The suburban ranch-style home in Ohio where humor writer Erma Bombeck launched her nationally syndicated column has been added to the National Register of Historic Places.
Her alma mater, the University of Dayton, says a local preservationist approached Bombeck’s children at last year’s Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop at the school.
They liked the idea, and the current owners also agreed to have the modest 1959-built home recommended for the designation that was recently made official.
The Bombeck family lived in the Dayton suburb of Centerville in the three-bedroom home until 1968, as her popularity was soaring and her first book, titled “At Wit’s End,” was out. Among their neighbors was Phil Donahue, who became a nationally known television talk show host.
Bombeck died in 1996 at age 69.