ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, April 23, 1996 TAG: 9604230130
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: NEWS OBIT
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
Erma Bombeck, the housewife who spun humorous anecdotes about suburban family life into a column syndicated to some 700 newspapers, television commentary, speeches across the country and books with such titles such as ``The Grass Is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank,'' died Monday. She was 69.
Bombeck, who had lived in Paradise Valley, Ariz., for the past 25 years, died at San Francisco's University of California Medical Center, where she had been a patient since kidney transplant surgery this month. She suffered from a hereditary disorder called adult polycystic kidney disease and died from complications following the surgery.
In high spirits until the end of her life, Bombeck had endured breast cancer and a mastectomy in 1992 and then the kidney disease, which required dialysis four times a day at her home. She said about 30 faithful readers had offered to donate a kidney, but none was a match. She refused to use her celebrity to move higher on the list of people waiting for a transplant.
``She was one of the few columnists that really was unique; and between her books and her column and her public appearances, she brought joy to an awful lot of people,'' said fellow humorist Art Buchwald. ``And she was a friend, so I will really miss her.''
Bombeck's ability to make everyone join her in laughing about the everyday foibles of family life made her a wealthy woman. She also was a generous one. Even before she had cancer, she contributed a $1.5 million advance fee and all the proceeds of her 1989 book ``I Want to Grow Hair, I Want to Grow Up, I Want to Go to Boise'' to cancer research. She was awarded the American Cancer Society Medal of Honor in 1990.
She appeared twice a week on ``Good Morning America'' from 1975 to 1986 and starred in ``Maggie,'' a short-lived 1980 television series which she created, wrote and produced.
In the 1970s, Bombeck served on the President's Advisory Committee on Women and campaigned for the Equal Rights Amendment, chiding feminists regularly for ``giving a war and not inviting the housewives.''
Even at the height of her popularity, she continued to do housework, shop at discount stores and check price tags. She believed her type of humor involved ``pure identification'' by women doing the same tasks she did and enabled by her insight to laugh at the drudgery.
Bombeck continued writing about married life's mundane little problems even after her illnesses became paramount.
``It's hard to mine humor out of that,'' she said in 1994. ``You'll get people feeling sorry for you - and you should never feel sorry for a humorist.''
Born Erma Louise Fiste in Dayton, Ohio, she studied English at Ohio University and the University of Dayton, working part time as a copy girl and reporter at the Dayton Journal Herald. On Aug. 13, 1949, she married William Lawrence Bombeck, a high school teacher and later a principal who became her financial manager when she started making money with her writing.
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