Betty Wason
Encyclopedia
Elizabeth Wason was an American author and broadcast journalist; a pioneer, with such others as Mary Marvin Breckinridge and Sigrid Schultz
, of female journalism in the United States. She worked for and with Edward R. Murrow
during World War II, though she and a handful of other journalists were never included in the famed group of Murrow's Boys
. She wrote numerous books on food and cooking from the 1940s through 1981.
where she studied classical violin and painting. She eventually enrolled in Purdue University
hoping to become a dress designer.
Wason graduated from Purdue in 1933 with the Great Depression
in full swing. Work was not easy to come by and she settled on a job selling yard goods in the basement of Ayres Department Store in Indianapolis. Her first broadcasting experience came doing a program for a radio cooking school in Lexington, Kentucky
. "I was young and wanted to see the world. I had no money, so I decided I would become a journalist," she said in a 1997 interview.
, a new wire service, the company president Herbert Moore asked her where she expected to go. Her reply: "Wherever things are happening."
In 1938 Wason found herself in Prague, Czechoslovakia working for Transradio. She was there when the Nazis took over. She accompanied Hungarian troops as they entered the country and then traveled to Rome for Neville Chamberlain
's meetings with Benito Mussolini
.
The pay at Transradio, however, was not enough and she had to return to New York, discouraged.
for CBS
, checking in with their Berlin correspondent.
Soon after, Wason was on her way to Norway after the Nazi invasion began. Her cross into Norway was anything but routine. She eluded border guards and hitched a ride in a truck across the mountainous terrain where she hid in the woods to wait out an air raid. She interviewed numerous wounded British soldiers and found out just how poorly the Allied defense had gone. She returned to Stockholm and her broadcast by hitching rides and walking.
But none of that mattered to the bosses at CBS. Despite her daring hard work they still asked her to find a man to read her copy. She left Sweden in the spring of 1940 in search of the next big story, she soon ended up in Greece after short stops in the Balkans and Istanbul. With an expected Italian invasion of Greece on the horizon CBS again hired Wason. She also started stringing for Newsweek
during this time.
In October 1940 Italian forces began to move into Greece, a cable came from CBS: "Find male American broadcast 4U." Though CBS saw her gender as an impediment Wason strove on. During her six months in Greece her voice on the radio, Phil Brown, a secretary at the American embassy
, introduced each broadcast with, "This is Phil Brown in Athens, speaking for Betty Wason."
Wason remained in Athens through the winter of 1940 and refused to leave the next spring, April 1941, as German air attacks ramped up in Greece's capital. When the Nazis took Athens, Wason was stuck in the city for several weeks. Though America still remained "neutral" in the war Wason was kept, along with several other reporters, by the Germans who refused to allow anyone to broadcast. Eventually Wason left Athens on a Deutsche Lufthansa
plane bound for Vienna. Also on the plane were Wes Gallagher
of the Associated Press
and George Weller
of the Chicago Daily News
. Once in Vienna the Gestapo
detained the entire group under suspected espionage. Soon the male reporters were released but Wason was kept another week for, according to her, "reasons never divulged except that the police wanted to know more about me." When a CBS executive intervened the Gestapo released her.
She had married a Mr. Hall by 1943. On her return to the United States, Wason was inundated with interview requests, lecture requests and press attention. She recalled, "Everyone made a fuss over me but CBS," Wason wrote. "When I went to see (news director) Paul White
, he dismissed me with, 'You were never one of our regular news staff.' Then what, I wondered, had I been doing for CBS all that time in Greece?"
, and as an editor at McCalls and, Woman's Home Companion
. Wason also spent six years moderating Author Rap Sessions on NBC
radio.
She lived in Washington D.C., New York and Portugal while working in public relations and as a freelance writer. In 1985 she moved to Seattle to be nearer to her family.
In 1998, at age 86, Wason wrote about macular degeneration
, an affliction which stole most of her eyesight and rendered her legally blind. Macular Degeneration: Living Positively with Vision Loss was written, in part, with a grant from the Washington State Department of Services for the Blind.
Sigrid Schultz
Sigrid Schultz was a notable American reporter and war correspondent in an era when women were a rarity in both print and radio journalism.-Background:...
, of female journalism in the United States. She worked for and with Edward R. Murrow
Edward R. Murrow
Edward Roscoe Murrow, KBE was an American broadcast journalist. He first came to prominence with a series of radio news broadcasts during World War II, which were followed by millions of listeners in the United States and Canada.Fellow journalists Eric Sevareid, Ed Bliss, and Alexander Kendrick...
during World War II, though she and a handful of other journalists were never included in the famed group of Murrow's Boys
Murrow's Boys
Murrow’s Boys, or “The Murrow Boys,” were the CBS broadcast journalists most closely associated with Edward R. Murrow during his years at the network, most notably the years before and during World War II....
