Chicago Tribune - (archived: https://archive.ph/8hFwg ) After breaking hip, former Butterball hotline lady from Aurora to be stuck in Turkey for Turkey Day

By Denise Crosby

UPDATED: November 22, 2024 at 4:44 PM CST

For more than two decades, Phyllis Kramer was not just a wise and calm voice on the other end of the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line, the Aurora woman became a recognized face, featured on TV shows and in regional and national news stories at this time of year.

The New York Times. Good Housekeeping. Business Insider. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Fox News. Rachael Ray. Kramer even worked alongside comedian Stephen Colbert when he flew to the hotline headquarters on Diehl Road in Naperville to tape a segment for his late night show.

This holiday, however, her story has taken an ironic twist: The Turkey Lady is stuck in Turkey for Turkey Day.

Seriously, says Kramer, "you can't make this stuff up."

And if you did, this travel tale would be titled "Dream Vacation Turns Into Nightmare," notes her longtime partner Jerry Skinner.

It was on Nov. 2, while the couple was on a much-anticipated European-Asian vacation, that Kramer tripped and fell while in Turkey, breaking her hip two days before their scheduled flight home to Aurora.

And she won't be able to get on a plane until Dec. 4, a 12-hour flight that, in itself, will be difficult and potentially dangerous for the recuperating 81-year-old former West Aurora High School home economics teacher who became so well-known for her advice to nervous holiday cooks.

In a phone interview from her hotel in Istanbul, Kramer is trying to look at this misadventure in the most positive way possible. But she readily admits "it's been tough" and at times "terrifying," particularly when she was taken first by ambulance to a public hospital that she described as "dirty and crowded" with police officers and stray cats everywhere.

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