle Times in 1991.
Godden has two sons, Glenn and Jeff, and two grandsons, Chris Godden and Matthew Godden and one great-grandson and two great-granddaughters, Joshua Godden, Raevyn Godden, and Calla Godden. She resides in Seattle's View Ridge neighborhood.
Read more about this topic: Jean Godden
Famous quotes containing the word biography:
“Just how difficult it is to write biography can be reckoned by anybody who sits down and considers just how many people know the real truth about his or her love affairs.”
—Rebecca West [Cicily Isabel Fairfield] (1892–1983)
“Just how difficult it is to write biography can be reckoned by anybody who sits down and considers just how many people know the real truth about his or her love affairs.”
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