|
 Vi
Scriver, ‘Mrs S’ to her loyal audience, came to CKCO
from Robin Hood Flour Mills with a background in
promotion and product demonstration. Widowed just into
her 20s – her husband was killed in an industrial
accident – as a young mother with minimal resources, Mrs
S had literally ‘picked up her frying pan and gone on
the road’.
Recruited soon after Central Ontario began broadcasting,
her daily live show, with first Tom Rafferty succeeded
by Reg Sellner as kitchen-help, in a permanent set, was
an early ratings builder for CKCO, on air until it was
cancelled in the mid-60s. With secretarial
 help,
Mrs S provided write-in viewers with copies of her
recipes, CKCO eventually publishing a ‘Mrs S’ cook-book.
Off air CKCO staffers remember Mrs S for her Christmas
Eve open house – Mrs S stayed up all night Christmas Eve
with an open invitation to her Neilson St home in
Waterloo for anyone on staff.
When her show was cancelled, her family long since
grown, Mrs S remained in the Kitchener-Waterloo area in
a variety of jobs, one of the last before retiring as
cook with the St Agatha Children’s Village.
Now deceased,
Mrs S was in her 90s at the time of her death.
Larry McIntyre |
