MARY E. WEST

The first several years of my school life passed pleasantly enough in the little district school at the corner of my father’s farm in Southampton County, Virginia. They are remarkable to me now not so much for the attainment which I made in the three “R’s,” as for the fact that they gave me the desire and ambition for a well-rounded education. I remember quite distinctly the first money I ever earned. I was ten, I think, and the amount paid me by an uncle for some nominal service, the nature of which I do not recall, was one dollar and sixty-five cents. My aunt asked me how I would spend it. I considered and then replied that I would save it, add to it as I got money and when the time came, go to college. She laughed, and her skepticism was justifiable, for the treasured sum was soon gone, leaving behind it, however, something of infinitely more value than the trifles purchased by its commercial value, namely; a definite hope for a college education.

When I was thirteen, my mother died, the home was broken up and I, the oldest of five children, went to the little town of Wakefield to live with my great-aunt, 274 a widow of some means. It was her intention to educate me, giving me the advantages of college training, and at her death to leave me her small fortune. Fifteen months later while I was convalescing from appendicitis and typhoid fever in a Richmond hospital, she died after a short illness. She was delirious to the last and died intestate; therefore her property went to her nearest relatives and I returned to my father. He was and is a lumberman, owning at that time a sawmill in partnership with a younger brother. Naturally, I could not remain for a great length of time in a sawmill camp. The other children were with my father’s people. He considered for a time putting me in Corinth Academy, a Quaker school of Southampton County, but finally decided to continue me in the district school of Wakefield. I returned to this town to board and attend school. I finished the grammar school that year. During the summer the People’s Telephone Co. organized, and put the exchange in the hotel where I boarded. For the novelty of the thing, in the week preceding the beginning of the fall high school term, I learned to operate the switch-board with no idea of ever becoming its regular operator. Two weeks later the chief operator resigned to accept a position in the city, the assistant became the chief and I found myself the new assistant. It was my first year in the high school, and when the novelty of the new work was gone, and the demands of heavier school work became 275 insistent, I found that I had taken upon myself no light task. My office hours were long, from five to ten in the evening on emergency duty, a night bell in my room from ten at night to six in the morning, active duty again to seven, and one hour at noon to relieve the other operator. The work was not heavy or hard, but extremely irritating and nerve racking, especially the emergency duty. Those first months were hard indeed, but I steadfastly refused to give it up. It had gratified me exceedingly to write my father that I could bear a part of my expenses and the idea of resigning my position never occurred to me. My salary was small, twelve dollars a month, but to me it meant independence and I was immensely proud of it.

But there was another thing working in my brain which gave me no rest. The other children were dissatisfied. We had been separated three years and I wanted to bring us together again as one family. Father could not be with us on account of the nature of his work, so a sister of my mother agreed to stay with us, and when the New Year came we were once more together in a little cottage not far from the telephone office and quite convenient to school. The active work of the home did not fall upon me, but the responsibility did. To me, father directed all instructions, made all checks, and of me required all reports. I think I am safe in saying that in the four years we endeavored to hold together barely a paper of pins was purchased without 276 my knowledge and sanction. I planned and thought out everything about the home from the daily menu to the hanging of the garden gate, kept up my office and school work, attended Sunday School and church regularly and did my best to live before my brothers and sisters a life which should stand for truth, honor and square dealing.

The years of my high school life came and went and often I despaired of the end. The state of family finance fell low. The business venture of my father failed to make good, through no fault of his nor of anyone else that I know, but because of conditions of the market and so forth. At any rate, I know that the small amount which I earned was welcome in the family purse, and I remember very ............