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Notable people · Writer

Erma Bombeck

Dayton-raised humorist whose syndicated column "At Wit's End," begun in the Dayton Journal Herald in 1965 and written first from a Centerville ranch house, made suburban housework a national joke.

Born February 21, 1927, Dayton (some sources say Bellbrook)
Died April 22, 1996, San Francisco, CA

Erma Bombeck
Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

At a glance

Born
February 21, 1927, Dayton (some sources say Bellbrook) (Montgomery County) source
Died
April 22, 1996, San Francisco, CA source
Buried
Woodland Cemetery and Arboretum, Dayton (Section 201, Lot 395) (Montgomery County) source
Also known as
Erma Bombeck, Erma Fiste
Education
Ohio University, Athens, OH, 1946, one semester
University of Dayton, Dayton, OH, to 1949, English
Known as
Writer
Organizations
University of Dayton

Life story

Erma Fiste was born in Bellbrook and raised in Dayton, where her father ran a crane. She wrote school humor columns in junior high and at Parker Vocational High School.

She studied a semester at Ohio University and graduated from the University of Dayton in 1949, marrying Bill Bombeck the same year.

She started writing for Dayton papers in the 1950s and 1960s; her column 'At Wit's End' went national in 1965 and ran in hundreds of papers. She was also on Good Morning America from 1975 to 1986.

She died in 1996 after a kidney transplant and is buried in Dayton.

Ohio ties

  • Dayton (1927-1945)
    childhood in the Haymarket district after her father's death in 1936; Emerson Junior High; Patterson Vocational High School (graduated 1944); copy girl and then obituary writer at the Dayton Herald Montgomery County · source
  • Athens (Ohio University) (1945 (fall semester))
    studied English for one semester before returning to Dayton Athens County · source
  • Dayton (University of Dayton) (1946-1949; trustee from 1987)
    B.A. in English 1949; humor columns for the student magazine The Exponent; later a lifetime trustee Montgomery County · source
  • Dayton (1949-1955)
    reporter in the women's department of the Journal Herald until 1953; lived in a duplex at 1027 Holly Avenue Montgomery County · source
  • West Carrollton (1955-1959)
    first house, a small Haverstick tract home Montgomery County · source
  • Centerville, 162 Cushwa Drive (1959-1968)
    home where she started writing columns and finished her first book, At Wit's End; Bill Bombeck taught at Centerville High School Montgomery County · source
  • Bellbrook area (farm on Upper Bellbrook Road) (1968-1971)
    30-acre farmstead the family bought after selling the Centerville house, before moving to Arizona Greene County · source
  • Dayton (Woodland Cemetery) (1996)
    burial Montgomery County · source

Timeline

  1. 1927 Born Erma Louise Fiste on February 21 to Cassius Fiste, a city crane operator, and Erma Haines Fiste. source
  2. 1936 Her father died when she was nine; she and her mother moved in with her grandmother in Dayton's Haymarket district. source
  3. 1940 Entered Emerson Junior High School and wrote a humor column for its paper, The Owl. source
  4. 1944 Graduated from Patterson Vocational High School and went to work full time at the Dayton Herald, mostly writing obituaries, while editing airplane manuals at night at what is now Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. source
  5. 1945 Enrolled at Ohio University in Athens in the fall and left after one semester. source
  6. 1949 Graduated from the University of Dayton with a B.A. in English, married William Lawrence Bombeck on August 13, and joined the Journal Herald as a reporter. source
  7. 1953 Resigned from the newspaper ahead of adopting her daughter Betsy. source
  8. 1959 In April the Bombecks bought a lot and new ranch house at 162 Cushwa Drive in Centerville's Washington Park development. source
  9. 1963 Her first "Zone 59" column, named for Centerville's postal zone, ran in the weekly Kettering-Oakwood Times on October 17, at $3 a column. source
  10. 1965 "At Wit's End" began in the Dayton Journal Herald in January at $25 a column, twice a week; after about three weeks Newsday's syndicate took it national. source
  11. 1967 Doubleday published her first book, At Wit's End, a collection of columns completed in the Cushwa Drive house. source
  12. 1968 Sold the Centerville house in September and moved to a 30-acre farm near Bellbrook. source
  13. 1971 Moved with her family to Paradise Valley, Arizona, in June. source
  14. 1975 Began 11 years of regular appearances on ABC's Good Morning America. source
  15. 1980 Inducted into the Ohio Women's Hall of Fame. source
  16. 1987 Became a lifetime trustee of the University of Dayton. source
  17. 1996 Died April 22 in San Francisco of complications from a kidney transplant received April 3; buried in Woodland Cemetery, Dayton, under a large rock brought from the Arizona desert. source
  18. 2000 The first Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop was held at the University of Dayton. source
  19. 2003 Ohio Bicentennial historical marker 5-57 was placed outside St. Mary's Hall at the University of Dayton. source
  20. 2015 The Cushwa Drive house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in March after a nomination by the Centerville-Washington Township Landmarks Foundation. source

