I started working and I wrote to service fellas. A lot of letters exchanged back and forth, but as soon as I got out of high school - we had a very good commercial teacher in high school who taught shorthand, typing and bookkeeping.

In high school I was on the typing team. We won the sectional, the district and went to state, but we didn’t win the state. So I had a good background for the business field. But, I did want to go to college so I went to a business college in Evansville, Indiana.

But it was not interesting at all because I could do everything I had to do to graduate with my shorthand and my typing. To graduate, I would have to do enough of the various problems from business and bookkeeping, and there were a lot of them.

I would have had to stay about a year. After a couple months and I could pass typing, shorthand and the business part of the testing. So, I had a chance for a job so I quit school and started working.

I went to work for the Agriculture Adjustment Association. It was a state and federal but it was an office in the county the fellas were the bosses and they were farmers of the county. We had big maps, and we went around their fields to learn how many acres there were, how many was plant, how many were plantable. It was a very interesting work.

They could plant so much according to what the state and federal government would allow. It was that type.

But, I only worked there a couple years and decided I would never go very far there cause there wasn’t any room for advancement or anything.

I took a civil service test for the government and was offered a job in Chicago with the headquarters of the Sixth Ordinance District. It was downtown Chicago in the First National Bank building in the loop and I took the job and went to Chicago by myself. I lived in the YWCA which was only about 10 blocks from the Loop and near Moody Institute, and it was a very good experience.

Students from Moody Institute came over. We had, at the Y, our breakfast and dinner were included in our weekly rate so we got our two meals there. We had activities there, and during the war fellas came in from Navy Pier and from Fort Sheraton to dances we had and there was a lot of social activity and a lot of interesting people to meet.

There were two types of people working. I learned to know different types of people.

There were the people who lived in the general vicinity of Chicago and the rest of us who came in from civil service jobs. Mostly the ones I knew were from Southern Illinois and we lived at the Y and we sort of had our own little group; different towns in Southern Illinois. We became good friends.

But, the city kids – the people who worked there – men and women stayed in their own, and of course we did too, and it was hard there. You were just one of many and there wasn’t the fulfillment of working that I had looked for.

So, I was there a couple years and of course it was war time and it was sad times. You’d hear – don’t come home, and that this one wasn’t coming back and that one wasn’t, and I would go down by train. It was about 200 miles from my home.

We had the next town 5 miles away we had a refinery owned by Texaco and so I decided I wondered what it would be like to work there and live at home again. Mother and Dad were worried about me in the city, but I think after the visited me once and saw where I lived and that I didn’t get out and run around – there wasn’t any need to! Everything was right there!

Then they were not quite as worried. But, I did, I went in and interviewed for a job at Texaco Refinery and got it. Before I walked out I was offered the job and I decided that I’d had enough of city life after a couple years and went back and it was a good move. I enjoyed working for them.

Well, I replaced a fella at Texaco that was called into service and I worked in the Payroll Department, which was most interesting.

I worked there for a couple years and they decided to set up a secretarial pool department and take the girls from each department into that. The shipping department, stock department, law department; the various departments, but they didn’t take payroll girls. We payroll girls worked figures and we had a payroll machine and there were two girls – really I was the only girl on the countometer operator.

There were three fellows, the boss; the assistant boss and two fellas and myself. I liked the payroll department. But then, they had a fellow ahead of the secretarial department and they wanted him to take another job and they had asked me to do – they had a union. That was a good experience.

The men out in the plant had a union, and they had disagreements of course. They had meetings that were always on central ground, so to speak, at the little hotel uptown. The representatives from the union came from big cities and spoke for the union. I learned a lot about unions which was interesting.

So, they asked me one day – they had a fellow that would sit down at meetings to take notes, minutes, and they asked me one day if I would do it. They said the language would be better if there was a woman present. So I did. I started that and that was interesting. I did that – of course it wasn’t regular. I did my other work too.

So after I did that they asked me if I would be supervisor of the stenographic department. So, I enjoyed that. That was a good experience, and I was married then. My husband worked for Marathon. He was a local fellow who came back from the service.