Excerpt from Welcome To The World, Baby Girl by Fannie Flagg, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Elmwood Springs, Missouri, is not perfect by any means but as far as little towns go it is about as near perfect as you can get without having to get downright sentimental about it or making up a bunch of lies.

THE "NEIGHBOR DOROTHY" SHOW
Elmwood Springs, Missouri
June 1, 1948

Everyone in Elmwood Springs and thereabouts remembers the day they put the radio tower in Neighbor Dorothy's backyard, and how excited they were that night when they first saw the bright red bulb on top of the tower, glowing like a cherry-red Christmas light way up in the black Missouri sky. Because the land was flat, it could be seen for miles in every direction and over the years it came to be a familiar and comforting sight. It made people feel connected somehow.

Had you been there, between 9:30 and 10:00 a.m., unless somebody had knocked you out cold, most likely you would have been listening to the "Neighbor Dorothy" radio show just like everybody else except for old man Henderson, who still thought that radio was a silly invention for silly people. Both the high school and the elementary school scheduled study periods between 9:30 and 10:00 a.m. so the faculty could hear it in the teachers lounge. Farm wives for miles around stopped whatever it was they were doing and sat down with a pad and pencil at the kitchen table to listen. By now Dorothy Smith was one of the most listened to radio homemakers in the Midwest, and if she gave out a recipe for maple swirl pound cake that day, most men would be eating it for dessert that night.

The show was broadcast live from her living room every day Monday through Friday and could be heard over station WDOT, 66 on your dial. Nobody dared miss the show. Not only did she give out household hints and announce upcoming events, you never knew who might show up. All sorts of people would drop by to talk on the radio or sing or tap dance or do whatever it was they had a mind to do for that matter. A Mrs. Mary Hurt even played the spoons once! Mother Smith played organ interludes. Other regulars you didn't want to miss were Ruby Robinson, the radio nurse; Beatrice Woods, the little blind songbird who played the zither and sang; Reverend Audrey Dunkin, the minister, who would often drop by for an inspirational talk or read an inspirational poem; as well as a handbell choir from the First Methodist church. Last year The Light Crust Doughboys came on and sang their hit "Tie Me to Your Apron Strings Again, Mother" and Neighbor Dorothy also had a visit from the Hawaiian Fruit Gum Orchestra, all the way from Yankton, South Dakota. This is not to mention two local gals, Ada and Bess Goodnight, who would sing at the drop of a hat, and the news, which was mostly good.

In 1948 Neighbor Dorothy was a plump, sweet-faced woman with the big, wide-open face of a young girl. Although in her fifties she still looked pretty much the same as she did in the first grade when her husband, Doc Smith, the pharmacist down at the Rexall, first met her. After high school Dorothy graduated from the Fannie Merit School of Home Economics in Boston and came home and married Doc and taught school for a while until she had her first child, Anna Lee. Anna Lee had a few health problems, nothing serious, just a little asthma, but enough so that Neighbor Dorothy thought it was best to stay home with her and Doc agreed. While she was home all day she wanted to keep busy so she began baking cakes-and more cakes. Tea cakes, lemon, banana, caramel, cherry, chocolate, maple, and jelly roll cakes. You name it, she baked it. But her specialty was theme cakes. You'd give her a theme and she'd make you the cake to go with the occasion. Not that she couldn't make a mean noodle ring or anything else you wanted but she was known for her cakes. There was not a child in Elmwood Springs or nearby who had not had a pink and white circus cake with the miniature toy carousel on top for her birthday party. Which is how she came to be at the Mayfair Auditorium over in Poplar Bluff on Home Demonstration Day giving out the recipe for her circus cake on the radio. She just happened to mention that she used Golden Flake Flour for all her cakes and the next day, when Golden Flake Flour sales doubled in four states, she was offered a show of her own. She told the Golden Flake Flour people thank you, but she could not leave home every day to drive the twenty-something miles to the station in Poplar Bluff and back, which is how the radio tower came to be put up in her backyard in the first place and how her youngest child, Bobby, happened to grow up on the radio. He was only two years old when Neighbor Dorothy first went on the air, but that was over ten years ago and he does not remember a time when there wasn't a radio show in the living room.

Use of this excerpt from WELCOME TO THE WORLD, BABY GIRL by Fannie Flagg may be made only for purposes of promoting the book, with no changes, editing or additions whatsoever, and must be accompanied by the following copyright: Copyright (c) 1998 by Fannie Flagg