Lord was still in his twenties and living in New York City when he became a national radio personality. Creating the character "Seth Parker", a clergyman and backwoods philosopher based on his real-life grandfather, Hosea Phillips, Lord wrote stories for radio of rural New England humor that included the playing of old-time songs. On his own initiative, he communicated with several stations across the U.S. and sold them scripts he labeled as ""Seth Parker's Singing School"". An instant hit, Lord was soon contacted by NBC Radio, which contracted to buy scripts for a show to run six days a week that NBC called ""Sunday Evening at Seth Parker's"".