Eleanor Oshry Shatzkin, better known as Elky, a physicist, management consultant, political activist, COO of Two Continents Publishing and wife of the late Leonard Shatzkin and mother of Mike, Karen and Nance--a veritable publishing family--died last Friday of pancreatic cancer. She was 87.

Shatzkin, the first woman to graduate from the engineering school of Carnegie Tech, now Carnegie-Mellon, was a physicist, then a management consultant. In 1973, when her husband founded Two Continents, she became COO, where, as Mike Shatzkin wrote, "she continued her lifelong practice of training young people for a career in business. Her meticulous organizational discipline, her perfectionism, and her tireless work ethic combined with her relentless enforcement of the highest standards for every piece of work, were instilled into many young minds, many of whom remained among her friends for the rest of her life."

She and her husband retired after selling Two Continents in 1979.

Elky Shatzkin asked that in lieu of flowers, contributions be made to John Hall, the new Democratic U.S. representative from her district in Westchester County in New York, for whom she worked assiduously last year.