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Mrs. A's cold remedy

Broadcast Date: Sept. 27, 1948

Montreal streetcars have been miserable these days. Everyone's sneezing and snuffling, explains Kate Aitken in 1948 on her CBC Radio program. She recommends taking Aspirin with half a glass of water and half a teaspoon of baking soda. Add some lemon juice for fun and you have "a wonderful combination," says Mrs. A. But she has another remedy — this one's her grandmother's — which involves briskly rubbing your hands together.

No matter how silly it seems, she swears it actually works.

Aitken, who also worked for the Montreal Standard, wasn't your average homemaker. Aside from presenting cold remedies or how-tos on casseroles, she was also well-known for reporting abroad and believed women could have both a career and home life.

Mrs. A's cold remedy

• Kate Aitken started a series of homemaking programs on the CBC in 1948.
• The Kate Aitken show, sponsored by Ogilvie Flour Mills, was broadcast Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 10:30 a.m. (EDT) across Canada.
• The program's mandate was to report on: women's fashions, stretching household dollars, current events and the arts.

• This edition of the program also featured discussion on: a Toronto couple running a day care, a Canadian meal sent to a British women's group, and Aitken's trip to Berlin.
• In a show a month later, Aitken gave tips on crossing the border, selling candy, whether cheques signed in pencil are valid and what size of eggs are the best buy.
• The program was broadcast from Montreal, where Aitken also worked as the women's editor for the Montreal Standard.

• The CBC Radio guide referred to Aitken as "a Canadian housewife who isn't average." Besides maintaining a household and her newspaper and radio jobs, Aitken was also a food consultant, a lecturer and women's director of the Canadian National Exhibition.
• At the request of the British Food Ministry, Aitken travelled to England in 1945 to work on a survey about food conditions after the Second World War.

• In 1949 while commenting on her many duties, Aitken said: "The fuller my life is, the happier; and the more I do, the more I am able to do." That year she also took an around-the-world trip to report on the status of women and children abroad.
• Before her radio career, Aitken explained that looking after a house and two kids didn't keep her busy enough. So she bought a farm, planted an orchard and started a poultry and canning business employing 13 women.

• Aitken retired from radio in 1957. Two years later she was appointed to the CBC's board of directors. She died on Dec. 11, 1971 in a Mississauga, Ont., hospital where she was recovering from a broken hip suffered a year earlier.

Mrs. A's cold remedy

Medium: Radio

Program: Kate Aitken

Broadcast Date: Sept. 27, 1948

Guest(s):

Host: Kate Aitken, Mac McCurdy

Duration: 1:46

Last updated:
Dec. 3, 2007