What Erma is known for

  • Syndicated humor columnist
  • Centerville home on the National Register of Historic Places (2015)
  • At Wit's End (1967)
  • 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)
  • A Marriage Made in Heaven (1993)

Stories

The copy girl who found her own replacement

At Patterson Vocational High School in Dayton, students alternated two weeks in class with two weeks at a job. Erma Fiste asked the Dayton Herald for her work placement, and the editor said no because he needed someone full time, not half the month. She answered that she would find a classmate to cover the other two weeks, and got the job. Most of the work was secretarial, but she did get some stories, including an interview with Shirley Temple, pitched on the idea that the two 16-year-olds would have a lot in common. Bombeck later said they did not. After graduating in 1944 she stayed on at the Herald full time, mostly writing obituaries.

Source

Zone 59, the utility-room beat

In 1963 her youngest son started kindergarten and Bombeck, ten years out of the newsroom, wrote a few sample columns about housework and pitched them to Ron Ginger, editor of the weekly Kettering-Oakwood Times. He agreed to $3 a column. She called the column "Zone 59," after the Centerville postal zone, and the first one ran on October 17, 1963. Early in 1965 Glenn Thompson, editor of the Dayton Journal Herald, wrote to her offering two columns a week under her own byline at $25 each, and quietly sent her work to syndicates. Newsday's syndicate took "At Wit's End" after about three weeks; it was in 36 papers after a year and, by 1971, in about 300.

Source

A plank, two cinder blocks and an IBM Selectric

The house at 162 Cushwa Drive was an ordinary 1959 ranch in a Centerville subdivision, bought partly with money borrowed from Bombeck's stepfather. She wrote her early columns there on an IBM Selectric in a cramped bedroom, at a desk made of a plank across cinder blocks. The idea of listing it on the National Register came from Martha Boice of the Centerville-Washington Township Landmarks Foundation, who asked Bombeck's children at the University of Dayton writers' workshop; the children and the current owners agreed. The house was listed in March 2015 as the place where Bombeck, in her own words, really began writing. It remains a private home.

Source

Honors and things named for them

  • Golden Plate Award (1978)
  • Ohio Women's Hall of Fame (1980)
  • American Cancer Society Medal of Honor (1990)

Named for Erma Bombeck

Family

  • spouse: Bill Bombeck

Sites to know

Homes, graves, markers, museums and monuments; the numbered ones are on the map.

123
  • 1 Erma Bombeck House (National Register 2015; coordinates converted from the nomination's UTM reference) (private)
    Centerville, 162 Cushwa Drive Montgomery County · source
  • 2 Ohio Historical Marker 5-57, Erma Bombeck (north side of St. Mary's Hall, University of Dayton)
    Dayton, Zehler Drive Montgomery County · source
  • 3 Bombeck grave, Woodland Cemetery and Arboretum (Section 201, Lot 395; marked by a boulder from Arizona)
    Dayton, 118 Woodland Avenue Montgomery County · source
  • Erma Bombeck Papers, Roesch Library, University of Dayton
    Dayton Montgomery County · source

Places in Ohio to see

Ohio places

Where Erma Bombeck was born, lived, worked and is remembered, with the ZIP code, town and county pages for each.

Myths and corrections

Things often said about Erma Bombeck, and what the record shows.

Often said Erma Bombeck was born in Bellbrook, Ohio.

The record Unproven. Wikipedia, the Wright Memorial Public Library and Find a Grave's header say Bellbrook, but the 2014 National Register nomination and the 2003 state historical marker both say she was born in Dayton, where she grew up. The family did own a farm near Bellbrook from 1968 to 1971, which may be the source of the confusion. source

  • Disputed: Many biographies say she was born in Dayton. Wikipedia and a separate check place her birth in Bellbrook, with her upbringing in Dayton.

Documents

Primary records: patents, letters, court and government files, nominations and old county histories, each at the archive that holds it.

Further reading

Sources

Confidence. Medium: the main facts were confirmed, but some details (often an address or ZIP code) were not.

Every link goes to the original source. Profile researched 2026-10-15.

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