The Mountain Laurel
The Journal of Mountain Life

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Heart of the Blue Ridge


Do You Remember Radio Soap Operas?

“The radio makes it possible to combine work and pleasure." (This illustration and caption appeared in the February, 1929 issue of Successful Farming magazine.)“The radio makes it possible to combine work and pleasure." (This illustration and caption appeared in the February, 1929 issue of Successful Farming Magazine.)By Susan M. Thigpen © 1991

Issue: August, 1991

One of the earliest recollections of my childhood was standing in a homemade (tobacco stick) playpen in the front yard, under the chinaberry tree, at my grandmother's. It must have been around mid-day and I remember hearing the radio inside the house playing, "Funiculi, Funicula," the theme song of the radio soap opera Young Widow Brown - or was it Stella Dallas? My mother or grandmother was probably ironing on the screened in porch where it was a little cooler for such a job.

People usually mention the Grand Ole Opry when they think about old time radio and yet countless women did their household chores while keeping an ear on the trials and tribulations of Young Doctor Malone.

Most of the women would have probably felt guilty indulging in simply sitting idle listening to the radio, but saw no harm if ironing, canning vegetables, sewing, washing dishes and so on.

I once heard an interview with one of the radio soap opera actresses who said that once, when the character she was playing was expecting a baby, she found out how seriously the radio audience took their show. Women from all over the country sent her letters and hand knitted booties and baby clothes.

These radio soap operas also promoted themselves by marketing items to the listening public. I inherited a broach that looks oriental in design. The metal has a pagoda at the top and a dragon on either side and the green center (which looks like plastic molded to look like carved jade) has a butterfly and bird of paradise in a jungle background. This broach was offered to the radio audience of some soap opera, which one is now forgotten, and my mother or grandmother ordered it. The broach was a part of the current script of some mystery and intrigue. My mother told me that the different elements on it were supposed to represent something going on in the show.

I suppose the radio soap operas came into being in the 1930s and had their heyday in the late 1940s. By the 1950s, television was coming in and they simply faded out of existence, practically forgotten by the very audience that was once their most devoted fans.