Ruth Prins, Wunda Wunda, Played Out Her Life in Many Acts
by Sherrie Quinton
In the Magnolia of the 1950s and 60s, it was an occasional experience to glimpse a petite woman dressed in a colorful harlequin-style outfit, a dab of red on her nose, behind the wheel of her car driving somewhere. An unusual experience surely, and somewhat disturbing if you knew this was the magical Wunda Wunda of children’s television fame. First, she was dazzling in living color! Secondly, the very thought that Wunda Wunda had to drive and live in an ordinary house on Magnolia was unthinkable. Surely she should be riding a magic carpet and living in an enchanted castle made of bubbles. But no. She was driving off to work toward the KING broadcasting studios to host a television show for preschoolers, as she did for twenty years. A show of stories, puppets, word games, songs, and gentle manners.
Her real name was Ruth Balkema Prins. She had a long and interesting career in theatre, radio, television, and education, primarily concerned with entertaining and teaching small children. Just as interesting was the confluence of others whose efforts, concern for, and interest in quality entertainment for children converged to open a path for this talented woman to touch thousands of viewers. How all these people came together around this woman is a bit of a show itself, and a good one.
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Places… Everybody break a leg!
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Ruth Prins as Wunda Wunda at the grand opening of The Toy Shop as Seventh and Pike, June 5, 1954. Forde Photographers, courtesy Debra Prins.
Act 1
Scene 1
New York City, 1901
(House lights dim and the curtain rises. Mary Harriman Rumsey disengages from a group of young women talking in the stage right wing. She enters stage right, sharply dressed, holding beautiful flowers and college textbooks; there is the hum of women talking in the background on immigration, industrialization, and women’s rights.)
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NARRATOR (speaks over the women’s voices fading away):
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Mary Harriman Rumsey was a college graduate in the year 1901 with a notion to do more than marry well and participate in the New York debutante scene. The daughter of railroad financier E. H. Harriman, Mary used her social clout to organize a group of like-minded friends to volunteer in the community to improve social conditions. They named their organization the Junior League for the Promotion of Settlement Movements(1). While their first efforts now seem sweetly naïve, such as producing an annual “entertainment” to raise funds and distributing flowers, they gradually became more focused and efficient, directing their efforts toward education and health. Similar groups in other cities sprang up using the same name. Eventually, a nationwide official organization solidified under the name the Junior League. Quality children’s education and entertainment eventually became a focus of the league (2).
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The Seattle Junior League was formed in 1923 (3). Although the Federal Works Progress Administration sponsored the first children’s theatre programs in Seattle, the effort was canceled in 1939 due to suspected communist influence. Seattle Junior League stepped into the breach. Led by Ruth Meisecrest and Ruth Newland, the Junior League began to sponsor opera, ballet, drama, musical concerts, and other entertainment specifically designed for young audiences. Their collaboration with the public schools and other civic organizations such as the Girl Scouts and Jewish Women’s League ensured its success. With regular shows at the Moore, the Music Box, the Repertory Playhouse, and the Showboat, children’s theater thrived in Seattle under the name Seattle Junior Theatre (also known as Seattle Junior Programs) (4,5).
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Scene 2
Chicago, 1920
(Enter stage left: Gloria Chandler, matronly and practically dressed except for a hat with floral decoration, energetically, confidently, steps onto the stage, looks for her mark, and stands there posed and ready with an armful of children’s books and scripts.)
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NARRATOR:
Gloria Chandler graduated in 1920 from Smith College, where she had pursued her interest in drama by both directing and acting in a group called the College Club Players. She joined the Junior League in Evanston, Illinois, where she became the radio chairman of the organization. In 1947, the Evanston Junior League received a Peabody Award for the "Books Bring Adventure" radio program. Gloria continued to direct amateur theatre, perform on the radio, and eventually acquired the title of field worker of the Children’s Theatre Department of the Association of Junior Leagues. Throughout the 1930s Gloria traveled extensively across the United States, including to Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Virginia, Washington, and California, lecturing for the Junior League on the value and quality of children’s entertainment. Dorothy Bullitt brought Gloria Chandler to Seattle to talk with the staff of KING broadcasting concerning public service programming and her experience in forming community radio councils. She also started a record label, dramatizing stories for the American family (6).
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Scene 3
Seattle, 1930
(Enter from upstage: Glenn Arthur Hughes, a professorial look about him, in slacks and tasteful plaid jacket with matching vest and tie. He stops, looks around, boldly sizing up the stage, the scene, and then the audience—gesturing with intention while smoking a cigarette until he settles in, now thoughtfully poised for the action to come).
