MARY MARGARET MCBRIDE OF RADIO TALK SHOW DIES
By Albin Krebs

"Mary Margaret McBride, whose homey network radio programs delighted millions of 
American housewives five days a week for more than 20 years, died yesterday at her 
country home in West Shokun, N.Y., after a long illness.  Miss McBride, who was 76 
years old, retired from network radio in 1954 and gave up her New York apartment in 
favor of her Catskills Mountains home, a converted barn about 100 miles north of the 
city.  Until a few months ago, she conducted from her living room a thrice-weekly 
program on station WGHO in Kingston, not far from her home.  

Mary Margaret – that's what everyone called her; not Mary, and not Miss McBride, but 
Mary Margaret – was a super saleswoman in radio's heyday.  Sponsors begged her to 
carry their messages in her breathy, homespun style, but she accepted only the products 
she tried and liked, and, being a teetotaler since the age of 4, when she took the 
temperance pledge, she dew the line at liquor advertising.  She also disapproved for 
cigarette smoking, so that was another Mary Margaret product taboo.

Mis McBride, an amply proportioned woman with a hearty, sentimental approach to life, 
larded her programs with recipes for invariably weight-gaining dishes.  When she spoke 
of food, her listeners, many of whom considered her one of the family – a favorite aunt, 
perhaps, or a cousin – could depend on Mary Margaret to fairly drool with pleasure.

Lyrical Radio Repasts

To bring realism to her program, she said, she like to actually eat several courses while 
on the air, always, of course, paying tribute to he sponsors' products.  At the close of 
some of her radio repasts, Mary Margaret's description of a meal could take on fairly 
lyrical qualities.  "If I had to eat the same meal every day for the rest of my life," she said 
during one program, "this is what I'd choose, fixed the way my mother did it: delicate 
buttermilk biscuits so hot you can't pick them up, with butter slathered on their delicate 
insides; mashed potatoes that have been hand-beaten with cream and butter until they are 
fluffy as a cloud; baby chicken fried to crisp brownness; and, to finish off with, hot apple 
dumplings, rich with cinnamon, butter and brown sugar, and thick yellow cream to pour 
over… There would also be pickled peaches in thick syrup, grape jelly, spiced 
gooseberries, and pear and cherry preserves."

In addition to her gastronomical flights, Miss McBride offered her listeners, mostly 
women who took time out for 45 minutes each weekday at 1P.M. from the drudgery of 
dishes and diapers to tune her in, interviews with a wide assortment of people.  Besides 
well-known personalities such as Eleanor Roosevelt, President Harry S. Truman and 
Jimmy Durante, Miss McBride liked to bring on zookeepers, plumbers, interior 
decorators, businessmen, almost anyone she thought might prove interesting.

Although she was from a long line of Southern Baptists who took a conservative view of 
tobacco, alcohol and sex, Mary Margaret had a keen eye and a keener ear for subjects that 
would captivate her devoted audience.  And so, on one occasion, to the dismay of her 
network and her sponsors, she invited Sally Rand, the fan dancer, to drop in on the 
program.  It turned out there was nothing to worry about.  Good, comforting, down-
home-folks Mary Margaret skilled over Miss Rand's theatrical calling and elicited from 
her a touching memoir of her poverty-stricken childhood in the Ozark Mountains.

'Female Arthur Godfrey'

Such was Miss McBride's influence that she received at least 1,000 letters a week, and 
when she talked about a controversial book or play, a week's mail could run up to 5,000 
pieces.  Occasionally, following a misunderstanding with a sponsor, she would just let 
slip on the air how she had been maltreated, and the offending soup maker or baker or 
meatpacker would be bombarded by mail reproving him for hurting "poor Mary 
Margaret."  Miss McBride was referred to some years ago as "the female Arthur 
Godfrey."  He too had an interview show over daytime radio. And in a way, the two of 
them pioneered the format of today's television talk shows.

Mary Margaret McBride was born Nov 16, 1899, in tiny Paris, Mo., the daughter of 
Thomas Walker McBride and the former Elizabeth Craig.  Mr. McBride was "a farmer 
with itchy feet, and no sooner would he get a rundown place in shape, then we'd move to 
another spread that needed fixing up," Miss McBride recalled some years ago.  Mary 
Margaret's Great-Aunt Albina was wealthy and sent her to boarding school and the 
University of Missouri, with the understanding that Miss McBride would become 
associated eventually with a boarding school endowed by the great-aunt.

Went Into Magazine Writing

But after a year of college, Miss McBride told Great-Aunt Albina she intended to become 
a writer.  The old relative's money stopped, and Mary Margaret had to take a part-time 
job on a newspaper in Columbia, Mo., earning $10 a week, until finally she received a 
degree.  In 1920, after she had worked briefly for The Cleveland Press, Miss McBride 
came to New York, where she was a reporter on The Evening Mail.  In the following 
decade, she branched out into magazine writing, for The Saturday Evening Post, 
Cosmopolitan and several other publications.  

Miss McBride's first radio job was with WOR in 1934.  For a couple of weeks she 
pretended, as ordered, to be a folksy grandmother telling stories and reading recipes, but 
in the middle of one program, she suddenly told her 'live' audience: "Look, I'm not a 
grandma, nor a mother, nor am I married.  Why don't I just be myself?"  Her listeners 
approved, and for six years, Miss McBride was a WOR fixture.  Later she moved to CBS 
radio network but was uncomfortable in the 15-minute format given her, and eventually 
she switched to NBC, for the long stay that won her national fame.  

To celebrate her 10th anniversary on the air, Mary Margaret's devoted fans packed the old 
Madison Square Garden on Eight Avenue at 50th Street, and on the 15th anniversary, 
Yankee Stadium could barely accommodate her devoted followers.
The funeral service for Miss McBride will be private.

Source: Unknown, undated newspaper article.