TV David Letterman honors mother, Dorothy Mengering, with touching eulogy 'We didn't want for anything because of my mom,' says Letterman at his mother's funeral By Chancellor Agard Chancellor Agard Chancellor Agard is a former staff writer at Entertainment Weekly. He left EW in 2022. EW's editorial guidelines Published on April 17, 2017 02:40PM EDT David Letterman took the mic at the funeral for his mother Dorothy Mengering in Indianapolis on Saturday, delivering a touching and humorous eulogy. “We didn’t want for anything because of my mom,” Letterman said of her work ethic, according to The Indianapolis Star. Recalling a time when she chopped off a snake’s head in the garden of their home, Letterman quipped, “My mother is Grizzly Adams for God’s sake.” Mengering, who died last week at the age of 95, occasionally appeared from the kitchen of her Indiana home on her son’s long-running CBS program and served as the show’s Olympics correspondent. Reflecting on her classic on-air appearances as “Dave’s Mom,” Letterman explained that executives told him they wanted to have her on the show more often. “People like her better than you,” Letterman said he remembered being told. Born in Linton, Indiana, Mengering was the eldest of three. In 1942, she married Harry Letterman, with whom she had Jan, David, and Gretchen. After his death in 1973, she remarried Hans Mengering, a structural engineer, in 1983; he died in March 2013. In addition to Letterman, Mengering is survived by her two daughters. The funeral was held Saturday at the Second Presbyterian Church in Indianapolis.