I needed extra spending money so I got jobs as waitresses and as a switchboard operator to make money. I used to wear headphones and say “number please!”

I did that for a few years and I enjoyed that very much. I worked all the shifts. I worked after school from 4:00 PM until 11:00 PM. Once or twice, I did the night shift and that was really something!

The night shift wasn’t the regular crew. They weren’t questionable but you might say they were kind of “hardened” women who had a lot of hard knocks in life. I walked around with my headphones and in front of me was a huge switchboard, perhaps half the length of a football field. This was in San Jose. When a light would light up you just go along and plug it in.

So then Tony went to Loyola University in Chicago. He left before we were married and I followed him after I graduated from college. We got married in August in 1945.

I got a job right away. We were in Evanston, Illinois when D-day came. I got a job in a little rural town. I only worked there for about three months because I was pregnant and I was really sick. But I enjoyed it very much.

The first day of school they let out early and this little boy was about to cry. I asked what the matter was, and he said that everybody went home but he doesn’t know how to get home.

So I got his address and walked him home. It was about a half-mile there and back. The principal came in and asked where I was and I told him that I was walking Jimmy home. I won his support after that. I didn’t mean to, I just wanted to walk him home.

So I also worked in Saint Louis. We couldn’t find a place to rent, and we finally found this house that was wonderful. But it was in a Jewish neighborhood. The kids never had had experience with Jewish people. But they loved it because the public school observed both Christian and Jewish holidays, so they got twice as many holidays as they got before.

My son Mark was very intelligent. But when we got there, he got put back a grade. The principal said he did that because he was from California and they automatically put everyone from California a year back. He said California schools were one year behind misery schools. Then Mark got to learn all kinds of new things. When we got back to Los Gatos, many people thought that mark wasn’t as smart as he was since he had been put back a grade. But in the end it all worked out.

After Tony graduated from Stanford medical school we went to Los Gatos. Tony practiced for two years with a general practitioner. After that he decided he just didn’t want to get up at 2 AM anymore.

Tony decided that he liked surgery and he was very, very lucky to get one of the spots in Barnes Hospital in Saint Louis with one of the top plastic surgeons who had a lot of experience in doing World War II surgery.

So, that is when we came back and had him operate in San Jose. I was teaching in the very early part of this time. We rented our house, and then came back.

Tony was going to be a specialist now. I got involved in the medical auxiliary very quickly. We came back to Los Gatos in the mid-fifties. Los Gatos at this time was wonderful, with all of the trees blooming in the spring. We had a prune tree in our front yard and we had a darling dog named Tipi and he just loved those prunes. So, he didn’t have any dietary problems.


My Political Career

I always had a lot of ideas for getting things done, and they were often new ways of doing things. I honed my skills in suggesting new approaches to various problems. And that is how I became president of this, that, and the other thing.

I did a lot of volunteering and I was nominated for the Santa Clara county woman of the year. I was one of the top women. I was taken to dinner at the San Jose Mercury news. I wasn’t the top nominee for “woman of the year,” but I was a runner – up. I got a plaque and a check for $500 for my community service.

As a homemaker I didn’t get into politics very much. However it always interested me because I knew that’s where the decisions were being made. I was very disappointed when Adlai Stevenson didn’t win the presidency.

My favorite people are those who are easy to talk to, intelligent, and who love other people.