Erma Louise Bombeck (née Fiste; February 21, 1927 – April 22, 1996) was an American humorist who achieved great popularity for her newspaper humor column describing suburban home life, syndicated from 1965 to 1996. She also published 15 books, most of which became bestsellers. Between 1965 and April 17, 1996 – five days before her death – Bombeck wrote over 4,000 newspaper columns, using broad and sometimes eloquent humor, chronicling the ordinary life of a Midwestern suburban housewife. By the 1970s, her columns were read semi-weekly by 30 million readers of the 900 newspapers in the U.S. and Canada. Her work stands as a humorous chronicle of middle-class life in America after World War II, among the generation of parents who produced the Baby Boomers. Early life Erma Fiste was born in Bellbrook, Ohio, to a working-class family, and was raised in Dayton. Her parents were Erma (née Haines) and Cassius Edwin Fiste, who was the city crane operator. Young Erma lived with her elder paternal half-sister, Thelma. She began elementary school one year earlier than usual for her age, in 1932, and became an excellent student and an avid reader. She particularly enjoyed the popular humor writers of the time. After Erma's father died in 1936, she moved, with her mother, into her grandmother's home. Her mother remarried in 1938, to Albert Harris (a moving van owner). Erma practiced tap dance and singing, and worked for a local radio station for a children's revue for eight years. Formative years Erma entered Emerson Junior High School in 1940, and began writing a humorous column for its newspaper, The Owl. In 1942, she entered Parker (now Patterson) Vocational High School, where she wrote a serious column, mixing in bits of humor. That same year she began work at the Dayton Herald as a copygirl, sharing her full-time assignment with a girlfriend. In 1944, for her first journalistic work, she interviewed Shirley Temple, who visited Dayton, and the interview became a newspaper feature. Having completed high school in 1944, Erma sought to earn a college scholarship fund; for a year she worked as a typist and stenographer, for the Dayton Herald and several other companies, and also did minor journalistic assignments (obituaries, etc.) for the Dayton Herald. Using the money she earned, Erma enrolled in Ohio University at Athens, Ohio, in 1946. However, she failed most of her literary assignments and was