Sheila Ison Wellstone (August 18, 1944 – October 25, 2002) was the wife of and advisor to United States Senator Paul Wellstone, with whom she died in a plane crash, and an advocate for various causes, particularly prevention of domestic violence.
Sheila Ison was born and raised in Kentucky, where (although the granddaughter of coal miners) she grew up in a middle class Southern Baptist family with two siblings. She was uprooted when as a high school junior her family moved to Washington, DC, where at the age of sixteen whe met and started dating her future husband Paul Wellstone. She attended the University of Kentucky but dropped out at the age of nineteen to marry Paul, then a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Paul Wellstone's Jewish parents were not at first enthusiastic at the prospect, as Sheila was Christian and in fact her parents were members of a country club that had no Jewish members, but withdrew their objections presently.[1] [2]
After her husband finished his PhD in political science, he accepted an offer to teach at Carleton College in Northfield, MN, and the couple moved to Minnesota in 1969.[3] The couple had three children, David, Mark, and Marcia. While in Minnesota, Wellstone worked as a librarian at Northfield High School. She left that position upon her husband's successful campaign to become a U.S. Senator in 1990. She became an advocate for human rights, the environment, and peace. Wellstone focused much of her work on domestic violence, assisting survivors and pursuing policies to support its prevention. She briefly considered running for Governor of Minnesota in the 2002 election, but ultimately chose not to.
While campaigning with her husband in his 2002 re-election campaign, she died in a plane crash near Eveleth, Minnesota, along with her husband and daughter Marcia. The Sheila Wellstone Institute continues her commitment to building power and visibility to ensure that ending violence against women and children is a national priority.[4]