My Work Experiences

Due to the urging of my darling granddaughter, Jamie, (actually more like ordering) I have agreed to write about my first job. This job started two weeks after I graduaded from High School in May 31, 1940. I went from my home in Taylor, to Seattle. A great leap for a green, shy, country girl. I went to work at what was then the Columbus Hospital, which was run by the
Sacred Heart Sisters of the Catholic Church. My first job was putting bedpans in a sterilizer and then three times a day carrying heavy metal trays for thirty patients three times a day. Fun, oh no. Tiring, oh yes! I worked ten hours a day for twenty five dollars a month and my board and room.
After the third month the Mother Superior told me to dress up in a skirt and blouse, not my Ward Maid uniform, as I was to learn how to operate the elevator which I thought was a great advancement as when there were no people to take up or down, I was able to sit on a stool.
Three months later, the Mother Superior called me into her office and asked if I would like to learn to be a receptionist and switch board operator. Again I was more than willing. I then worked only nine hours a day and got a $5.00 a month raise.

Then Sister Angelina who was the pharmacist and accountant asked if I was willing to work extra hours, from ten to midnight, each night and she would teach me bookkeeping and accounting. It was on the job training and if I nodded off she would rap me across the knuckles, and having very bony knuckles, it certainly hurt enough to make me very alert. I am forever
grateful to these good sisters as the training and education I received made it possible for me to work in banking and later as General Manager and Administrative Officer of special districts.
It is from the pension I earned as this last job that I now live as comfortably as I do.