Perhaps best known as “Cousin Cynthia,” Nell Dorst Shellman dispensed goodwill and advice to readers for almost 50 years. Shellman, who died in July 1999 at age 101, continued to write her weekly column for the Oconto County Times-Herald up until a few months before her death.
She was not simply a friendly advice giver, however. Shellman started her career as a self-taught journalist in 1929, when her husband, Ernest, purchased majority interest in the Oconto Falls Herald. In 1944, they purchased the neighboring Gillett Times and merged the two newspapers seven years later.
From 1932 to 1940, while her husband was mayor of Oconto Falls, Shellman did much of the writing and editing of the newspaper.
