Goodnight, "Dave's Mom"

A late night talk show seems an unlikely place for homespun Indiana humor, yet it was the place where the most famous of late night show moms, Dorothy Mengering, became an unwitting star. Dorothy Mengering was better known as David Letterman's mom, not mother. Mengering passed away April 11, just one day before her son's 70th birthday, at 95.

Mom seems to best fit the description of the tiny woman who would bake pies, via satellite, on her son's show, where he and the rest of the audience would guess what sorts of pies she was making or, at one point, hanging out of a New York office window and saying into a bullhorn that she was Jane Pauley and that Willard Scott was holding her hostage, and that he wasn't wearing any pants. Such jokes were typical of Letterman, and most mothers wouldn't necessarily want to pull off the antics that their sons did. Most mothers, though, weren't Dave's mom.

There was no real reason for David Letterman to bring his mother into the late night fold, but the idea occurred to him to do so, and once it happened, it was clear that Letterman had magic on his hands. Dave's mom became everyone's mom, and whether it was with her jovial "Hi, David," or her complete cool while her son was becoming increasingly exasperated, she had found a home in late night.

In fact, she'd even written a cookbook that featured such Letterman favorites as fried baloney sandwiches. But it was her ultimate poise and her unfailing charm that won her fans.

This was, after all, a woman who put on a yellow jumpsuit and soared around a luge track. Who interviewed Hillary Clinton. Who pretty much would find herself in whatever situation that producers of Letterman's shows wanted to put her in.

Through it all, she was always Dave's mom. She didn't seek stardom and seemed the opposite of her son in many respects. Where Letterman would openly mock show business, which certainly has been a running theme of talk show hosts over the years, Dorothy Mengering was always respectful and unfailingly polite.

In spite of the satirical and sometimes acerbic nature of his show, Letterman always ensured that his mother was never embarrassed during her appearances. During her first appearance, where she said into a bullhorn that she was a captive Jane Pauley, Letterman spoke with her after.

“Did that just embarrass you to tears?” he asked his mom.

She flashed a toothy smile, looked down and said, “No, David.”

He chuckled, and sounding relieved, said, “O.K., good.”

What was always present in their too-brief interactions was the love of a mother for her son, and that of a son for his mother. The two couldn't have seemed more opposite; Dorothy Mengering was reserved while her son loved to poke fun. Regardless, Dave's mom was always there for him.

David Letterman also had fun when it came time to calling his mom on air. "Paul, a little dialling music," he would say, and within moments, his mom's cheery voice would come on the line, and the two would have what appeared to be a fairly common conversation between mother and son - if that son had millions of fans and his mother didn't mind turning up on his show.

She was often teased for her role as a florist's wife; her first husband and Letterman's dad Harry Joseph Letterman (for whom Letterman's son is named) had often employed his wife as an assistant in his floral shop and David Letterman often teased that if he were to call his mother, she'd make a comment about the crocuses being up.

No information about services for Mengering have been released.