Question: What was your favorite job and why?
Answer: Women experienced discrimination in the newspaper business in the early 1960s – even those with journalism degrees.
Because of my sex, I was placed in the Women’s Department of a Norfolk, VA newspaper. After “proving myself” for a year, I was given the token position for a female in the newsroom – the education and medical beat.
Along with my male counterparts, we typed our articles on manual typewriters and sent the copy in pneumatic tubes to the composing room.
The most exciting part of the day was when a reporter shouted “copy” as he yelled for a copy boy to grab his copy to meet a noon deadline. It was an exciting atmosphere as we learned of the latest crimes before the public did. Later, television would end that, along with evening newspapers.
For me, it meant trips to the National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C. to accompany the Norfolk contestants, interview celebrities and cruise on U.S. Navy ships.
Marriage and a Navy transfer was the reason I reluctantly left my favorite job. I returned to newspapering and another education beat in Michigan.
I became a correspondent for The News Journal in Delaware for 30 years.
Most of my newspaper writing was fun. It was a job I would have done for free, and sometimes it seemed like I had! – Mary Alice Winkles, resident Friendship Village Sunset Hills
#WeAreFriendshipVillage #seniorliving #retirementcommunity #FVatHome #assistedliving #MemoryCare
The above photo and text are part of a year-long project we call We Are Friendship Village. We are posting these photos and brief interviews to our website’s blog section every day as we talk with residents at Friendship Village Chesterfield and Friendship Village Sunset Hills. The idea is to give a short introduction to the residents who make up our wonderful senior living communities and give you a peek at something you might not know about them!
After a year of gathering interviews and photos, we will publish A BOOK featuring all the great residents who participated. AND PARTICIPANTS get A FREE COPY OF THE BOOK! During this year, we will also be sharing these photos and stories on Facebook and other social media such as Instagram, so look for them and please follow the hashtag #WeAreFriendshipVillage to stay current with the project!
We think it’s a great chance to share a bit about who we are! Residents’ participation takes less than ten minutes, so it won’t take much time to be a part of it and we think everyone will enjoy getting to know their neighbors and friends a little bit better!
If interested in participating (or know someone else who might be), feel free to give us a call at (314) 270-7837 or email at nagysteve@fvstl.com or drop by the marketing suites in Sunset Hills or Chesterfield. We have 365 of these to do over the course of the year, so everyone is welcome!
We look forward to seeing you as we get to share insights about the senior living residents who are making our Friendship Village retirement communities so great!
Thanks again!