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Glendora Folsom is a cable TV producer from New York. Her birth name was Glendora Vesta Folsom. She is the host of A Chat with Glendora, which has cablecast over 14,500 shows since 1971 on the Public-access television channels of cable systems all over the United States.
Folsom began her television career circa 1953, as a children's show host. She wanted to start out small. Her first show was Glendora and her Picture Party on channel 19 in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. It was sponsored and ran for 15 minutes per week. She was then hired at WMUR-TV in Manchester NH, where she began her program, SS Glendora, in 1954. [1] She was the skipper of the mythical Fun and Games ship, the SS Glendora.
By 1955, she had brought her SS Glendora to WBZ-TV, the Westinghouse station in Boston. The show was sponsored by the Milton-Bradley Company. The next port of the SS Glendora was on the Mohawk River in Schenectady New York for General Electric; she was there for 6 years. Five days a week she was the captain of "Satellite Six," a sci-fi spaceship set, where she also aired cartoons.
In 1971, after being away from television for a decade, Folsom entered cable TV public access with A Chat with Glendora. This aired on Lackawanna Cable TV in Buffalo. This was followed by Maine Cable Television, Bangor. Then came Valley Cablevison, covering the Connecticut valley region. The last one was Colonial Cablevison near Glens Falls, NY.
These cable companies hired Glendora as their public access TV packager. She owned the video equipment, did the videotaping and then returned to the "head-end," ran a coaxial cable from her video equipment to the public access TV module, and cable-cast on to the cable TV viewer. Folsom remained on cable and public access television throughout the 1980s and 1990s. In 1987, she appeared as a guest on Late Night with David Letterman. By the 1990s, she was living in White Plains NY, according to the New York Times, which noted that she was the host of a weekly talk show on local public access there ("L.I. Cable" 44).
In 1994, she sued and won when a Long Island NY cable system removed her program in a way she felt violated Federal, State and municipal law that no cable operator can exercise editorial control over Public Access TV. The court ruled "plaintiff has a statutory right to be on TV and must be returned to TV" ("L.I. Cable" 44).
From the 1990s to the 2020s, she built the Glendora public access television network of 78 TV stations, from Boston to San Diego. Now three years away from 100, Glendora is still doing her half-hour weekly show of Cheer, Love, Helping Others, jokes and veganism.
In 2011, Glendora was the subject of the documentary A Chat with Glendora. According to the film's IMDB page...
Glendora Folsom Buell is a physicist, philosopher, and self-made television personality who continues to create weekly public access television programs at age [97]. In this feature documentary portrait, Glendora describes the early days of local broadcast and cable TV and its connection to her search for God, justice, and happiness.
As of 2026, a follow-up documentary is in the works covering the years from 2009 to present.
On October 13, 2018, Folsom was inducted into the Hall of Fame American International College Springfield Massachusetts. [2] In 2019, she was awarded a plaque for the longest-running public access TV show by Brooklyn Community Access TV, now known as Free Speech TV.
Glendora has added YouTube and TikTok creator to her resume. Her YouTube channel has over 5,500 videos with nearly 800 subscribers and 130,580 views. Her TikTok channel started in 2025, and already has over 250 followers and over 2,600 likes.