. She wrote numerous books on food and cooking from the 1940s through 1981.
Early life
She grew up in Delphi, IndianaDelphi, Indiana
Delphi is a city in and the county seat of Carroll County, Indiana, United States. Located twenty minutes northeast of Lafayette, it is part of the Lafayette, Indiana Metropolitan Statistical Area...
where she studied classical violin and painting. She eventually enrolled in Purdue University
Purdue University
Purdue University, located in West Lafayette, Indiana, U.S., is the flagship university of the six-campus Purdue University system. Purdue was founded on May 6, 1869, as a land-grant university when the Indiana General Assembly, taking advantage of the Morrill Act, accepted a donation of land and...
hoping to become a dress designer.
Wason graduated from Purdue in 1933 with the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
in full swing. Work was not easy to come by and she settled on a job selling yard goods in the basement of Ayres Department Store in Indianapolis. Her first broadcasting experience came doing a program for a radio cooking school in Lexington, Kentucky
Lexington, Kentucky
Lexington is the second-largest city in Kentucky and the 63rd largest in the US. Known as the "Thoroughbred City" and the "Horse Capital of the World", it is located in the heart of Kentucky's Bluegrass region...
. "I was young and wanted to see the world. I had no money, so I decided I would become a journalist," she said in a 1997 interview.
Transradio Press Service
Wason went around New York City telling any editor that would listen that she was going to Europe and wanted to be their correspondent. When she reached Transradio Press ServiceTransradio Press Service
Transradio Press Service was founded by Herbert Moore in 1934. Its mission was to supply news to radio stations by teleprinter and shortwave. The service folded in 1951.- The beginnings :...
, a new wire service, the company president Herbert Moore asked her where she expected to go. Her reply: "Wherever things are happening."
In 1938 Wason found herself in Prague, Czechoslovakia working for Transradio. She was there when the Nazis took over. She accompanied Hungarian troops as they entered the country and then traveled to Rome for Neville Chamberlain
Neville Chamberlain
Arthur Neville Chamberlain FRS was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940. Chamberlain is best known for his appeasement foreign policy, and in particular for his signing of the Munich Agreement in 1938, conceding the...
's meetings with Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
.
The pay at Transradio, however, was not enough and she had to return to New York, discouraged.
CBS News
After a stint doing promotional recipes for Welch's Grape Juice she soon returned to Europe as a regular stringerStringer (journalism)
In journalism, a stringer is a type of freelance journalist or photographer who contributes reports or photos to a news organization on an ongoing basis but is paid individually for each piece of published or broadcast work....
for CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
, checking in with their Berlin correspondent.
Soon after, Wason was on her way to Norway after the Nazi invasion began. Her cross into Norway was anything but routine. She eluded border guards and hitched a ride in a truck across the mountainous terrain where she hid in the woods to wait out an air raid. She interviewed numerous wounded British soldiers and found out just how poorly the Allied defense had gone. She returned to Stockholm and her broadcast by hitching rides and walking.
But none of that mattered to the bosses at CBS. Despite her daring hard work they still asked her to find a man to read her copy. She left Sweden in the spring of 1940 in search of the next big story, she soon ended up in Greece after short stops in the Balkans and Istanbul. With an expected Italian invasion of Greece on the horizon CBS again hired Wason. She also started stringing for Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
during this time.
In October 1940 Italian forces began to move into Greece, a cable came from CBS: "Find male American broadcast 4U." Though CBS saw her gender as an impediment Wason strove on. During her six months in Greece her voice on the radio, Phil Brown, a secretary at the American embassy
Embassy of the United States in Athens
The Embassy of the United States in Athens is the embassy of the United States in Greece, in the capital city of Athens. The embassy is charged with diplomacy and Greece–United States relations. The United States Ambassador to Greece is the head of the diplomatic mission of the United States to...
, introduced each broadcast with, "This is Phil Brown in Athens, speaking for Betty Wason."
