Retired
Commonwealth Court Judge Madaline Palladino, the first Republican woman
elected to a statewide office in Pennsylvania, died Monday night (Nov.
9, 2015) at her home in Allentown (Salisbury Township). She was 91.
Known
as a true trail blazer her entire life, Palladino achieved many
“firsts.” It was in 1983, when she was elected to a full 10-year term to
the Commonwealth Court, that she earned the distinction of being the
first Republican woman elected to a state-wide office in Pennsylvania.
She was the first female assistant district attorney in Lehigh County
under District Attorney George Joseph and the first female assistant
solicitor in the City of Allentown. After retiring from the bench in
1994, Palladino served as the first woman to head the Law Department as
Solicitor of Lehigh County in the administration of the first female
County Executive, Jane Baker.
While she was actually the third
female attorney to practice in Lehigh County, for many years she was the
only female lawyer in the county. The first two women were here briefly
decades earlier and then left town. Palladino once joked that her male
legal counterparts used to guard the restroom door since there were no
women’s bathrooms in the courthouse.
Palladino quickly established
a reputation for being a smart, hard-nosed practitioner who knew the
law and for winning cases. She operated her 31-year law practice on true
grit and tremendous ambition.
“She was a very good lawyer,”
retired Lehigh County Judge Maxwell E. Davison said. “She was skilled,
tough and well respected. Whatever she did, she did well.”
She was
the daughter of the late Joseph and Angelina (Trentalange) Palladino,
Italian immigrants who settled in Allentown’s heavily Italian 10th Ward.
Auto executive Lee Iacocca, a contemporary, grew up around the corner.
“The
Judge,” as she was known, grew up in a family of achievers. Her
brother, Nunzio, headed the Westinghouse team that designed the reactor
cores for both the submarine Nautilus and the nation’s first-full scale
nuclear generating plant. He served as dean of the College of
Engineering at Penn State and President Ronald Reagan appointed him
chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. A sister, Jeanne, became a
buyer for Strawbridge& Clothier. Her brother, Robert, served as
deputy director for maintenance headquarters DESCOM for the U.S.
government in Chambersburg. All of her siblings predeceased her.
Palladino
excelled in all academic pursuits. She was at the top of her class at
Harrison Morton Junior High School and was salutatorian of the Class of
1941 at Allentown High School. In her high school yearbook, she was
referred to as “Madame the Editor!” They wrote:
“Madaline is one
of the very few who succeed at all they attempt. A tireless worker,
editorship of this year’s Canary has taken some of her time. But she has
had enough left to write the A.H.S. Notes in The Morning Call and do
numerous services for many of the clubs to which she belongs.
“Madaline
is one of those dual personalities whom everyone admires and envies; at
times serious, intent on work; at other times, a witty sparkling
companion.”
Palladino toyed with the idea of becoming a
journalist. However, it was her father, a barber, who encouraged her to
pursue law. She recalls that sometimes when she voiced this aspiration
in school, she was told, “Oh, you’re going to the factory like all the
other Italian girls.” However, a Harrison-Morton teacher, Marcia Krevsky
believed her students could achieve anything they wanted to be.
Palladino
earned a scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania. She was
graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1944. Because of the war, she was allowed to
accelerate. At Penn, she was president of the women’s residence hall
and worked outside jobs for the Crosley and Elmer Roper polls. She also
waited tables, operated a switchboard and distributed samples of Philip
Morris cigarettes.
She earned her law degree from Columbia and was
one of only two women admitted in 1945. With her law degree, she
returned to Allentown.
Palladino found she couldn’t build a
practice in the usual way through networking over lunch at downtown’s
former Livingston Club. Women weren’t allowed in. When she was elected
the bar association’s first woman secretary/treasurer, she was escorted
to meetings at the Livingston through its back door, so members would
not be outraged to have a woman walking through the club.
“The
Judge” was proud of her reputation as a hard worker. In 1987, on the
Commonwealth Court, she wrote 212 decisions, at the time more than any
in the court’s history. Approaching the mandatory retirement age of 70,
Palladino decided not to seek retention for a second term on the court.
Baker, the first woman elected Lehigh County Executive in 1992, quickly
seized the opportunity to appoint one of the state’s most brilliant
legal minds to head up the County’s law department.
Baker launched
the idea to name the ornate 1867 courtroom in the Old Lehigh County
Courthouse after Palladino. The county commissioners approved. Many said
naming the courtroom after the achieving child of immigrants was
appropriate at a place where many immigrants were sworn in as citizens.
At
the ceremony in 1995, Chief Justice Robert N. C. Nix of the State
Supreme Court said, “[Madaline Palladino] has served this commonwealth
with great distinction.” Father Dan Gambet said, “Madaline Palladino
will always be known for her outstanding intellectual ability and her
unquestionable integrity.”
Palladino’s civic and volunteer
activities were impressive and numerous. She served as president of the
Allentown Branch of the American Association of University Women, Quota
Club, Lehigh Valley Red Cross, Lehigh Valley Torch Club, Allentown
Business and Professional Women’s Club, and the Advisory Board of the
Penn State University Allentown Campus.
She sat on the board of
the Blue Cross of the Lehigh Valley, the board of trustees of Cedar
Crest College, Muhlenberg College Board of Associates, the President’s
Council for DeSales University, the advisory board of the League of
Women Voters and Sacred Heart Hospital.
Judge Palladino has been designated a Distinguished Daughter of Pennsylvania and is listed in Who’s Who of American Women.
She
was a member of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church, a parish that
Italian immigrants established in 1911 in her former neighborhood.
Survivors
She is survived by four nieces, Linda Oswald, Lisa Palladino-Ghaner,
Cynthia Maund and Sandra Palladino; and one nephew Joseph Palladino.
Contributions
In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the Allentown School
District Foundation for The Honorable Madaline Palladino Scholarship
Award for a senior girl with the highest academic rank at William Allen
High School who plans to attend a four-year college. Please mail to the
Allentown School District Foundation, 31 South Penn St., PO Box 328,
Allentown, PA 18105.