Nettie Williams McBirney (November 24, 1887 – December 16, 1982) was a Tulsa inventor, writer and entrepreneur, who wrote a cooking column under the pseudonym Aunt Chick for the ''

Tulsa Daily World The ''Tulsa World'' is the daily newspaper for the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and primary newspaper for the northeastern and eastern portions of Oklahoma. Tulsa World Media Company is part of Lee Enterprises. The new owners announced in January ...

'' from 1935 to 1955.

Biography

Born November 24, 1887, Nettie McBirney earned a home economics degree from the

Stout Institute Stout is a dark, top-fermented beer with a number of variations, including dry stout, oatmeal stout, milk stout, and imperial stout. The first known use of the word ''stout'' for beer, in a document dated 1677 found in the Egerton Manuscr ...

in Menomonie, Wisconsin. She moved to Claremore, Oklahoma in 1909 to teach home economics. Two years later, she became supervisor of home economics at Muskogee schools. After marrying

Sam P. McBirney Sam Pendleton McBirney (August 8, 1877 – January 20, 1936) was an American football coach and banker. He was the head football coach for the Tulsa Golden Hurricane football team in 1908 and from 1914 to 1916. His undefeated 1916 team outscored ...

, coach of the

University of Tulsa The University of Tulsa (TU) is a private research university in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It has a historic affiliation with the Presbyterian Church and the campus architectural style is predominantly Collegiate Gothic. The school traces its origin to ...

football team and vice president of the National Bank of Commerce, she settled in Tulsa in 1916. In 1935, she approached ''Tulsa World'' editor N.G. Henthorne about writing a cooking column that contained simple advice and taught

cooking Cooking, cookery, or culinary arts is the art, science and craft of using heat to Outline of food preparation, prepare food for consumption. Cooking techniques and ingredients vary widely, from grilling food over an open fire to using electric ...

techniques. "Kitchen Log" ran five times a week in the ''World'' through 1955. She also became a demonstration chef, first at Vandever's Department Store and other stores in Tulsa, and later in many other parts of the country. McBirney began inventing kitchen aids during the Depression, such as a non-stick pastry canvas and rolling pin cover and a pie pan that promised perfect bottom crusts on

pie A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients. Sweet pies may be filled with fruit (as in an apple pie), nuts ( pecan pie), brown sugar ( sugar pie), swe ...

s. The invention she became best known for was her Cooky Molding Cutter, now known as Gramma's Cutter, a cookie cutter designed to easily release the molded cookie dough and maintain a 3-D appearance. She began selling them in 1948 and they quickly caught on;

Princess Margaret Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon, (Margaret Rose; 21 August 1930 – 9 February 2002) was the younger daughter of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, and the younger sister and only sibling of Queen Elizabeth ...

purchased a set of the cookie cutters for

Prince Charles Charles III (Charles Philip Arthur George; born 14 November 1948) is King of the United Kingdom and the 14 other Commonwealth realms. He was the longest-serving heir apparent and Prince of Wales and, at age 73, became the oldest person to ...

in 1952, and

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purchased, then sold 70,000 sets as a special promotion the same year.

Marriage and children

She married banker

in 1913. The couple had four children: Susan Bush, Williams, Samuel, and Mary Megan Bryan.

Death and afterward

McBirney died on December 16, 1982. Her collection of about 1,000

cookbook A cookbook or cookery book is a kitchen reference containing recipes. Cookbooks may be general, or may specialize in a particular cuisine or category of food. Recipes in cookbooks are organized in various ways: by course (appetizer, first cour ...

s was donated to the Tulsa City-County Library in 1973.

Published works

While writing her Kitchen Log column, Aunt Chick also found time to write several cookbooks, most of which dealt with pies and other

dessert Dessert is a course (food), course that concludes a meal. The course consists of sweet foods, such as confections, and possibly a beverage such as dessert wine and liqueur. In some parts of the world, such as much of Greece and West Africa, and ...

s. Most notable is ''Aunt Chick’s Pies'', which sold over 650,000 copies.

Patents

*Piepan (US Pat. 2135782, filed Oct 10, 1936) *Piepan (US Pat. 2179512, filed Oct 10, 1936) *Cooky Molding Cutter (US Pat. 2596159, filed Aug 25, 1948) *McBirney Cooky Molding Cutter (US Pat. D156549, filed Aug 25, 1948)

References

External links

Gramma's Cutters

AUNT CHICK (MCBIRNEY, NETTIE CAROLINE WILLIAMS) (1887–1982)
in the Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture {{DEFAULTSORT:McBirney, Nettie 1887 births 1982 deaths 20th-century American inventors American columnists American food writers Writers from Tulsa, Oklahoma University of Wisconsin–Stout alumni