McMaster Alumni Association

BIDWELL, NORMA

B.A. (Associate) 1938
INDUCTED: 2000

Norma Bidwell attended McMaster in the late 1930's after marriage and a baby - one of the rare women to do so at the time. After raising four more children, Mrs. Bidwell began a career in freelance writing by selling a number of short stories to CBC Radio and various magazines.

In 1951, Norma began working for the Hamilton Spectator as a correspondent in the Burlington-Aldershot district. After a stint as a reporter-photographer in the Women's Department, Mrs. Bidwell became food editor, a position she held to her retirement from the Spectator in 1985. Her reputation as food expert began early in her role as food editor when she described cooking a pot roast on top of the car engine during a drive north to the family cottage.

Food and nutrition writing took her to the United States and Europe as well as across Canada and garnered her many awards including those from the Canadian Women's Press Club and US-Canadian Newspaper Food Editors Association.

Upon her retirement as food editor, Mrs. Bidwell began her column, "Norma's Stoveline" in which she answers reader's questions and requests mixing in valuable cooking tips. She has also written two cookbooks for the Hamilton Spectator.

Her interests include work in her church, her foster parent children for over 30 years and her cottage, which she shares with family and friends. Mrs. Bidwell is proud to say she has managed to learn the computer at the age of 80+. In the words of her friend, "Everyone in the Hamilton area knows Norma and appreciates her down-to-earth knowledge in her field of expertise, her wit, her inventiveness and her caring relationship with her loyal readers."