Bombeck home put on national register
Associated Press
DAYTON
The suburban ranch-style home where humor writer Erma Bombeck launched her nationally syndicated column has been added to the National Register of Historic Places.
Her alma mater, the University of Dayton, says a local preservationist approached Bombeck’s children at last year’s Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop at the school.
“It was one of my pipe dreams,” said Martha Boice, who helped start the Landmarks Foundation of Centerville-Washington Township. “Few communities can claim so cherished a person.”
Bombeck’s family liked the idea, and the current owners also agreed to have the modest 1959-built home recommended for the designation, which recently was made official.
“It’s a nice honor for my mom,” said Matt Bombeck, a screenwriter in Los Angeles. “It was a great place to grow up, and we really have fond memories of our neighbors and the neighborhood. The nice thing about the neighborhood is that it really hasn’t changed that much since we were there — except the trees are bigger.”
The Bombeck family lived in the three-bedroom home until 1968, as her popularity was soaring and her first book, titled “At Wit’s End,” was out. Among their neighbors in the Dayton suburb of Centerville was Phil Donahue, who became a nationally known television talk-show host.
Bombeck wrote her columns there on a makeshift desk made of a plank between cinder blocks in a bedroom. The house will remain a private residence.
“Knowing that she did her writing in this house has been inspirational to me in my career,” said current homeowner and University of Dayton psychology professor Roger Reeb. The school said he often writes papers there about service-learning and his work with homeless shelters.
Bombeck died in 1996 at age 69.