Jean Vander Pyl - Life and Career

Life and Career

Vander Pyl was born in Philadelphia to John H. and Kathleen Hale Vander Pyl. Her grandfather had come from Holland. Her father was the district manager for Knit Underwear, her mother was a Southerner from Tennessee. The two died within six months of each other in the early 1950s. The family came to Los Angeles by the mid 1930s.

On radio she was heard on such programs as The Halls of Ivy (1950-52) and on Father Knows Best during the early 1950s, where she portrayed Margaret Anderson; the role was played on television by Jane Wyatt. Her husband, Carroll G. O'Meara, died on February 18, 1962, at age 53. He was a graduate of Stanford University who worked as a copywriter at KHJ radio in the mid-1930s and later became an advertising executive. She later married Roger Wells DeWitt, who also predeceased her.

Vander Pyl made numerous TV appearances as an actress in programs such as Leave It to Beaver, The Donna Reed Show, Father Knows Best and Petticoat Junction. She also guest starred on The Beverly Hillbillies. One of her final TV appearances was in the opening scene of the Season Two Murder, She Wrote episode, "One Good Bid Deserves a Murder". Vander Pyl also had a very brief cameo appearance in the live-action film version of The Flintstones as Mrs. Feldspar, an elderly woman in a conga line.