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Timeline – 2012 Part 2

By Brian Walker

The Sunday page above shows Lois doing her many household chores and contemplating her future as an “empty nester.”

For almost three decades, Hi was the sole breadwinner in the Flagston family. 

As more women entered the labor force, Mort Walker decided the strip needed to catch up with the times.  In 1980, Lois got a job as a real estate agent.  Since then, she has struggled to keep up with her child-rearing and homemaking responsibilities and the demands of her career.

A woman once wrote to Mort about an episode of Hi and Lois she had seen in the newspaper. “You must have been looking through my window,” she exclaimed, “because the same thing happened to me.”  This remark has been repeated in numerous fan letters over the years. 

In the early 1960s, Mort was inspired to write a series of Hi and Lois Sunday pages that asked the question “Did you…?” and ended with the phrase, “Welcome to the Human Race.” These provided an amusing chronicle of how, in typical families, good intentions can often have unintended consequences.

Hi and Lois has maintained its universal appeal by reflecting the daily experiences of family life that millions of readers share.

– Brian Walker