Gee, Mom, How’d You Get So Smart?
Thursday, May 15th, 2008I know very little about my mother’s education, except that she attended public elementary and high school in Worcester, Massachusetts.
I don’t know the names of the schools she attended or what her favorite subjects were. I do know she had an excellent command of the English language and an aptitude for mathematics. She also possessed an incredible attention to detail.
I do have two school photographs of her. I believe the first was taken on 06 Oct 1936, meaning that she was 14 years old and probably in the 8th grade.
Jennie Niedzialkoski in Elementary School - 1936
SOURCE: Jennie Niedzialkoski in Elementary School - 1936 (Worcester, Worcester County, Massachusetts). Photographed 06 Oct 1936.
The second photo was probably taken upon her graduation from high school, meaning that it was taken in about 1940.
Jennie Niedzialkoski in High School - about 1940
SOURCE: Jennie Niedzialkoski in Elementary School - 1940 (Worcester, Worcester County, Massachusetts). Photographed about 1940.
Sometime, I’ll have to ask my aunt and uncles about my mother’s education. I suspect they’ll remember. After all, they probably attended the same schools she did.
In the 1940s, after graduating from high school, my mother worked for Graton & Knight Company in Worcester. Her job was variously described in the Worcester City Directories as Clerk, Computer Operator, and Keypunch Operator. I don’t know what business the firm Graton & Knight was in or why they would need to hire a Computer Operator or Keypunch Operator at a time when very few people even knew what these terms meant. Nonetheless, my remarkable mother was working with computers in the 1940s.
Copyright © 2008 by Stephen J. Danko