[7] The family opposed the match, however, and in 1899 Irma married Edgar Rombauer, a lawyer whose father was a St. Louis judge who had clerked for Supreme Court Justice John Harlan.
Her biographer wrote, "No one could be long in her diminutive presence without sensing an air of concentrated intelligence, strength, self-possession, charm, and dignity that seemed to sweep all before it—except that she knew how to soften it with disarming feminine self-deprecation and sheer fun.
[3]: 38 He experienced one of these attacks in the winter of 1929-30 and had seemed to be recovering, but on February 3, 1930, he committed suicide, leaving his wife emotionally shattered and in dire financial straits.
The Great Depression had been triggered by the stock market crash just three months earlier, Irma was 52 years old, had no job, and had savings amounting only to $6,000, equivalent to $109,434 in 2023.
Rombauer added to the basic recipes bits of humor, friendly advice and homely anecdotes, projecting into the pages the same effervescent personality that had made her so successful as a hostess.
She engages in a constant dialogue with her readers, telling stories about herself and her family, sprinkling the text with genuine witticisms and excruciatingly corny puns, and making sure everybody knows that cooking is not an occult science or esoteric art, but part of the everyday work of the vast majority of women (and a few men) that can be turned into fun with her help.
For several years her inquiries brought only rejection letters; but in 1935 her manuscript was accepted (on the third submission) by the Bobbs-Merrill Company, an Indianapolis-based firm specializing in legal publications, children's literature, and trade books.
She represented herself in the negotiations, without help from an agent or a lawyer, and the resulting contract was highly prejudicial to her interests, planting the seeds for an author-publisher relationship that brought misery and rage to both sides, up to and beyond the end of Rombauer's life.
[1] The 1936 edition retained the author's anecdotes and witty comments (at Rombauer's insistence, despite Bobbs-Merrill's desire to cut them), and it added a new selling point in the format of its recipes.
The target audience included working women, students, vacationers, and campers, and, indeed, men pressed into a domestic version of KP duty.
Also, the book's friendly, reassuring tone provided a form of relief to readers buffeted by "the hot and cold conflicts which raged outside its cozy covers...especially the 'War Bride'".
[6] She also had more than enough income, and was able to provide some financial assistance to her children, and to pay more generously Mazie Whyte Hartrich, the secretary who had faithfully typed all of her manuscripts.
A series of family crises and tragedies compounded the perpetual warfare with Bobbs-Merrill to leave Rombauer feeling weakened and concerned about the future of Joy.
[3]: 201 Rombauer's daughter Marion initially worked primarily on the artistic design of the upcoming revision, but by 1949 she had become deeply involved in the negotiations with Bobbs-Merrill.
She had no better luck dealing with the publisher than had her mother, and as author-publisher relations sank to a new low (involving legal threats), Marion assumed responsibility as co-author.
[3]: 285 She and her daughter made frequent trips to New York where they were welcomed by a circle which included food writers Cecily Brownstone and Jane Nickerson, and chefs James Beard, Marian Tracy, and Helmut Rippenger.