Peggy Lou Snyder was born in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1909. Peggy Lou’s adventures in the entertainment industry began when she was just six weeks old and her parents brought her onstage in a play in which they were performing. Peggy Lou’s father, Roy Hilliard Snyder, was an actor and director at the Princess Theater in Des Moines. Her mother, Hazel, was a musical comedy actress. Roy and Hazel adopted Roy’s middle name, Hilliard, as their professional last name. At three years old, Peggy Lou got her first speaking role in a comedic play called “Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch.” When not in school, Peggy Lou was working on the stage with and, as she got older, without her parents.

In 1930, Peggy Lou and her parents moved to New York City for more acting opportunities. In August of that year, she began a brief and troubled marriage with comedian Roy Sedley. In 1931, Peggy Lou appeared in her first film entitled “Musical Justice,” in which she fittingly played the wife in a divorce hearing. It was her first of many films. In 1932, Oswald, an attorney who decided he enjoyed playing his saxophone and singing with his band more than practicing law, met Peggy Lou when she was the mistress of ceremonies at a New York night club. Soon thereafter, the band leader hired Peggy Lou to share vocal duties in his band. “It was strictly a business arrangement initially,” Peggy Lou later explained, but when her marriage ended, she married the band leader. In the following year, Peggy Lou made her radio debut.

Peggy Lou was a star of every entertainment medium of the era. She was performing on stage, on recordings, and on radio with her husband, and she was also acting in Hollywood films. Her schedule was hectic. In 1936, her schedule grew more hectic when she had her first child, a son named David. Four years later, she had a son named Eric. Peggy Lou struggled to balance her career and family. Something had to give. Between 1931 and 1944, in addition to her other performances, Peggy Lou had appeared in 19 films. Then, Peggy Lou and her husband decided that she would pause her film career, and they would focus more on their family. Before you judge her husband too harshly, it was he who came up with a plan in which the whole family could spend every day working together. Twenty years later, she said, “I’m Lucky. How many actresses get the chance to work with their family every day?” It was a whole new adventure.

You may not remember Peggy Lou for her film career which included roles in Hollywood classics such as “Follow the Fleet” with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, “Cocoanut Grove” with co-star Fred MacMurray, and “Honeymoon Lodge,” which also featured her husband. You have probably never heard the names Peggy Lou Snyder or Peggy Lou Hilliard, but for 22 years, she entertained millions of people on radio and television as America’s favorite mother. You see, Peggy Lou’s most notable adventures began when she, under her lifelong stage name, created with her husband a radio show which evolved into a television show called “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.”

Sources:

1. The Cedar Rapids Gazette, August 29, 1976, p.40.

2. The York Dispatch, October 4, 1994, p.2.

3. The Des Moines Register, December 24, 2000, p.19.

4. “Harriet Nelson,” IMDb.com, accessed September 7, 2025, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0384948/?ref_=tt_cst_t_2