Erma Bombeck, who mined the everyday lives of housewives and parents for the mother lode of humor that transformed her into one of the country's most popular newspaper columnists and a best-selling author, died yesterday at the University of California at San Francisco Medical Center. Mrs. Bombeck, who made her home in Paradise Valley, Ariz., a suburb of Phoenix, was 69.

Mrs. Bombeck, afflicted for years with polycystic kidney disease, a hereditary ailment, underwent a kidney transplant this month at the hospital, which said she died of complications after the surgery.

Three times a week until about two years ago, and more recently on a twice-weekly schedule, Mrs. Bombeck did what she had done since 1964: sifted greasy ovens, voracious washing machines, sibling rivalry and the predilections of couch-potato spouses for the nuggets of mirth that won her the devotion of readers who followed her 500- to 600-word columns in some 600 newspapers.

"My type of humor is almost pure identification," she said. "A housewife reads my column and says, 'But that's happened to me! I know just what she's talking about!' "

Fans appreciated Mrs. Bombeck's slapstick approach to housekeeping and family relations.

*Dirty ovens: "If it won't catch fire today, clean it tomorrow."

*The dilemmas of sibling rivalry: "Who gets the fruit cocktail with the lone cherry on top?"

*Affairs: "If a woman is ever to have an affair, it will be in March. Psychologically, it is a perfect month. The bowling tournaments are over. The white sales on bedding are past. Your chest cold has stabilized and the Avon lady is beginning to look like Tom Jones."

*Male habits: "If a man watches 16 consecutive quarters of football, he can be declared legally dead."

*Housework: "My second favorite household chore is ironing. My first being hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint."

*Teen-agers: "Don't ever say you understand them. It breaks down the hostile relationship between you that it takes to understand one another."

Even at the pinnacle of success, earning $500,000 to $1 million a year, Mrs. Bombeck made cleaning house, grocery shopping and cooking dinner a part of her weekly routine. "If I didn't do my own housework, then I have no business writing about it," she said. "I spend 90 percent of my time living scripts and 10 percent writing them."

Besides her columns, distributed at the time of her death by the Universal Press Syndicate in Kansas City, Mo., Mrs. Bombeck was the author of more than a dozen books, including popular successes with titles like "The Grass Is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank" (1976), "If Life Is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits?" (1978) and "Motherhood: The Second Oldest Profession" (1983).

From 1975 to 1986 she appeared twice a week on "Good Morning America" on the ABC network. At various times, she wrote a monthly column for Good Housekeeping, contributed to magazines like Reader's Digest, Family Circle, Redbook and McCall's; lectured; created, wrote and produced the short-lived 1981 ABC television series "Maggie" and saw "The Grass Is Always Greener" turned into a 1978 prime-time CBS television movie starring Carol Burnett as a concerned mother who was Mrs. Bombeck's alter ego and Charles Grodin as her husband.

In 1988, after her previous five books had sold more than 15 million copies, she signed a three-book contract with Harper & Row valued by publishing experts at $12 million.

Mrs. Bombeck was a housewife and mother, living outside Dayton in Centerville, Ohio, and advancing toward 40 when she determined to change her life.

"That's when I used to sit at the kitchen window, year after year, watching women like Ruth Gordon, Anne Morrow Lindbergh and Golda Meir carving out their own careers," she said. "I decided that it wasn't fulfilling to clean chrome faucets with a toothbrush. At 37, I decided it was my time to strike out.

In 1964, after the last of her three children started school, she began writing columns. She was, she said, "too old for a paper route, too young for Social Security and too tired for an affair."

Erma Louise Fiste was born Feb. 21, 1927, in Dayton. When she was 9, her father, a crane operator named Cassius Fiste, died of a heart attack at 42. "One day you were a family, living in a little house at the bottom of a hill," she said. "The next day it was all gone."

Mrs. Bombeck, who began writing a humor column at Emerson Junior High in Dayton, worked as a copy girl for The Dayton Journal-Herald after graduating from high school in 1944. She became a reporter there after graduating from the University of Dayton with a bachelor of arts degree in 1949, the same year she married William Bombeck, a sportswriter who became a high school principal.

Mrs. Bombeck said she chose the subject of her columns because "being a housewife was the only thing in life I could discuss for more than 10 minutes."

She persuaded Ron Ginger, the editor of The Kettering-Oakwood Times, a suburban weekly, to pay her $3 a column, and she was on her way.

In 1992, Mrs. Bombeck underwent a mastectomy after cancer was diagnosed in a breast, and not long afterward, as her kidneys failed, she began undergoing dialysis at her home.

In addition to her husband, who lives in Paradise Valley, and her mother, Erma Harris, of Sun City, Ariz., Mrs. Bombeck is survived by her three children: Betsy and Andrew, of Phoenix and Matthew, of Los Angeles.

Record	Events	Title	Source Website	Type	Created
Erma.jpg			Forces War Records	Image	22 Feb 2014
1erma.jpg			Forces War Records	Image	22 Feb 2014
Berma copy-2.jpg			Forces War Records	Image	22 Feb 2014
Ohio.gif			Forces War Records	Image	11 Jun 2015
Ohio.jpg			Forces War Records	Image	11 Jun 2015
DDN_donahue_ErmaBombeck.jpg			Forces War Records	Image	23 Apr 2016
Erma L Bombeck	Birth, Custom, Death, People	US, Social Security Death Index	Forces War Records	Index Record	4 Sept 2008

Erma L Bombeck

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