Wason remained in Athens through the winter of 1940 and refused to leave the next spring, April 1941, as German air attacks ramped up in Greece's capital. When the Nazis took Athens, Wason was stuck in the city for several weeks. Though America still remained "neutral" in the war Wason was kept, along with several other reporters, by the Germans who refused to allow anyone to broadcast. Eventually Wason left Athens on a Deutsche Lufthansa
Deutsche Luft Hansa
Deutsche Luft Hansa A.G. was a German airline, serving as flag carrier of the country during the later years of the Weimar Republic and throughout the Third Reich.-1920s:Deutsche Luft Hansa was founded on 6 January 1926 in Berlin...
plane bound for Vienna. Also on the plane were Wes Gallagher
Wes Gallagher
Wes Gallagher was an American journalist for the Associated Press. He worked as a reporter during World War II. He died in Santa Barbara, California.- College and early career :...
of the Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
and George Weller
George Weller
George Anthony Weller was an American novelist, playwright, and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for The New York Times and Chicago Daily News...
of the Chicago Daily News
Chicago Daily News
The Chicago Daily News was an afternoon daily newspaper published between 1876 and 1978 in Chicago, Illinois.-History:The Daily News was founded by Melville E. Stone, Percy Meggy, and William Dougherty in 1875 and began publishing early the next year...
. Once in Vienna the Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
detained the entire group under suspected espionage. Soon the male reporters were released but Wason was kept another week for, according to her, "reasons never divulged except that the police wanted to know more about me." When a CBS executive intervened the Gestapo released her.
She had married a Mr. Hall by 1943. On her return to the United States, Wason was inundated with interview requests, lecture requests and press attention. She recalled, "Everyone made a fuss over me but CBS," Wason wrote. "When I went to see (news director) Paul White
Paul White (journalist)
Paul Welrose White from Pittsburg, Kansas worked as director of news at CBS beginning in 1930. He was CBS' first news director. White worked as a newspaper journalist prior to beginning his radio broadcasting career with CBS...
, he dismissed me with, 'You were never one of our regular news staff.' Then what, I wondered, had I been doing for CBS all that time in Greece?"
After CBS
Wason turned her wartime work as a correspondent into a long career in broadcasting and writing. After leaving CBS she worked as women's editor at Voice of AmericaVoice of America
Voice of America is the official external broadcast institution of the United States federal government. It is one of five civilian U.S. international broadcasters working under the umbrella of the Broadcasting Board of Governors . VOA provides a wide range of programming for broadcast on radio...
, and as an editor at McCalls and, Woman's Home Companion
Woman's Home Companion
Woman's Home Companion was an American monthly publication, published from 1873 to 1957. It was highly successful, climbing to a circulation peak of more than four million during the 1930s and 1940s....
. Wason also spent six years moderating Author Rap Sessions on NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
radio.
She lived in Washington D.C., New York and Portugal while working in public relations and as a freelance writer. In 1985 she moved to Seattle to be nearer to her family.
Publications
Wason authored 24 books after leaving CBS, mostly about one of her longtime favorite hobbies, cooking, though her most successful book was her 1942 story of the Axis invasion of Greece, Miracle in Hellas: The Greeks Fight On. She wrote that the book "was a resounding success. But the tough struggle to make it as a woman correspondent, ending with the cruel rebuff by CBS, cooled my desire for more overseas war reporting."In 1998, at age 86, Wason wrote about macular degeneration
Macular degeneration
Age-related macular degeneration is a medical condition which usually affects older adults and results in a loss of vision in the center of the visual field because of damage to the retina. It occurs in “dry” and “wet” forms. It is a major cause of blindness and visual impairment in older adults...
, an affliction which stole most of her eyesight and rendered her legally blind. Macular Degeneration: Living Positively with Vision Loss was written, in part, with a grant from the Washington State Department of Services for the Blind.
- Cooking Without Cans (1943)
- Dinners that Can Wait (1954)
- Cooks and Gluttons and Gourmets: A history of cookery (1962)
- The Art of Spanish Cooking (1963)
- The Art of Vegetarian Cookery (1965) (Flickr images)
- A Salute to Chinese (1966)
- The Art of German Cooking (1967)
- Salute to Cheese (1968)
- Cooking to Please Finicky Kids (1968)
- It Takes "Jack" to Build a House (1968)
- The Language of Cookery (1968)
- Betty Wason's Greek Cookbook (1969)
- Improving Your Home for Pleasure and Profit (1975)
- Giving a Cheese and Wine Tasting Party (1975)
- Mediterranean Cookbook (1976)
- Ellen: A Mother's Story of Her Runaway Daughter (1976)
- Soup-to-Dessert High Fiber Cookbook (1981)
External links
- Her literary agent was Toni Mendez. The Mendez archive contains a large amount of correspondence between Mendez and Wason.