A public radio icon, Susan Stamberg, died last week at the age of 87. She had a long and storied career, and WYSO’s Neenah Ellis was herself a part of that career.
Ellis and her husband Noah Adams, Stamberg's former co-host on All Things Considered, penned this tribute to their long-time friend and colleague:
Neenah Ellis: Radio is the broadcast medium that's all about the power of sound, the emotion in a human voice, and music, too. If you were lucky enough to grow up listening to the radio, you know what I'm talking about. In the first half of the 20th century, it was the dominant broadcast medium around the world. It had music, comedy, news, drama, commentaries and preachers. Live broadcasts were common. Someone talking to you in real time, that's what 'live' means.
From the radio people learned to speak English, learned about triumph and tragedy in everyday life. On the radio, you can hear people breathe, and in the silence, you can hear them think. It's got more nuance than print, and unlike television, you're not as prone to judge by appearances.
This week we lost a radio genius. Susan Stamberg died at 87, just about a month after she retired from a 54-year career at National Public Radio. She grew up when radio was all there was, and she brought that power back to radio, to NPR when it was new in the early '70s. She was the first woman to host a network news broadcast in this country. It was called All Things Considered. It's been heard here on WYSO almost since it started.
I was in college in Iowa wanting to be a broadcast journalist when I first heard her on All Things Considered, and I stood shocked and staring at the radio in my tiny apartment kitchen. 'Who is this?' I thought. 'What's going on here?' There were very few women on the radio back then, and they weren't like this, laughing and funny, smart and challenging, sassy when she needed to be, tender when the moment called for it.
I went to All Things Considered at NPR in my early 20s and worked as a writer and a tape editor, one of scores of people Susan taught how to make radio. You may recall that she hosted that program with Noah Adams in the 1980s, who I married — a marriage made in radio. They were both unlikely hosts, she a woman, a very lively New Yorker, he a shy guy from Kentucky. To many of us, Susan was a hero because she was a woman, but Noah always said he appreciated her because she was tougher than any of the men. You can hear hours and hours of Susan's stories at NPR.org, and I hope you will. But indulge me, please, as I play a very short radio story, an interview Susan did in 1986. Unbeknownst to listeners and most of us at NPR, Susan had been diagnosed with breast cancer, but she never mentions it.
Susan Stamberg: А beloved All Things Considered commentator Kim Williams of Missoula, Montana. Although she said it much better.
Kim Williams: This is Kim Williams in Missoula, Montana.
Stamberg: She was a naturalist. She gave recipes for dandelion wine. She gave advice on when you ought to get married, what you ought to wear. Audiences adored everything she said. And at the age of 62, she called to tell us she had terminal ovarian cancer, that her days were
Stamberg: 'Kim, you... Something you wrote about a friend who was dying and this very strong sense you have that death is merely a change and that at some point you say hello to a whole lot of people who've who you've lost in this life.'
Williams: Yes, and it is amazing how many letters I've already had before I put out that call, no more letters. How many I have received from people who say they are going to climb a mountain or walk along a river or on a city street and they will send their thoughts and energies, and they think that they will meet mine.
Stamberg: I believe that.
Williams: I do, too.
Stamberg: Kim, thank you very much.
Williams: Thank you, Susan.
Stamberg: Producer Neenah Ellis, who edited that tape, left in the sound of the phone hanging up. I had to close the program and read the closing credits. I began, but the sound of that click got to me. It was so final. So for the first time and maybe the only time in my radio life, I began crying on the air. But I kept on reading because I had to, we had to get off. When the program was rebroadcast for the Midwest and then the West, we rolled over the country, the click and the credits were cut out. But I hear them still. Every time I think about Kim's life and her much-too-early death.
Neenah Ellis: It's so like Susan to give away credit. It was only working with her that made me understand that everyone could relate to that click. Susan came to WYSO in 2012. She did a fundraiser for us at the Dayton Art Institute and came to the station, too, to meet with our Community Voices class. A few years ago she did a Zoom event for us. Susan used her national exposure to bring people together by finding the humanity, the creativity, the commonality in people. She used her empathy to bring our nation together. She wanted people and small public radio stations like ours to thrive. Thank you, Susan Stamberg. I hope we will meet again.
