Evelyn Birkby: Transcript

Radio Homemaker, Sidney
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My broadcasting started in 1950. And I still do a monthly broadcast over radio station KMA, and I love it! And I still am getting letters from people who say, “You’re friendly, and your voice has a smile in it, and it makes me feel better.”  And if I have any purpose in life, it’s to make people feel better.

This is Evelyn Birkby, and I live in Sidney, Iowa. Been here since—in the ‘50s—that’s 1950—and have moved here with my husband. Live on an acreage on the edge of Sidney, and I’m 88. And, you know, life’s good and it’s fun. And we are finding all kinds of interesting things to do. I’ve never talked as if I was old, and I never intend to. Because too many people talk about how old they are and all their aches and pains. And then pretty soon they think old. And then they begin to act old. And then they are old!

I just finished my tenth book, my tenth published book. And I’m very excited about that. So my days are very filled now with marketing my book, and doing book signings, and making talks, giving talks about my great-great-grandfather William.

The way I started was very accidental, as far as being an author and a radio homemaker. Here we were living on the little farm outside of Farragut, Iowa, in the southwest corner of the state. And my husband was very wise. And he had said to me, “You’ve got to find something creative to do.”

Not very long after that, the newspaper man in Shenandoah, Iowa—Willard Archie, was the publisher of the Shenandoah Evening Sentinel, a long, long time—had advertised for a farm woman to write a weekly column, something that would be homey, and down to earth, and something friendly. And Robert said to me, “You can do that.”  And I said, “No. I don’t know how to write.” And he said, “It’s just talking. And you know how to talk. And it’s just putting your words down on paper.”

Now, this is the year 2008, and that was 58 years ago that I wrote my first column. And I’ve been writing them ever since. The column’s gone in every week. And Mr. Archie said, “Always put in a recipe. People may not read anything else, but they’ll always read the recipe.”

That was in November that I first started writing, and the next spring I got a call from the women’s department of KMA radio. Doris Murphy called me. She said, “We think that your column would translate into a radio homemaker program.”

KMA had tremendous women broadcasters. And among them were some of the most famous radio homemakers in the Midwest. And suddenly here I found myself as one of these women, these very, very well-known and well-liked women in the Midwest.

I had a 15-minute daily program. I would go from our little farm—I drove to Shenandoah to the station. I would do one live program and then tape the next. Then two days later I’d go over and do that again.

One of the things I learned on the farm, very early on, when I started radio was that I was not limited to the farm. Radio meant that the whole world was out there. It was as broad as I wanted to make it, as broad as the station could make it. And I began getting letters from people. And then the opportunities, the doors that opened for me.

And I guess I do like to talk. When I’m on the radio, I try to imagine that they’re sitting across the table from me in my kitchen or on my porch having a cup of coffee. I like that sense of being with people. Again, a neighboring, a community that I feel has been a part of my life.