page_title: Erma Bombeck
section_title: Housewife (1954–1964)
hierarchical_section_title: Erma Bombeck / Housewife column / Housewife (1954–1964)
caption_attribution_description: English: Front and western side of the Erma Bombeck House, located at 162 Cushwa Drive in Centerville, Ohio, United States. Built in 1959, it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places because it was the home of writer Erma Bombeck.
context_page_description: Erma Louise Bombeck was an American humorist who achieved great popularity for her syndicated newspaper humor column describing suburban home life 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.
context_section_description: The Bombecks were told by doctors that having a child was improbable, so they adopted a girl, Betsy, in 1953. Bombeck decided to become a full-time housewife and relinquished her career as a journalist. During 1954, Bombeck nevertheless wrote a series of humorous columns in the Dayton Shopping News.
  Despite the former difficult diagnoses, Bombeck gave birth to a son, Andrew, in 1955. Away from her journalistic career, Bombeck initiated an intense period of homemaking, which lasted 10 years, and had her second son, Matthew, in 1958. The Bombeck family moved in 1959 to Centerville, Ohio, into a tract housing development, and were neighbors of Phil Donahue. This home was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2015.
caption: Bombeck's house in Centerville, Ohio, now a historic site
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