Daphne Alloway McVicker (March 14, 1895 – May 24, 1979) was an American writer, mainly of short stories, and a comic memoir, ''The Queen Was in the Kitchen'' (1944).
Early life and education
Daphne Ninnette Alloway was born in
Cambridge, Ohio
Cambridge is a city in and the county seat of Guernsey County, Ohio, United States. It lies in southeastern Ohio, in the Appalachian Plateau of the Appalachian Mountains 74 miles east of Columbus. The population was 10,635 at the 2010 census. I ...
, the daughter of James William Alloway and Ninnette McKinley Alloway. Her father was a grocer. She graduated from
Ohio State University
The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...
in 1916.
Career
McVicker published hundreds of poems and short stories in magazines and newspapers. She was especially successful in
romance magazines, "both confessions and slicks", with titles including ''Romantic Love Secrets'', ''Sweetheart Stories'', ''Ainslee's Smart Love Stories''. She also had stories published in more mainstream women's magazines, such as ''
Cosmopolitan
Cosmopolitan may refer to:
Food and drink
* Cosmopolitan (cocktail), also known as a "Cosmo"
History
* Rootless cosmopolitan, a Soviet derogatory epithet during Joseph Stalin's anti-Semitic campaign of 1949–1953
Hotels and resorts
* Cosmopoli ...
'' and ''
McCall's
''McCall's'' was a monthly American women's magazine, published by the McCall Corporation, that enjoyed great popularity through much of the 20th century, peaking at a readership of 8.4 million in the early 1960s. It was established as a small-f ...
''.
Some of her stories were anthologized in story collections and school readers.
McVicker was a member of
Theta Sigma Phi
The Association for Women in Communications (AWC) is an American professional organization for women in the communications industry.
History
Theta Sigma Phi
The Association for Women in Communications began in 1909 as Theta Sigma Phi (), an ho ...
, and spoke at their annual banquet in 1930. In 1940 she won the Headliner Award from Theta Sigma Phi's successor organization, the Association for Women in Communications.
''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' praised McVicker's 1944 comic memoir, ''The Queen Was in the Kitchen'', with the reviewer saying "Domestic harassments are among the most unbecoming of woes, but on Mrs. McVicker they wear well." Her story "I Weep for You" (''Cosmopolitan'', June 1945) is a campus romance involving a disabled veteran of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
.
Publications
* "The Giving Half of the Word" (1922)
* "The Princess with the Tired Shadow" (1927)
* "The Search for a Charm" (1927)
* "According to the Canary" (1935)
* "Monthly Bill" (1935)
* "Baked in a Pie" (1935)
* "Tourists Accommodated" (1936)
* "Billy Calf Runs Away" (1940)
* ''The Queen Was in the Kitchen'' (1944)
* "Little Cocktail" (1944)
* "High Heels" (1945)
* "I Weep for You" (1945)
* "Love Is Gorgeous, I Guess" (1946)
* "Don't Rush Me Baby" (1947)
Personal life
Alloway married journalist Vinton E. McVicker in 1916. They had three children, Laurel, James, and Blythe. Her son died in 1970, and she died in 1979, at the age of 84, in New York City.
Blythe McVicker Clinchy became a psychology researcher and chair of the psychology department at Wellesley College.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:McVicker, Daphne Alloway
1895 births
1979 deaths
American women writers
Ohio State University alumni
People from Cambridge, Ohio