One Man's Family

The classic family saga serial (1932 -1959)

Radio's most popular and longest running national serial was One Man's Family, the sweeping saga of family life created by that great creator of radio drama, Carlton E. Morse. Morse's work on I Love a Mystery was another facet of his genius for involved, personal plot lines that were loaded with interesting, impressive characters that thought and talked together like real people.

Perhaps it is easiest to state flatly that Carlton E. Morse was the greatest radio show creator of them all. Yet that would be unfair to all the other fine creative talents who made radio shows so varied and so entertaining that our lives were enriched and rewarded by their presence.

The plot lines are too involved to summarize, and the players would be a list of several dozen. In One Man's Family, the story of an entire family is the idea, and the family was headed by patriarch Henry Barbour, a stern white collar worker when the series began, and a loving, doting grandfather when it finally ended. "The show's success was due in no small part to the magnificent 27-year run as Henry Barbour by J. Anthony Smythe," says John Dunning, who gives a detailed account of the show in his "On the Air, The Encyclopedia of Old Time Radio,". One Man's Family was blessed with fine actors as major cast players, all under the direction of Morse, and most remained with the show through the years, even as the Barbours developed and deepened as a family through the changes that American life and their own actions brought their way.

It debuted from the NBC radio studios at 111 Sutter Street in San Francisco on Friday, April 29, 1932, and ran until its demise on May 8, 1959, One Man's Family broadcast 3256 episodes, making it the longest-running serial drama in American radio.

Members of the original 1932 San Franciso cast:
J. Anthony Smythe was Henry Barbour, the father, from the first broadcast to the end, in 1959.
Minetta Ellen was Fanny Barbour.
Michael Raffetto played eldest son, Paul.
Kathleen Wilson was daughter Claudia Barbour.
Barton Yarborough was Clifford Barbour.
Page Gilman was Jack Barbour. Gilman later worked for the Register-Pajaronian newspaper in Watsonville, California. He was the son of NBC vice-president Don Gilman.
Paul Carson, the organist, played the theme 'Destiny Waltz'

The broadcast, at first, went only to NBC Network affiliates in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Seattle, but was picked up by the full Red Network beginning May 17, 1933. It was the first network radio serial to originate from San Francisco.

One Man's Family was normally heard Sunday evenings on NBC until June 4, 1950. It then switched to a five-day, fifteen-minute format until its demise in 1959.

One Man's Family is a masterpiece of radio serial family drama. No one who heard the show during its vast sweep of broadcast history would deny that.