Dear Hope: Following the appearance of the letter by "Iowa Rose," in which she asked when the first Household column was printed, one of the staff members in the Chicago office, C. J. Weyker, dug into the dusty files to find the answer. He did not learn the date of the first Household column because in the earlier days these publications were not united under one corporate ownership and therefore there was considerable variance in the women's column. But he did set down some dates which I believe will interest many readers.
The files reveal that Faith Felgar became editor of this column (which was then called Hearth and Home) on October 11, 1901. Her predecessor was Dorothy Dee in the Chicago paper, but other women edited the women's columns in our other papers. The column appeared only one day each week in 1901.
Faith Felgar died July 17, 1925, from heart failure. She had gone into a hospital in Burlington, Iowa, for a few days' rest on the advice of her physician. Her real name was Mrs. George H. Kepper. She was the wife of a successful and extensive livestock farmer near Winfield, in Louisa county, southeast Iowa, the community which had been her home from childhood on. She edited the column for 24 years and the numbered installments which appeared under her name totaled nearly 5,500.
The first installment of Household under the present editor, Hope Needham, appeared August 18, 1925. Today's installment is the 11,237th which Hope has edited since that day. Quite a record! -- Allan W. McGhee, editorial director, The Corn Belt Farm Dailies.