The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1919-08-15
True Stories of Successful Women
By Edith Moriarty

Six years about newspaper Offices I
found Lucille Young a cynical. pessi-
mistic young woman who felt herself
doomed to one disappointment after
another in this life. Her most recent |
disappointment was experienced when
she asked the managing editor for
a raise and it was refused on account
OF the war and the general hard times
which the newspapers were feeling
very keenly at that time.
Her first disappointment was one
that she never seemed able to forget.
For ten years she claimed that 1t
had made her a failure. When Lucille
was graduated from high school she
was planning to go to Boston and !
study music.
She was talented beyond doubt and
she longed for a career as a musician.
Her clothes were packed and her
ticket bought when for some reason
which she has never found out her
father decided that he would not
send her.
She was almost distracted for she
had planned so much and worked so
hard with her music in order to get
a scholarship which would help her
pay her way. She started to teach
music in her home town, but her heart
was not in her work ad she hated
teaching although her methods were
so good that she was unusually sue
cessful for person so young.
After a year of music teaching she
decided she could stand it no longer
at home and so when she was offered
q position as governess to two children
with q family which was going to
he cd
liked everything about her new posi-
ton except the business Of it.
She did not like to teach. Her
many new experiences took her mind
from her music and she was really
quite happy until the family returned
to the United States and decided to
send the children to school.
What to do next was a problem.
She soon decided, however, that she
would not teach music or anything
else. From the time she graduated
from high school she had to earn her
own way and so what to do was
serious question, and must be ans
wered soon. Hearing of position on
one Of the large daily papers she ap-
piled and was given the job, but 1t
was far from what she expected.
Her duties were not editorial, but
clerical. She was made assistant in
the library or morgue of the paper.
Clipping, filing, hunting up pictures
and cuts and other routine business
was her lot She liked it because 1t
was something different and it was in
teresting because it was new. Here
her methods again made her success
full. She seemed to have a method
cal mind and she brought order out
of the chaos that had existed in her
department. She was soon made head
of the department and given an assist
ant, but her pay was still very small
Then rival paper needed some one
to straighten up their morgue. She
applied for the place and was hired at
larger salary than she had been
getting. She spent three years at
each paper. She introduced to each
an efficient system of keeping pic
lures, cuts and clippings.
She had a record of never having
lost a thing, and she was so well-read
and had such a good memory that she
seldom needed to look up the ordin-
airy questions which were asked her
about dates. statistics and names and
the like. yet now after six years of
good service she was getting but
$3.50 a week.
The managers refusal to give her
more money was a disappointment,
but 1t was also an awakening. She
was twenty-six and was considered
by the paper worth Just $3.50 and
no more. That looked as If she were
in the wrong place. for she could not
be satisfied doing the same work for
years to come and at such a small
sum.
She made her decision quickly and
without any thought as to the future.
ch@ 1aft ho fV{n % rot
position by answering advertise
ments, but was often turned away
because she had had no experience
along the right lines or because she
could not take dictation.
Finally she entered a manufacture
ing concern with the intention of
changing their filing system to a more
efficient one. She had done that sue
cessfully at the paper. but here where
all the matter was dull correspondence
about brushes and orders, she found
the work tedious. After completing
the job Of changing their files, she
left them.
This time she decided she would
take up stenography at night, but
the question was to find some work
which would enable her to live and
pay for her schooling at the same
time Sne oeClueQ on Selllng PONDS.
She thought she had found her
sphere at last, for the money she earn
ed depended entirely upon herself and
her own efforts. She thought she was
succeeding because she often made
in day three and four times the
money she formerly earned in whole
week.
She started to night school and was
getting along fairly we'll when the
Liberty bonds were issued. These put
her bonds in the background, and she