Milan Journalist, Founder of Greater Milan Area Community Fund, Milan Children’s Preschool dies at 97

In Tolan Square, a community gathering space in the middle of Milan’s downtown, is a monument with the faces of three city leaders.

The last of those, Isabelle Schultz, passed away at age 97 on Nov. 11 at Trinity Health Ann Arbor, the same hospital where she once sat on the Board of Directors when it was still called St. Joe’s.

She is remembered in part for her legacy as one of the founders of the Greater Milan Area Community Fund, which offers grants and support to Milan nonprofits, and as one of the key founders of Milan Children’s Preschool.

Isabelle and some other women also started a Milan Women’s Investment Club and organized a committee to save and restore Milan’s historic fire barn. Isabelle chaired local fundraising for school millages, the American Cancer Society, March of Dimes, Girl Scouts and served on the Milan Public Library Board.

Journalism

When The Sun Times News contacted her son Tyler Schultz, now of Saline, and asked if he’d be willing to talk about his mother, he said, yes, he thought she’d like that.

“She was a huge advocate for local news and she felt that, along with the school system, was kind of the backbone of the community,” said Tyler.

Isabelle majored in journalism at Michigan State University. She worked as editor of The Milan News and freelanced as a reporter for the Milan Leader, in addition to the Ann Arbor News, Ypsilanti Press, Monroe Evening News and Detroit Free Press. She was a staff writer for Successful Living Magazine and assistant editor for the University of Michigan graduate school publication, Rackham Reports.

Vision

But in addition to her writing, she also had a vision for solving community problems.

“She was a great organizer,” Tyler said. “She was able to recognize people for their talents….After a while people would kind of come to her.”

He recalls in the ‘80s during the recession a school millage failed repeatedly. Superintendent Clayton Symons called up Isabelle and asked her to help and she organized Milan’s Citizens for Better Schools, resulting in Milan successfully passing multiple school millages.

In 2007 Isabelle was inducted into the Milan High School Hall of Fame.

In 2008 she was given the Washtenaw County Woman’s Achievement Award.

GMACF

Her son Todd Schultz tells the story of how twenty years ago, Isabelle was walking out of a meeting at the same time as Don Harkness and asked if he had ever thought of starting a community foundation and he said yes, he and Millard Phillips were talking about doing just that. Together the three went to work to figure out how to do it.

Mary Kay Phillips, daughter of Jeweler Millard Phillips, who was also Milan’s first mayor, remembers her father and Isabelle discussing plans for how to improve the city on the phone. Her father and Schultz had graduated from Milan High School together.

She describes them, along with Harkness, as “salt of the earth people that always wanted to give back.”

“She was the last surviving member of that trio,” Phillips said. “She was a very kind, compassionate person. I think she did a lot for women, to drive things forward for women.”

Growth

Chris Wetzler, who helped write the bylaws for the GMACF, served as the first vice president under Isabelle and as the second president. He said they started with just small donations–he gave $50—and it grew over time.

“It was just a great thing. We grew that foundation from zero,” he said. Wetzler said he lived near Isabelle and her husband, Duane Schultz, and so when he heard she was helping to organize a foundation for Milan he said he’d like to volunteer.

“Our first grant was $2,500 or $5,000 and we got up to awarding $20,000, $30,000 or $40,000 thousand,” Wetzler said. “We put a lot of money into the Milan area through grants to Aid in Milan and the schools.”

Through the GMACF grant program, the causes that Schultz supported, including education, local history, and community service received $82,450 in small grants in 2024 alone. In addition, $35,300 was awarded in 2024 to scholarships for 16 high school seniors.

Milan Children’s Preschool

Isabelle also was among the mothers who founded Milan Children Preschool in the basement of a church more than 60 years ago. Today Milan Children’s Preschool’s Head teacher Sarah Chinavore said she met with Isabelle at GMACF galas and recalls her sharing memories of taking her turn teaching in the classroom of the co-opt and bringing her lamb puppet to story time.

She wanted “a place for her son to play and learn, and a place for parents to be a part of that early education,” Chinavore said. “She changed my life in the very best way by opening the door to my happy place, and she continues to have a great impact on the Milan community through the preschool she had a big part in forming.”

Seasons

Her son Todd Schultz remembers her becoming more involved in the community as her children got older.

“She really loved Milan and she really loved her family,” he said. “She did everything she could to support her family and Milan. The community has also picked up the ball and ran with it. Things did not just stop.”

Read more about Isabelle Schultz in her obituary at:  https://www.ochalekstark.com/obituary/isabelle-schultz