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NARRATOR:
While Glenn Hughes had been employed at the University of Washington as a teaching fellow in the English Department as of 1919, it was not until many years later, in 1930, that the drama division he envisioned was created. Driven by Hughes, the University became a significant contributor to the cultural life of Seattle, with three theatres eventually under his direction: the Showboat, Penthouse, and Playhouse. These theatres provided experience for his drama students, and prominent artists were sometimes engaged. His drama program became one of the best known in the nation, going above and beyond to offer the first theatre-in-the-round set design as well as training in construction, costume, lighting, and puppetry. He kept his theatres running six nights a week to offer his students extensive theater experiences (7).
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In 1944, Seattle Junior Programs, under the sponsorship of the Seattle Junior League, encouraged Hughes to start a children’s program. He initially agreed to tour the French comedy Pierre Parelin to eight elementary schools. By 1946, the newly created UW Children’s Theatre Department offered a trial production at the Showboat of Rip Van Winkle. Many more programs sponsored by Junior Theatre followed. The UW Department would eventually include a city-wide theatre training program for children and stage many productions for Junior Theatre (8).
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Scene 4
Seattle, 1932
(Enter through set door at back of the stage center, Dorothy Stimson Bullitt. She is fashionably dressed and takes her place without a fuss, quietly and thoughtfully sitting at a desk that is lit from above, carefully observing the cast.)
NARRATOR:
Dorothy Stimson (Bullitt) was born in Seattle to a wealthy family of lumber and real estate fame. Prepared for a life rather typical for most women of that era, fate delivered a different option. Dorothy’s father died in 1929, followed by her brother Thomas’s death in 1931. Her husband Scott Bullitt took over the family business, but he, too, died in 1932. Saddled with the family enterprise, Dorothy began the process of restoring the real estate business, and in 1946 she purchased an FM radio station that aired classical music. With only six thousand television sets in the whole state, Dorothy also purchased a television station in 1949 and named it KING-TV, determined that her station would serve the public instead of strictly commercial interests. To advise and facilitate her intention to offer high quality children’s programming, Dorothy Bullitt invited her friend Gloria Chandler to move west and take a position with her new company (9).
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Scene 5
Seattle, 1944
(Elliott Fisher Brown sits just offstage but can be heard playing an organ and occasionally—using one hand to continue playing—puffing on a cigar, its smoke wafting through the theater.)
NARRATOR:
Elliott Fisher Brown began his musical career playing organ for silent movies. He published his hundreds of compositions under the name Elliott Fisher. Elliott worked for many years for Paramount Pictures in Hollywood, composing music and training children under contract for various roles in movies. He and his wife came to Seattle during World War II, where he was stationed at Fort Lawton as the motion picture representative for the Red Cross and the federal government, installing organs and motion picture equipment. After the war he returned to Hollywood and established his own studio, but given the difficulty of finding housing, he and his wife returned to Seattle. Here he was, through a timely phone call from the University of Washington Drama School, immediately employed as the theatre organist and composer for the children’s drama department.
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Scene 6
Seattle, 1928
(Flashback to Ruth Balkema in early life. Enter Ruth, a confident but energetic young girl, twirling across the stage, stopping to look inquiringly at the audience, then resuming her dancing, her fitted dress with a full skirt flaring out as she spins beaming with positivity and bows to the audience as she exits stage.)
NARRATOR:
Though born in Iowa, the family of Ruth Balkema moved to Seattle in 1928. She made her first known public appearance with the Arvil Avery School of the Dance at the Paramount Theatre in 1931. While attending Roosevelt High School she participated in a variety of theatrical productions and worked part-time for the Laura G. Whitmire Speech Studio (11)​.
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Ruth Prins portrait 1960s. Photograph by Dolph Zurich, courtesy of Debra Prins.
​Advancing to the University of Washington, Ruth was an active and highly popular actress in Hughes’ department. She performed at the Showboat in productions of Pygmalion, Outward Bound, Disraeli, Holiday, As You Like It, You Can’t Take It With You, and most notably, The Barretts of Wimpole Street (12). The tall and handsome Robert Prins played Robert Browning to her Elizabeth Barrett, receiving outstanding reviews from critics and audience. They married in 1942. A son Robert followed in 1943, and daughter Debra in 1950 (13).
