THE JOY FAMILY
Irma Starkloff Rombauer
1877 - 19621931-1951 editions
author
A St. Louis native with deep European roots, Irma was active in civic clubs and cultural organizations. When she was widowed in the late twenties, she took half of the money she was left and published 3000 copies of The Joy of Cooking. In 1936, her first edition produced with Bobbs Merrill publishers was introduced nationwide...and the rest is culinary history. In 1939, Irma wrote Streamlined Cooking for busy, modern women, and in 1946 she penned A Cookbook for Girls and Boys. When she died in October, 1962, the Washington Post said in their editorial about her, “Few women have contributed more to the joy of life–more accurately, perhaps, to the joy of living–than Irma A. Rombauer, who died on Tuesday at the age of 86 at her home in St. Louis. There is hardly a bride in America–or a groom either, for that matter–who has not been the beneficiary of her witty, warm wonderful cookbook, the Joy of Cooking.” To this family, she was a source of wit, affection, inspiration, and warm cookies at Christmas.