Jump to content

Erma Bombeck

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 68.112.145.172 (talk) at 05:57, 9 February 2008. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Erma Louise Bombeck (February 21 1927 – April 22, 1996), born Erma Fiste, was an American humorist who achieved great popularity for a newspaper column that depicted suburban home life in the second half of the 20th century.

Life and career

Born in Dayton, Ohio, Bombeck graduated from the University of Dayton in 1949 with a degree in English. She started her career in 1949 as a reporter for the Dayton Journal Herald, but after marrying school administrator Bill Bombeck, a college friend, she left the job and raised three children.

As the children grew she started writing At Wit's End, telling self-deprecating tales about the life of a housewife. It debuted in the Kettering-Oakwood Times in 1964. She was paid $3 per column.

Growing popularity led At Wit's End to be nationally syndicated in 1965, and eventually it ran three times a week in more than 700 newspapers. The column was collected in many best-selling books, and her fame was such that a television sitcom was based on her. The series, Maggie, ran for eight shows in 1982 before being cancelled.

In 1971, the Bombecks moved to Paradise Valley, Arizona.

Bombeck had autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease. In 1996 worsening health forced her to have a kidney transplant, and she died of complications that year. She is interred in the Woodland Cemetery, Dayton, Ohio.

Books

  • The Grass is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank
  • Aunt Erma's Cope Book
  • If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits?
  • I Lost Everything in the Post-Natal Depression
  • When You Look Like Your Passport Photo, It's Time to Go Home
  • Just Wait Until You Have Children of Your Own (written with Bil Keane)
  • Family - The Ties that Bind... and Gag!
  • A Marriage Made in Heaven or Too Tired for an Affair
  • At Wit's End
  • Forever, Erma: Best-Loved Writing From America's Favorite Humorist
  • Motherhood: The Second Oldest Profession
  • I Want to Grow Hair, I Want to Grow Up, I Want to Go to Boise: Children Surviving Cancer
  • All I Know About Animal Behavior I Learned in Loehmann's Dressing Room

Quotes

  • "Insanity is hereditary. You can catch it from your kids."
  • "My second favorite household chore is ironing. My first one being hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint."
  • "There's nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child."
  • "If a man watches three football games in a row, he should be declared legally dead."
  • "The only reason I would take up jogging is so I could hear heavy breathing again."
  • "Laughter rises out of tragedy, when you need it the most, and rewards you for your courage."
  • "Dreams have only one owner at a time. That's why dreamers are lonely."
  • "When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, 'I used everything you gave me.'"
  • "In general, my children refused to eat anything that hadn't danced on TV."
  • "When humor goes, there goes civilization."
  • "Seize the moment. Think of all those women on the 'Titanic' who waved off the dessert cart."
Wikiquote has quotations related to Erma Bombeck.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Erma_Bombeck&oldid=190123676"