(Flashing lights, thundering noises, and gunshots offstage: Intermission for World War II.)
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Act II
Scene 1
Seattle, mid 1940s
(The full cast assembles on stage. Ruth is a young woman now, dressed like an ingénue with great poise, conversing with the others. They all seem taken with her.)
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NARRATOR:
In 1944, Ruth was once again actively involved in directing children’s plays for the recently established Children’s Theatre Department at the University of Washington. In 1948 she directed a new children’s program on KOMO radio, “Children’s Theatre of the Air.” 1947 and 1948 brought more directing challenges as Glenn Hughes produced a junior high series sponsored by the Junior Theatre. By 1951, Dorothy Bullitt had recruited Gloria Chandler to move west and take over children’s programming for KING TV. Elliot Brown was editing and composing music for the University Children’s program. Ruth Prins asked Chandler to come and see a Junior Theatre Program, and the result was the first children’s television entertainment program in the northwest, "Televenture Tales." This program was modeled on the radio program first developed by Gloria Chandler in Chicago, "Books Bring Adventure (14)."
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A thirty-minute program broadcast on Saturday morning in cooperation with the Children’s Book Council, it featured a lively reading of a selected book to a group of attentive children. Ruth, dressed in an elegant gown and Juliet cap, performed the story, always leaving off the ending. Gloria Chandler provided the voice of Penjamin Scribble, a character on the show. Librarians reported a decided uptick in children’s requests for books read, and the program received an award from the Institute for Education by Radio and Television and a Junior League award (15).
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So effective was Ruth that despite a move to Montana for husband Bob’s work, KING had her travel back to Seattle—baby Debra in tow—to continue to film the program. Bob Prins then accepted an offer from KING as Director of Public Affairs and the whole family returned to Seattle.​
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Scene 2
Seattle, 1950s
(The stage is all Ruth’s. She is casually but neatly dressed, trim and fit, setting up a classroom on one side of stage… Moving to the next set, Wunda Wunda holds up her harlequin suit, looking in a mirror. Music of Elliot Fisher Brown plays in the background. Exit that set and move to a third. The music shifts to a different and distant sounding beat; Ruth is now studying Indigenous props and holds up maps and Indigenous history and storybooks.)
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NARRATOR:
Ruth also worked weekdays as a kindergarten teacher. Louise Perkins of Perkins Musical Kindergarten encouraged her to do more for the younger children, so after much collaboration between Bullitt, Chandler, Brown, Prins, and Lee Schulman, the program director, the show Wunda Wunda was launched in 1953 (16).
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Ruth Prins as Wunda Wunda at the grand opening of The Toy Shop as Seventh and Pike, June 5, 1954. Photograph by Forde Photographers, courtesy of Debra Prins.
Ruth Prins as Wunda Wunda, 1950s. Photograph courtesy of Debra Prins.
Ruth Prins as Wunda Wunda, 1960s. Photograph courtesy of Debra Prins.
Wunda Wunda was a clown-like character who lived in a fanciful cottage, told stories, sang songs, and gave simple instruction on matters such as manners or crossing the street. Her name was derived by the inability of little children to properly pronounce "wonderful." She was accompanied by a hidden organist, Mr. Music Man, played initially by Eliott Brown, with a specially installed pipe organ along with a raft of bells, clangers, horns, and whistles. Elliott wrote three hundred tunes and jingles for the show, often using classical themes. Gloria Chandler continued her collaboration with Prins and produced the show. The show was the centerpiece of the uplifting children’s programming that made Dorothy Bullitt’s KING broadcasting a national model for commercial and educational TV. Wunda Wunda garnered several awards, including two Peabodys, and for twenty years was a foundational experience for Northwest children. There was not a child in the region who could not perform "I’m a Little Teapot (17)."
Elliott Brown, Music Man on the Wunda Wunda show with Debra, Ruth's daughter, 1957. Photograph by Forde Photographers, courtesy of Debra Prins.
Another collaboration in children’s programming was Compass Rose, which premiered in 1959. In over twenty-six programs Ruth told stories based on the cultures of Indigenous Peoples living around the world. This program was developed for national distribution. She also was Mrs. Alphabet in a show developed for KNBC in Los Angeles. But the world of television was changing and rapidly becoming more complicated as bigger players moved into the field. In 1972 KING abruptly cancelled Wunda Wunda.
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NARRATOR:
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Perhaps the show could end here: a life well lived; admiration all around. But every good show has three acts, and so does this one.
