Radio stars (Oct 1938)

RADIO STARS place, "Boys Town", near Omaha, Nebraska, the only town where the mayor of the town plays end in a football game, and the chief of police plays the other end. Then. I see the contractor in New York who had spent all his life "diggin' doit", and who had his son with him in the contracting business ; the wife of the cashier who had worked in the same place for forty years. I talked with her on the air about the best way of ironing a shirt, and we even discussed how collars could be turned to make them wearable longer. I sat for three days in the court of Judge. Camille Kelly, in Memphis, Tennessee, before going into her home to do a broadcast. Judge Kelly was the first woman judge of a juvenile court in the United States. In her seventeen years on the bench, she had tried some thirty-thousand cases and, as I sat there watching the parade of human misery, folly and hopelessness which came before her, I was amazed and humbled at her kindly, sagacious handling of each human destiny. I shall never forget Judge Kelly, gray-haired, forbidding at times, but always understanding, and with a tell-tale feminine touch of fresh lilacs at her throat. To my mind, she is one of our greatest living Americans. If you should ask me to name the family which I considered the most typically American among those I have met, I should refer you to the Merrimans of Joliet, Illinois. A typical American family is, I think, one which you might find on the Main Street of any small or medium-sized town — honest, hard-working, God-fearing, of modest means and ambitions. Mr. Merriman is a corner druggist in Joliet. In his early youth he went to Chicago and studied pharmacy, came back and married a home-town girl. He established his corner drug store, and business prospered. When the time came, years later, he was able to send the oldest of his seven children to college, as he plans to do for the others. He knows and takes a great interest in the every-day lives of his fellow-townsmen. He sometimes gets up at night and drives twenty or thirty miles into the country to take a prescription to some one who needs it badly. His store has been held up four times, so now Mr. Merriman goes out and practices targetshooting with the local police. He will be able to take care of the next bandit, if a next one comes along ! If you should ask my lifteen-months-old daughter, Betsy, to name the most interesting home she has visited, I think she would say, if she could, "Bion Island", the home of Robert L. Ripley, at Mamaroneck, New York. Betsy has followed me across the continent and back, by train and automobile, with her mother, since she was four months old. She has made herself at home with all the neighbors we have met, but I think she really outdid herself at the bachelor home of Bob Ripley. The invaluable curios which Bob has brought from every corner of the globe were just playthings to Betsy, and her mother had to follow her about the huge mansion frantically to forestall their destruction. Bob. however, seemed to delight in her. He is a great lover of children, though there are none about his home. One of his great est thrills, he told me, was his selection by the Boys' Club of America as the man in public life, "They'd rather be". If there are no children at Ripley's home, however, there are certainly plenty of dogs. The place is overrun with them, and almost every tree on the island has a little bird-house in it. In addition to the dramatic and interesting, I have encountered some very lovely pictures in these visits of mine. I only wish I had the power to set down the impressions of a program from Dutch Pennsylvania. Few have touched the heart of those people known as Mennonites and Amish and Dunkers. They are a wonderful lot of Americans. Shy, because those who don't understand are inclined to ridicule their quaint costumes and somewhat antiquated ways, they are difficult to approach. Once met and known, their sterling qualities stand out like a lighthouse in a fog. They are a stern and hardy lot. Of all the people in America, they alone have come closest to preserving the unflinching moral courage that set our pioneers apart. I went to the kitchen of Granny Reams in York, Pennsylvania, for a broadcast. The microphones were placed on the sewing machine, and quilts were at the base of the doors to keep the warmth from leaking out to the rest of the freezing house. Granny told me about how she had lived those ninety years of hers, and about the quaint customs of her people and her region. One thing stands out from that program. 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