disarming feminine self-deprecation and sheer fun." As a cook, she was competent, but not extraordinary, although she showed considerable skill at making and decorating cakes. Her daughter Marion described her priorities:Mother's early housekeeping days...gave little evidence of culinary prowess... Indeed, it is an open secret that Mother, to the very end of her life, regarded social intercourse as more important than food. The dinner table, in our childhood, frequently suggested a lectern rather than a buffet. What I remember better than the dishes it upheld—which, I must admit, constantly improved in quality—was the talk which went 'round it, talk which burst forth out of our richly multiple interests. Through much of his adult life, Edgar Rombauer suffered periodic bouts of severe depression. He experienced one of these attacks in the winter of 1929-30 and had seemed to be recovering, but on February 3, 1930, he committed suicide, leaving his wife emotionally shattered and in dire financial straits. The Great Depression had been triggered by the stock market crash just three months earlier, Irma was 52 years old, had no job, and had savings amounting only to $6,000, . Her son Put had moved to Florida, and Marion was planning to be married and would soon leave home. It was clear that Irma would need to find something to occupy her mind and provide an income. Her solution was characteristically impulsive and bold. To the bewilderment of many who knew her, she announced that she was going to write a cookbook. Joy of Cooking The earliest origins of the material in Joy of Cooking are unclear. Marion considered that it evolved from a collection of recipes supposedly used by her mother as part of a cooking course for the First Unitarian Women's Alliance but later research raises questions about Marion's recollection, with no indication that the mimeographs of the Women's Alliance recipes pre-dated the first edition of Joy. It is certain that Rombauer solicited from numerous friends and family members many of the recipes that she assembled under the title The Joy of Cooking: A Compilation of Reliable Recipes, with a Casual Culinary Chat. Marion designed a cover and provided silhouette chapter headings, and 3000 copies of the book were printed by the A. C. Clayton Company, a commercial printer of labels and packaging materials that had never before printed a book. The St. Louis Post Dispatch covered the book's 1931