The March program meeting for the Bridgeville Area Historical Society featured author/raconteur Chris Rodell discussing his book The REAL Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood: Life Lessons from the Heart of Latrobe, Pennsylvania. A fellow resident of Rogers’ home town, in the book he explains “how Latrobe influenced a young Fred Rogers, how the adult Fred Rogers influenced Latrobe, and how both combined to influence him and the world”.
Rogers was born in Latrobe on March 20, 1928. His father was the owner of several successful businesses and a pillar of the community. As a boy Fred was shy, introverted, and suffered from asthma. Somewhat overweight, he was subjected to severe bullying. According to the speaker, he overcame this by “turning the other cheek” and eventually befriending the biggest bully.
After graduating from Latrobe High School in 1947, he enrolled at Dartmouth, staying there one year before transferring to Rollins College in Winter Haven, Florida, where he earned a BA in Music. While there he met Sara Joanne Byrd, a concert pianist, whom he married in 1952. Impressed by the potential of television, he took a job in New York with NBC, working on Your Hit Parade and the Kate Smith Hour, among others.
In 1953 he came to Pittsburgh to work for WQED, where he and Josie Carey produced a popular children’s show, “The Children’s Corner”. While working on the show, Rogers attended Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and was ordained as a Presbyterian minister in 1963. He also worked with child psychologist Margaret McFarland at the University of Pittsburgh‘s Graduate School of Child Development, where together they developed the philosophy based on meeting young children’s social and emotional needs that dominated the rest of his career.
In 1963 Rogers was recruited by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to host a fifteen minutes long black-and-white children’s program named Misterogers, which served as a prototype for the series that was to come. Many of the sets and props in Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood — the trolley, the sneakers, and the castle — were created for Rogers’s show in Toronto by CBC designers and producers.
In 1968 he returned to WQED, and Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood was launched. In its first season, 180 black-and-white episodes were presented; in subsequent years 65 episodes were filmed in color. Between 1975 and 1979 Rogers left the program to focus on adult programming; reruns filled the void until he returned to live production, which continued until 2001. A total of 895 episodes were produced; many of them are still being shown as reruns.
Fred Rogers died of stomach cancer on February 27, 2003, a few weeks shy of his seventy-fifth birthday. I was surprised to learn that he received the last rites of the Catholic Church from Archabbot Nowicki. Not surprising was the fact that his funeral service was a proper Presbyterian one, in Latrobe, limited to family and close friends. Rev. Bill Barker read Rogers’ favorite Bible verses during the service – I wish I knew what they were. Barker was pastor at Bower Hill Church when we moved to Mt. Lebanon and had participated in Rogers’ ordination at the Seminary.
The speaker discussed the remarkable coincidence of small (10,600 inhabitants) town Latrobe producing two world famous celebrities – Rogers and Arnold Palmer – born eighteen months apart. He wondered why Palmer had never appeared on Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. Apparently, though the two families were on different ends of the economic/social scale, they were well acquainted. Arnie’s father, Deacon Palmer, gave Rogers golf lessons when they were teenagers. According to Palmer’s daughter, Amy Palmer Saunders, “they had a mutual respect and were family friends. When I was young, our families had gatherings at Christmas time.”
An interesting statistic is the net worth of the two celebrities when they died. Rogers’ estate amounted to about five million dollars; Palmer’s, well over five hundred million dollars. I suspect Rogers considered his net worth as a kind human being much more important than material wealth.
It is interesting that an ordained minister should have such a powerful influence on the way we think about moral and social issues, without resorting to argumentative sermons. Fred Rogers believed that providing simple examples was the most effective way to get an idea across. It is reported that he never used the word “God” in any of his 895 programs.
In 1996 Rogers made his only television appearance as an actor when he portrayed Reverend Thomas on “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman”. He was not nominated for an Emmy for this performance. He did win four Emmys playing himself on Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.
The speaker touched briefly on the relationship between the elder Rogers parents and their two sons. It is well known that it did not match that of the ideal television family shows – Father Knows Best, for example. Mr. Rodell reported his lack of success trying to interview Rogers regarding this subject. The fact that his work was published regularly in The National Enquirer might have influenced Mr. Rogers’ reticence.
The speaker also described Rogers as being “one-dimensional”, entirely focused on being kind. It appears to me that there are many dimensions to this focus – intuition, sensitivity, thoughtfulness, sincerity – and that, if focusing on a single concept is boring, I’d prefer to be bored by kindness.
Fred Rogers’ legacy is the two generations of young people who grew up knowing he wanted each of them to be his neighbor. I’m sure that was his objective.
The Society program for April will feature Glenn Flickinger discussing “Theodore Roosevelt: How He Changed America”. Scheduled for 7:30 pm, April 26, 2022, it will be presented in the Chartiers Room of the Bridgeville Volunteer Fire Department.