My mother's working life

Above is my mother's high school yearbook picture.  She graduated in 1931 at the age of 16.

Right away she went to work as a stenographer in the office of her father and his brother in Sherman, Texas.

Ann was a fast typist and even faster at shorthand (taking dictation the old-fashioned way.)  She sometimes wrote her notes to herself in shorthand.  Mother never had to ask for a job in her life.  

She was always in demand for her office skills.  She worked for Doctor Stout's clinic in Sherman where I was born. She was stenographer at the county welfare office in Comanche where my aunt was a caseworker during the 1950's.  She ran the office of Jake Varnell, attorney-at-law in Mineral Wells, Texas when my father went to work teaching school there.  And eventually she was secretary to the city manager in Mineral Wells.