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Act III
Scene 1
Seattle, Magnolia, 1964
(An older Ruth appears on stage; she simply and thoughtfully strolls across the stage, stopping to look around, study the audience, and finally stops at a desk, hungrily looking at an old boxy computer and books, leafing through newspapers and maps—the eternal student.)
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NARRATOR:
While many of us would consider twenty years of acting enough, Ruth went back to the University of Washington in 1963 to earn a Doctorate in Education. Of importance to the neighborhood of Magnolia, she opened the Ruth Prins Primary School there in 1964 (19).
The curriculum of this school for three- to six-year-olds included learning the fundamentals of linguistics, music, mathematics, art, and science. They dealt with concepts of social studies such as communication, building vocabulary, transportation, recreation, and government. French was taught. They worked on developing large and small muscle coordination. They had field trips to a symphony rehearsal, Seattle City Light, a bank, a furrier, and the post office. They grew vegetables and then cooked them. They saluted the flag and, of course, put on plays. In all endeavors the school sought to emphasize independent thinking and recognition of each child as unique.
An excerpt from Prins’ 1973 teacher notes reads:
Avoid entrapment questions. "Can anyone tell me what you should do if your house catches on fire?" If children suggest "run away, watch it, yell, throw baby brother in it," etc. and teacher loftily shakes head and gives THE solution, child feels baffled and next time will try to give answer that satisfy teacher. “If your house caught on fire, what would you do?” Would not should. We want children to think. They will sooner or later arrive at an answer that will satisfy both teacher and children and THEN teacher moves on. Sometimes a subject will have to be brought up on subsequent days. Entrapment situations lead children to read teacher cues and to provide answer teacher wants instead of freely offering diversified responses. (Some of their solutions are marvelous and I collect them. Would you apprise me of any that come your way? (20))
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Sufficient demand allowed a second school to open in 1974 in the View Ridge neighborhood. Both schools closed in 1981.
Ruth lived a busy life after shutting down the schools. She took college courses, traveled, learned about computers, gardened, and enjoyed her family. All the while she was a Magnolia resident.
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NARRATOR (pauses, then says slowly says):
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Ruth Balkema Prins lived out her life in her Magnolia home, still traveling the world and cultivating her interests in politics and gardening. She died November 6, 2021, at age 101.
In a 1985 interview, Ruth said:
"A good show, I feel, has something to root for and something to root against, something to love and something to hate. Something beautiful and something to learn...(21)"
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(Light fades; curtain falls.)
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Notes
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1. "Our History," New York Junior League, n.d., www.nyjl.org/about/history/.
2. Association of Junior Leagues of America, "The Junior League: A Synopsis," VCU Libraries Social Welfare History Project, n.d., socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/eras/civil-war-reconstruction/junior-leagues/#:~:text=The%20Junior%20League%20was%20formed,meeting%20in%20May%20of%201921.
3. Junior League of Seattle, "The History of the Junior League of Seattle," 9 Apr. 2019, jrleagueseattle.wordpress.com/2019/04/09/1377/.
4."Seattle Junior Programs, Inc: History First Ten Years," University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, C. 1960s.
5. Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 1 Nov. 1949: 11.
6. The Seattle Star 8 May 1934: 7; The Seattle Star 10 Apr. 1934, 9; The Asheville Times [North Carolina] 24 Feb. 1936: 5; The News Tribune [Tacoma] 1 May 1985: 11; The Seattle Times 9 May 1954: 59; The Seattle Times 18 Aug. 1976: 54.
7. Cassandra Tate, "Hughes, Glenn (1894-1964)," HistoryLink.org 14 Feb. 2002, www.historylink.org/File/3694.
8. "Seattle Junior Programs, Inc: History First Ten Years."
9. Mildred Andrews, "Bullitt, Dorothy Stimson (1892-1989)," HistoryLink.org, 13 Mar. 1999, www.historylink.org/File/677.
10. Andrews.
11. "Paramount will Present Dancers," Seattle Post-Intelligencer 5 June. 1931: 18; "Whitmire Opens Speech Studio Sept 8," The Seattle Times 5 Sept. 1937: 7; "Ruth Balkema in Showboat Cast," The Seattle Post-Intelligencer 12 May 1939: 20.
