Neighbor Dorothy’s house is located on the left side of First Avenue North, and has the address written in big black letters on the curb so you can’t miss it. It is the last house on the corner with a wraparound porch, a two-swing front porch, one swing on one end and one on the other. It has a green and white canvas awning all the way around to the side of the house.
If you were to walk up the porch stairs and look to your right you would see written in small gold and black letters on the window WDOT RADIO STATION, NUMBER 66 ON YOUR DIAL. Other than that it looks just like everybody else’s house, without the call letters on the window and the big radio tower in the backyard, of course. No matter what time of day you come to the front door you are going to find it open. No point in closing it. Too many people in and out all the time. The milkman, the bread man, the ice man, the gas man, her twelve-year-old son, Bobby, who goes in and out a hundred times a day, and of course all her many radio visitors, who often come by the busload and are always welcomed with a fresh batch of special radio cookies she makes every day for the purpose. As you walk in, to the right is a large room with a desk with a microphone on it that says WDOT. The desk sits in front of the window so she can always turn around and look out and report what the weather is doing firsthand. Mother Smith’s organ is to the left, and about ten chairs are set up so people can come in and sit down if they want to. Neighbor Dorothy’s house is on the corner where the Greyhound bus stops, so it makes it nice while people are waiting for the bus to go in and watch the show or sit on the front porch and wait, particularly if it’s raining. The floors are dark wood and Neighbor Dorothy has some nice scatter rugs here and there. The curtains are green with a yellow and deep pink floral print with what looks like might be palm trees. She has recently put up brand-new venetian blinds, a Christmas present from Doc.
The dining room has a nice brass chandelier with four milk-glass shades with a little Dutch scene on them, and some lovely lace swag curtains on the bay window, and a pretty white tablecloth. The kitchen is still where everybody usually eats. It has a large white wooden table in the middle with a hanging lightbulb over it. The stove is a white enamel-and-chrome O’Keefe & Merritt with a clock and red and white plastic salt and pepper shakers to match. There is a large sink and drain board in a skirt of floral print plus a big Kelvinator icebox. The walls are beaded board painted a light green. Off the kitchen to the back is a large screened porch; Bobby sleeps there in the summer. On the other side is a group of miniature tables and chairs where all the children in town have their birthday parties and where Anna Lee and her friend run a nursery school in the summer to make extra money for clothes. The other two rooms on the left side of the house are Anna Lee’s bedroom, a seventeen-year-old girl’s room with a white canopy bed and a dresser with a mirror and a Kewpie doll with sparkle dust and a feather on its head sitting on top of a chest of drawers. There is a sunroom that Neighbor Dorothy and Mother Smith use as a sewing room and where Anna Lee keeps her scrapbooks on Dana Andrews, the movie star she is in love with this year. Three bedrooms are off the hall, Doc and Neighbor Dorothy’s, Mother Smith’s, and Bobby has the last room down at the end. Also living in the house is Princess Mary Margaret, who has free run of every room in the house and is famous in her own right. She is a ten-year-old cocker spaniel that Neighbor Dorothy got from Doc as a Christmas present the first year she was on the air. She was named through a name-the-puppy contest and when all her listeners sent in their choices, the name Princess Mary Margaret won first prize. A good name, because not only does England have a Princess Margaret, but Missouri has its own little princess, Margaret Truman, the daughter of Missouri-born president Harry S Truman and his wife, Bess. In 1948, Princess Mary Margaret is quite a celebrity. Not only does Neighbor Dorothy spoil her, so do her listeners. She has her own fan club known as the Princess Mary Margaret Club and all the dues money goes to the Humane Society. Princess Mary Margaret has received birthday cards from Lassie in Hollywood and many other famous people.
The other two residents of the house are Dumpling and Moe, the Smiths’ yellow singing canary birds. Their white cage hangs in the living room and they can be heard chirping away all through the broadcast. Neighbor Dorothy’s backyard is, as mentioned, like everybody else’s except for the radio tower, with lots of open space all the way back to the railroad tracks and behind that are the cornfields. There are no fences so you might say that the whole town just has one big backyard and one leads into the other. The only difference between Neighbor Dorothy’s house and the others is the clothesline that runs from her back door to her next-door neighbor’s back door. Beatrice Woods, the little blind songbird, lives next door and that’s how she gets back and forth to Neighbor Dorothy’s house, by holding on to the clothesline. Apart from the fact that it has WDOT painted on the front window in gold and black letters, an organ in the living room, a radio tower in the backyard, and is a Greyhound bus stop and has a nursery school on the back porch and a dog living there that receives a personal Christmas card every year from the president of the United States, it is just an ordinary house.
And today is just another ordinary day. At exactly nine-thirty everybody hears what they have been hearing every weekday morning for the past ten years. A male announcer from the main station comes on and says, “And now … Golden Flake Flour and Pancake Mix … that always-light-as-a-feather flour in the red and white sack … takes you to that little white house just around the corner from wherever you are, as we join … your neighbor and mine, the lady with a smile in her voice, Neighbor Dorothy, with Mother Smith on the organ!”
The minute they get the on-air signal, Mother Smith hits the first strain of their theme song and starts the show off with a rousing rendition of “On the Sunny Side of the Street.” In a moment, Neighbor Dorothy greets her radio listeners as she always does, with a pleasant “Good morning, everybody … how are you today? Fine, I hope. It is a beautiful day over here in Elmwood Springs and I hope it’s just as pretty where you are. We’ve got so many exciting things lined up for you today … so just sit down, put your feet up, and have a cup of coffee with me, won’t you? Ooh … I wish all of you could see Mother Smith this morning … she’s all dressed up and looks so pretty. Where are you going today, Mother Smith? Oh, she says she’s going downtown to Miss Alma’s Tea Room for a retirement lunch. Well, that should be a lot of fun.… We all love Miss Alma, don’t we? Yes, we do.
“We have so many letters to read to you today, and we’ve got those two recipes that you all have been asking for—one is Lady Baltimore cake and one for a baby Baltimore cake—so be sure and have your pencils and pads ready and later on in the program, Beatrice, our little blind songbird, is going to be singing for us.… What’s your song, honey? Oh … she says she’ll be singing ‘When It’s Lamp Lighting Time in the Valley.’ That sounds like a good one.
“Also, we have a winner in our How Did You Meet Your Husband contest … but before I do anything else this morning I want to start with some good news for all the gals that went to Norma’s bridal shower yesterday. They were all mighty worried when all the Lucky Dime cake had been eaten and nobody had gotten the piece with the dime in it, but Norma’s mother, Ida, called this morning and said they found the dime in the kitchen—she had forgotten to put it in—so all you gals can rest easy … none of you will have to be x-rayed after all … so I know that’s a relief. As you all know, Norma is our little June bride to be. She is marrying Macky Warren at twelve noon on June the twenty-eighth down at the Unity Church, so if you are in town, drop in at the reception at the VFW Hall afterwards. They say everybody is welcome. So all of you out there be sure to come on by and you don’t have to bring a thing. Ida says it’s all going to be catered by Nordstrom’s bakery and luncheonette, so you know it will be good.