food editors, food journalism, food section, Maude Coons, women's history month, women's page history
Women’s History Month: Maude Coons
Day 15 of Women’s History Month features Maude Coons.
Maude Charron Coons was the longtime food editor at the Omaha World-Herald. She graduated from the home economics program at Iowa State University after overcoming paralysis caused by polio, as noting in the story above.
She started at the Omaha World-Herald as the household editor in 1936. She and her husband had relocated to Omaha in the hopes that either of them could find a job during a trying economic time. They were thrilled when they both found jobs.
Initially, she wrote under the byline of “Mary Cooks.” By the 1940’s, she wrote under her own name. She wrote several food pamphlets and one cookbook.
She was attending the annual food editors meeting when she learned that she had become a grandmother. She regularly covered the annual week-long events and at times sent back more than a story a day in the 1950’s. In one story, she outlined the new products introduced by the Omaha-based company Swanson & Son: boneless chicken fricassee, pure chicken broth, and fricassee of chicken wings. She noted that the broth could add flavor and color to gelatin molds. In another story from that same day, she reported that the head of the grocery store trade group opposed price controls for food. She also wrote about a presentation from Frigidaire. She estimated that by 1957, 18 percent of American homes would have freezers. In a story a few days later. Later, Coons wrote about a speech from a doctor from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who said that the biggest nutrition problem in the country was “weight control.” He went on to declare the current diets in the news as “dangerous, faddish, and silly.” In other presentations, the editors learned that 75 percent of packaged ice cream was sold in grocery stores and that the home consumption of frozen orange juice had increased 400 percent in the past four years.
Coons answered between 60-75 questions each day, she estimated. Some were about fashion and etiquette but most were about food. With her home economics background, she could answer most questions on her own. Yet, he was stumped by how to cook some foods – such as inquiries about grilling rattlesnake, turtle and blackbirds. Sometimes the questions veered into other areas as some callers “really were just lonely and wanted to talk.”
She retired from the newspaper in 1973.
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