I made it to steno school
Posted 8/15/02

Editorís note: The time setting for Fannie Smithís column is the early 1940s.

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I left for Chicago Stenotype School the first days of September. My parents would get along with my young sister after her day at school during the winter. The rest could wait for spring. I had met a girl, Tena, and we became friends in Minneapolis when I was doing housework there. We corresponded. She and her sister were now in Chicago working for Western Electric doing war work. With them lived a friend. They had a two bedroom apartment and I could sleep with their friend, sharing the apartment. That was an easy decision.

After a couple months in school, I was working late afternoons at Carson Pirie Scottís Department Store in lay away and spending another hour riding each morning and evening from and to the apartment on the bus. I investigated the YWCA. It was cheaper and I was eligible. I moved from the north to the south side of town, spending half as much time going to work and school. The "Y" was in the 50th block, one block from Cottage Grove, where two streetcars, going each way stopped at the corner every minute. Before long, I wasnít hearing the streetcars any longer. Here, my meals were supplied, I cleaned only my one-person private room and shared the bath facilities with the girls on my floor. I was pleased with the "Y."

I was doing well in the school, taking dictation on the machine at 75 words per minute. My typing rate was getting faster. The school had 30 students when it opened for the new class in early September. Now we were three left in my class. One after another dropped out, giving their reasons. Generally, the constant practicing got too boring. Our class took subjects like grammar, accounting and spelling, and I was getting good grades. In about a half year, I was hired in the schoolís office and quit the department store. There I used my new skills. When I reached my 150 words per minute on the stenotype and typed

at 60 words a minute, I changed to night school and felt ready to look for a legal secretaryís job.

The Oppenheimer Law Firm

An attorney came to the stenotype school to give a pep talk about the legal profession. After the formal session was over, I asked him to give me a list of the ten best law firms in Chicago. I gave him a stamped, self-addressed envelope, and waited for about a week and found the letter in my mailbox. Fortunately for me, this was a time when workers were in short supply because of the war. I started at the top of the list applying for a secretarial job. The third firm on the list hired me. The Oppenheimer firm had about 40 lawyers. This firm never hired an inexperienced secretary before, but the interviewer was impressed.

I was given a desk in a secretaryís pool and was assigned to three attorneys. I was expected to handle their secretarial work. At first, I was nervous - that didnít help - and took my first dictation from one of the attorneys. It was a disaster. I left his office feeling inadequate and said so to the lady sitting at the next desk of the secretarial pool. She helped me type a couple of letters. That was not good enough. This man complained to the head stenographer, who talked him into working with me. "Thingsíll get better," she told him.

However, I didnít please him and in a couple weeks I was assigned to errands for the lady accountant of the firm. Since I was hired on trial for six weeks, the accountant found work for me. I felt bad, realized I had a lot to learn, took my time repairing my dignity, and received extra help in school.