12. "Ruth Balkema New Showboat Favorite," The Seattle Times 10 Mar. 1940: 42; "Showboat to have ‘The Barretts,’" Seattle Post-Intelligencer 10 Nov. 1940: 39; "Showboat to give Pride and Prejudice Review," The Seattle Times 30 Oct. 1938: 35; "Play Marks opening of Whitmire Studio," The Seattle Times 29 Jan. 1940: 8; "Disraeli wins new applause for Showboat," The Seattle Times 8 Dec. 1939: 26; "Ruth Balkema will direct Drama Guild," Seattle Post-Intelligencer 13 Oct. 1941: 8.
13. "Ruth Balkema to be bride of Mr. Prins," The Seattle Times 7 Jan. 1942: 8.
14. "Playtime by Elizabeth W. Evans," The Seattle Times 29 May 1953: 3; "U Theatre to sponsor Children's Plays," The Seattle Times 3 May 1950: 10; "Seattle Junior Programs, Inc Volunteers facing busy time," Seattle Post-Intelligencer 26 Sept. 26 1948: 47; "Stage Radio and Teaching keep Ruth Prins Occupied," Seattle Post-Intelligencer 1 Nov. 1949: 11.
15. "King TV wins 3 U.S. Awards," Seattle Post-Intelligencer 16 Apr. 1952: 6; "Seattle TV Programs Win Junior League Awards," The Seattle Times 28 Mar. 1953: 6; "Television News," The Seattle Times 16 Nov. 1951: 32.
16. "Seattle Scene by Frank Lynch," Seattle Post-Intelligencer 8 Jun. 1960: 21; "Children's Show," The Seattle Times 3 Nov. 1953: 22; "KING TV show, U Prof Honored," The Seattle Times 4 Apr. 1954; Mary Palmer, "Wunda Wunda," TV Dial, 25 Apr. 1954: 24; “Seattle TV Producer will speak at 3 State Parleys,” The Seattle Times 9 May 1954: 59.
17. “Wunda Wunda,” Puget Sound TV News 14 Nov. 1954: 1; Palmer; "Children’s Show," The Seattle Times 3 Nov. 1953: 22; "Training for kiddies and they love it," TV Guide 13 Nov. 1955; "Wunda Wunda," TV radio Preview [Oregon] 1957; "TV Children's Story Teller Runs Gamut of Action," Seattle Post-Intelligencer 24 May 1959: TV 1; "Wunda Wunda Teaches by Make Believe," The Seattle Times 29 Jun. 1958: 62, 68.
18. "Compass Rose," Seattle Post-Intelligencer Mar. 15 1959: 125; "Children’s Show;" "Ruth Prins, Award Winning Wunda Wunda on KING," Puget Sound TV News 14 Nov. 1954: 5; "Seattle Performer has Show in L.A.," The Seattle Times 20 Mar. 1970: 16.
19. "Junior Players Bow Tomorrow," The Seattle Times 24 May 1963: G20; Joan Pritchard, "Personality of the Week; Ruth Prins," Queen Anne News; "Non-Profit preschool planned for Magnolia District this Fall," The Seattle Times 7 Jun. 1964: 83; "Primary School meets the Arts," The Seattle Times 9 Dec. 1973: 194; Dorothy B. Brazier, "Ruth Prins life is four Loves," The Seattle Times 21 Feb. 1972: 17; "Ruth Prins to open Primary School in Fall," Queen Anne News 3 Jun. 1964.
20. Ruth Prins, private papers, courtesy of Debra Prins.
21. "Where Are They Now (1985)?: Wunda Wunda (Part Four)," YouTube, uploaded by HistoryMediaHistory, 14 Mar. 2011, www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxElCiaKAO8.
Author recommendations for more on Ruth Balkema Prins:
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Clay Eals, "A Wunda-Ful Adventure: In Local TV’s Earliest Years, Ruth Prins Touched the Youngest of Hearts," Seattle Now & Then, ed. Paul Dorpat and Jean Sherrard, pauldorpat.com/archivepage/a-wunda-ful-adventure-in-local-tvs-earliest-years-ruth-prins-touched-the-youngest-of-hearts/.
Daniel Jack Chasan, The King Broadcasting Story (Anacortes, WA: Island Publishers, 1996).
"Wunda Wunda show from 1966, featuring 'Never Judge Another Just by His Size,’" YouTube, uploaded by Clay Eals, 8 Jan. 2022. www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wBTCpf1HW4. *This video features puppets, stuffed animals, adventure tales, interaction with her audience, and songs! Wunda Wunda Facebook Fan Club.
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