Harriet Nelson was Supermom, 1950s style.
From 1952 to 1966, she doled out good advice and good cooking to her real-life husband and sons, Ozzie, David and little Ricky, on "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet." Warm and unflappable, the impeccably dressed Mrs. Nelson set the standard for TV mothers and helped create TV's image of the prosperous postwar family.Up to 20 million viewers a week stepped into the Nelson household - a set based on their real home in Hollywood - to watch the growing pains of a resolutely sweet and untainted middle-class clan.
Mrs. Nelson was 85 when she died at her home Sunday afternoon of congestive heart failure. Her son, David, and his wife were at her bedside.
"David was holding her hand," said her daughter-in-law, Yvonne. "She fell asleep and passed away peacefully."
Ozzie Nelson died of cancer in 1975 and Ricky Nelson died a decade later in a plane crash.
Harriet Nelson, a longtime smoker, suffered from emphysema for years before developing heart trouble. She had been hospitalized for several weeks but was released Friday at her own request, family friend Joe Sutton said.
Although many reference books have listed her age as five years younger, Harriet Nelson was born Peggy Lou Snyder on July 18, 1909, in Des Moines, Iowa, David Nelson said.
Her parents were in show business and she began performing at a young age. She was a vocalist with Ozzie Nelson's band when they married in 1935.
But with the birth of David in 1936 and Eric (Ricky) in 1940, family life began to make demands. The solution came in 1944 when "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet" debuted on radio.