Chautauqua Festival 2025 – American Celebrity – Erma Bombeck

Hear her story in her own words.  Erma Bombeck was no overnight success. She honed her craft writing humor articles for her school newspaper, writing flight manuals for the Air Force, and obituaries for her local paper. When her “At Wit’s End” column launched at the “Dayton Journal Herald” in 1965, it was swiftly picked up in syndication by over 500 newspapers across the country.  She appeared on TV morning shows as well as “The Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson sharing her simple observations of the everyday absurdities of being a wife and mother in middle America.

Susan Marie Frontczak (Erma Bombeck)

In her 24 years as a Living History scholar, Susan Marie has given more than 875 presentations as Marie Curie, Mary Shelley, Eleanor Roosevelt, Clara Barton, Irene Castle and Erma Bombeck across 43 of the United States and abroad. She also works with both adults and youth to develop their own Living History presentations. She authored the Young Chautauqua handbooks for Colorado Humanities and taught at the Chautauqua Training Institute in 2022-23.  As a teen, Susan Marie competed with her mother to see which of them could snag the monthly “Good Housekeeping” first in order to read Erma Bombeck’s column.  With Bombeck, Susan Marie’s challenge is to convey her humor along with the person behind the persona.

Based in Greenville, SC, Chautauqua History Comes Alive is interactive theater and the performances offer an astonishing journey into the past allowing the audience to hear stories of the characters in their own words. This year’s character performances are Erma Bombeck (Saturday, June 7); Babe Ruth (Tuesday, June 10); Josephine Baker (Thursday, June 12); Lucille Ball (Saturday, June 14); and Albert Einstein (Tuesday, June 17). Doors open one hour before show, seating is first come, first served. The Chautauqua Festival at the Transylvania County Library is made possible by the generous support of the Friends of the Library.