Adelaide Hawley Cumming

Adelaide Hawley Cumming was an American broadcaster whose career spanned three decades. Born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, she was educated in New York, where she studied music at the University of Rochester, intending to work in opera. She became a music teacher instead, teaching in Alabama, and later a singer on the vaudeville circuit. In 1935, she began her long career in radio and later television, becoming widely known for shows like "The Woman Reporter", "Woman's Page of the Air", and "News of the Day" on NBC and CBS. From 1950 to 1964, she appeared in her final role as "Betty Crocker" for General Mills, making her one of the most recognizable women in America at the time. After her career in broadcasting and entertainment, she went back to school and earned her PhD in speech education in 1967 at 62 years old, teaching English as a second language until her death at the age of 93.