In 1937 I had graduated from Battle Ground High School and needed to find a job. I had taken typing and shorthand classes my last two years of school with the idea that the course work would lead to employment.
Jobs were very hard to find and I couldn’t afford a four-year college to further my education. By the fall of 1939, after working several part-time jobs, I decided to enroll at Vancouver Business College for a 12 month program of course work which included more typing, shorthand, bookkeeping and court reporting. In 1940, when I had completed the program, it was recommended that I take the Federal Civil Service Exam being given in Portland.
I was notified in early 1941, that I qualified for Civil Service and that I should apply for openings at the Vancouver Barracks. I was hired as a Classification Clerk – Typist and assigned to the United States Army 7th Infantry Finance Office, Officers Pay section.
Colonel Harry Foster was in charge of the “Officers Pay” department, of approximately 50 employees. This department was divided into six to eight sections. I worked as a clerk with five to six other women for a year or so. Some of those women were local, Maxine Egert, Lavada Sonney Harris, Gloria Sugg, and Barbara Davis. Others were wives of servicemen assigned to Vancouver Barracks. Our duties included completing forms furnished by the Defense Department, by typing information describing an officer’s name, rank, and other necessary information. The forms then went to another section of the building to be completed. Checks came back for us to distribute to each Commissioned Officer on their particular payday.
