AustLit

Isabel Ramsay was a journalist. She was the daughter of linguist John Stewart Ramsay (d. 1923), who was for many years on the New South Wales Parliament Hansard staff. Her brother was the Sydney journalist Jack Ramsay. Details of her early life remain to be established, however she was evidently educated in Noumea and spoke French fluently. She was also an accomplished musician and at one point considered a career as a classical pianist (her aunt was the well known Sydney pianist Yvonne Leverrier). She began working as a journalist at the Sydney Sunday Sun in ca. 1914, then later moved to the Sydney Sunday Times, where she edited the social pages. She left the Sunday Times in ca. 1918, after which she spent several years travelling in the United States and Europe.

In the early 1920s, she settled in Paris, where she became Paris corespondent for the Sydney Sunday Times and a number of other Australian newspapers and magazines, including the Home. During this period she became well known in Australia for her travel and fashion articles and also her interviews. In 1924, she married Rudolfe Foa, an Italian linguist and scholar, with whom she subsequently had a daughter. She and Foa separated in 1928. She died at Colombo, in June 1930, whilst returning to Australia for a visit.