Madge Skelly

Madeline Esther Skelly, known professionally as Madge Skelly and later as Madge Skelly-Hakanson, was born on May 9, 1903, in Hazelwood, a neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her parents, Charles J. Skelly and Julia Purcell Skelly, were Iroquois-Onandaga performers. Skelly pursued higher education extensively, graduating from Seton Hill College in 1924, earning a master's degree from Duquesne University in 1928, and completing a second master's degree at the University of Arizona. In her late fifties, she finished doctoral studies in speech pathology at Saint Louis University in 1962. Her career spanned acting, playwriting, directing, college teaching, and clinical work in speech pathology and audiology.

Skelly's involvement in theatre began early and continued throughout her life in multiple capacities. She worked at KDKA Radio in Pittsburgh as a sound technician, writer, and on-air talent. Her Broadway appearances included the 1943 farce Lady, Behave!. Beyond Broadway, she served as director of the Tucson Little Theatre in Arizona, the Brattle Theatre in Massachusetts, and the Kalamazoo Civic Theatre in Michigan. From 1952 to 1961 she was managing director of the Manistee Summer Theatre, where one of the young actors she mentored was James Earl Jones. The Manistee Civic Theatre named a tower in her honor in 1974. Over the course of her career she wrote at least twenty plays.

Her academic roles were equally varied. Skelly served as dean of drama and dean of women at Duquesne University, taught speech at the University of Arizona, and taught speech and drama at Maryville College.

Following her doctoral work in speech pathology, Skelly applied her expertise in veterans' hospitals and children's hospitals, working with patients requiring speech rehabilitation after injury or illness. She drew on Iroquois gestural expression traditions in her clinical methods and produced a video in 1977 titled Compensatory techniques for the glossectomee documenting those techniques. She held the position of chief of audiology and speech pathology services at John J. Cochran Hospital in St. Louis and held teaching appointments at the Saint Louis University School of Medicine and Fontbonne University in Missouri. Her research appeared in publications including the Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, American Journal of Nursing, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, and The American Journal of Surgery.

Skelly married actor Ray King Foust in 1928; he died in World War II. Her second husband was Richard Hakanson, a fellow theatre professional. Later in life she experienced arthritis, diabetes, and vision impairment. She died on May 27, 1993, in St. Louis at the age of 90.

Among the honors Skelly received was the Federal Woman's Award in 1974 and the Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton Medal from Seton Hill University. She gave an oral history interview to the Schlesinger Library in 1981. In 2002 she was posthumously inducted into the Association of Veterans Affairs Speech-Language Pathologists Hall of Fame.