Henry and Fanny

Harry Heuser has asked me to talk more about favorite radio listening when I was growing up in the '30s and '40s. I wonder if it will be a surprise when I reveal that the most important program for my family, including me at a pretty young age, might well have been One Man's Family. It was a family drama, too good to be called a soap opera. Maybe we loved it because the Barbour clan of Seacliff San Francisco, with their conservative stock broker patriarch, liberal philosopher son Paul and his troublesome siblings were so vastly different from our life in rural Michigan. Whatever it was, it captivated us and a good part of the nation's listeners for 27 years.
The program was written by the very prolific Carlton E. Morse, who also turned out an adventure series, I Love a Mystery. That one seems to get more press from collectors and historians than the family drama. But all I remember about it is the theme song, Valse Triste, and the characters' names, Jack, Doc and Reggie. On the other hand, I can still become transported to California and find myself thinking about the Barbours as if they were real. That could indicate that I'm weird or that Morse was a great radio writer. Take your choice.
Some years ago I acquired a tape of Chicago radio historian Chuck Schaden's interview with Carlton E. Morse. He said that when he sat down at the typewriter to write the program he went into trance-like state and when he came out of it, an entire episode had virtually written itself.
Morse was so good at little things like names for his characters, maybe not so little after all. Even though it was radio and we could not hear the "U" in "Barbour," we saw it when we read about the program. We knew they were no ordinary Barbers. I became quite enchanted with Paul. If I could change my name, my persona and become a different person I would be about 45, handsome and wise. I would be Paul Barbour with a "U" in my last name. Paul's elusive love interest, his wife of a very short time having died, was Beth Holly. She was referred to but seldom appeared on the program by the time I started listening. There was something mysterious there. I thought "Beth Holly" was the prettiest name any woman could ever be given. Was she a girl-next-door, Doris Day type? No, Paul would choose a more exotic, Rita Hayworth look alike. One of the Barbour daughters, I don't remember if it was Hazel or Claudia, married a Brit, Nicholas Lacey. Another perfect name. Paul had a daughter, or maybe she was adopted, called Teddy. Oh, the teen age traces that she kicked over. I could look up all these details but it's more fun to speculate about it.
The program was introduced with, "One Man's Family is dedicated to the Mothers and Fathers of the Younger Generation and to their Bewildering Offspring." I don't know how staid old Father Barbour managed to avoid a heart attack over the things his bewildering offspring threw at him.
Morse had a gift for hiring the right actors, too. I never quite recovered when Michael Rafetto had to give up his role of Paul when his voice became too hoarse.
Russell Thorsen was alright in the role. But he was not Paul Barbour.
Let us assume that this is being read by persons much younger than I, as just slightly less than one hundred percent of bloggers are. They are now thinking, has this guy gone senile? Did my grandparents get that caught up in radio shows? First of all, we didn't call them shows. They were programs. There was "The Jack Benny Program." and "The Johnson's Wax Program with Fibber McGee and Molly." That's the way they were introduced on the air. If your doddering old grandparents speak of a favorite TV program, you can be pretty sure it comes from their radio listening days. There was a TV version of One Man's Family. If I ever saw it, it must have been forgettable.
I must get away from all this nostalgic wallowing and rejoin the real world. But I still like the Barbour's world better. California, here I come.