A Legacy Returned Home: Linda Shockley’s Second Act in Lawnside
Photo of Linda Shockley courtesy of Linda Shockley
BY MADISON JOLLEY | For AC JosepH Media
LAWNSIDE — For Linda Shockley, the path to preserving history began with remembering her own.
Though her journalism career took her across state lines and into influential newsrooms, it was the quiet pull of home that eventually led her back to Lawnside in Camden County, and into the heart of a community’s fight to remember its roots.
“I came home from the hospital to Lawnside,” Shockley said. Born in Camden’s Cooper Hospital, Shockley grew up in the house her father built by hand, brick by brick, on the weekends.
Her parents had moved to Lawnside from Philadelphia in 1950, bringing with them deep ties to Black history and community values. Shockley’s childhood was filled with stories told by local teachers, some of whom were descendants of people who had escaped slavery through the Underground Railroad.
Others had studied at historically Black colleges and brought pride, knowledge, and tradition into the classroom. That early exposure to history planted a seed. At just 14 years old, she knew she wanted to be a journalist.
She wrote to Claude Lewis, a columnist at the Philadelphia Bulletin, who encouraged her to connect with the Newspaper Fund in Princeton. That guidance helped her map out her educational journey, eventually landing her at the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut with the support of scholarships, including one from the Lawnside Scholarship Club.
Her first job was with Gannett Newspapers in Westchester County, N.Y., where she worked as an education reporter, bureau chief, columnist, and later an editor. It was a formative time in her career.
She was surrounded by strong mentors, many of whom were participating in national efforts to improve newsroom diversity. Programs like the Michelle Clark Fellowship, which later became part of the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, helped connect young journalists like Shockley to meaningful guidance and opportunity.
She met journalists like Earl Caldwell, C. Gerald Fraser, and Robert Maynard, who all made lasting impressions on her.
Shockley eventually joined Dow Jones in Princeton in the late 1980s, a decision influenced by her desire to return closer to home following the death of her mother. With her daughter entering second grade, the move to Lawnside felt like the right step both personally and professionally.
“I had fond memories of Lawnside,” she said. “It’s a small, manageable town compared to a big city. And it felt like a place where I could give back.”
That opportunity came sooner than expected. One February, she and her sister realized there was no community-wide Black History Month celebration. They gathered a few friends and created an event.
That effort included a printed booklet, “Lawnside: The Way It Was,” which featured stories from the town’s past, including moments like the crowning of Miss Lawnside and community clean-up days at Mount Peace Cemetery.
The event brought neighbors together and stirred a sense of urgency around preserving Lawnside’s history, especially when residents learned that the Peter Mott House, a known stop on the Underground Railroad, was in danger of being torn down. Out of that crisis came a movement.
“My sister and her friends said we need to do something, and they decided the first meeting would be at my house,” Shockley said.
From that meeting, the Lawnside Historical Society was born in 1988. It was officially incorporated by 1990 and later became a tax-exempt nonprofit. Saving the Peter Mott House became the Society’s first major mission, and it laid the foundation for decades of preservation and education work that followed.
Though Shockley’s role in the Society began with writing letters, newsletters, and press releases, it soon expanded. After retiring from Dow Jones in 2020, she committed more time to the organization.
She now serves on several boards, including the Historic Sites Council, which reviews applications to the New Jersey Register of Historic Places, and Preservation New Jersey, a statewide nonprofit that advocates for the protection of important buildings and landmarks.
“The mission of the Historical Society is important because it underscores the need to preserve
our monuments, institutions, and culture and to pass them on,” she said. She views her work not
only as a matter of preserving the past but as an essential part of civic education. Teaching people to understand the origins and evolution of laws, constitutional amendments, and political
rights is, in her words, “about putting things in context.”
That mission is especially urgent when it comes to youth education.
“We have our work cut out for us,” she admitted. The Society now works directly with the Lawnside school District to train teachers on how to incorporate local history into their classrooms.
Elementary school students tour the Peter Mott House, and middle schoolers are trained to be docents. They learn how to give tours and explain the significance of Lawnside in the larger American narrative.
The Society has also partnered with Rutgers University and the Historical Society of Haddonfield to digitize old records, pamphlets, and photographs, making them more accessible to researchers and community members.
Shockley sees these efforts as planting seeds.
“Our hope is that we can sew these things into the younger generation,” she said. “That we can get them excited about doing historical research, about discovering what is still unknown.”
Her story, in many ways, is a full circle. The journalist who once told other people’s stories is now ensuring that her community’s story is not forgotten. In doing so, Shockley has become a steward of history, a mentor for the next generation, and a living bridge between
Lawnside’s past and its future.
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