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Published on 02/17/1997 All articles from this issue

A working woman

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By D. H. Kelly

My late mother would not have had much patience with the current flap about whether homemakers should work outside the home, and if so, when. For much of her life, she held a job and raised a family, and there was never any question about when to do which, or even both at once, if necessary.

When Gladys and George, my mother and father, met, they were both teaching high school in Pennsylvania. At this point, Gladys had been the sole support of her orphaned nephew and her elderly mother for some years. Her maiden name was Short, and since she was only 5-foot-3, her students called her "Shorty" behind her back. She knew that, but in her presence they wouldn't call her anything but Miss Short.

To improve his income after marrying Gladys, my father set out to learn the photographic business from the ground up. The first step (which he combined with their honeymoon) was to apprentice himself briefly to one of his brothers, who had built a large photofinishing plant in Virginia. While George was studying the plant, Gladys visited the local relatives. My father had 12 siblings and half-siblings in Virginia, with aunts and uncles and cousins by the dozens. A lesser bride might have been terrified at running this huge gauntlet of in-laws. But not Gladys.

They returned to Pennsylvania, borrowed some money, and set up a combined portrait studio, photofinishing plant and camera store. By the time I and my younger brother came along, this enterprise was firmly established, and it remained so for many decades. The nephew had grown up and moved out before we children arrived (for a few years, he was George's stock clerk). But Gramma lived with us for the rest of her 80-some years.

In those days, the only way to get a color photograph was to start with a black-and-white print and color every detail by hand, using transparent oils. One of my mother's most public accomplishments was to create a half dozen huge color photomurals of local scenes by this process. (Of course George made the black-and-white photographs for her.) They were commissioned to hang on the walls of a popular restaurant, but as each one was finished, my father proudly displayed it in the store window of Kelly Studios for several days before he would let it go. Since no one had seen such photographic masterpieces before, they drew quite a crowd.

Normally my father had a "hands-on" management style, but in the early 1940s while I was away at college, he suffered an accident that made him take his hands off completely. While he was chasing a young bicycle thief, he tripped and smashed his kneecap on the curb. He eventually made a good recovery, but had to spend several weeks flat on his back in a hospital bed. My mother suddenly found herself sitting at his desk, running Kelly Studios. She was in complete charge of everything: sales, payroll, delivery schedules, inventory, cash flow, ordering chemicals, and so on. Her frequent hospital visits always had to include a full report on the day's business.

After that, George used to joke, he could never get her out of the store. She came to function as a sort of assistant manager, taking on whatever projects they could agree was best suited to her talents. And indeed, with both children grown up and moved away, there was no reason for her to stay home, even part-time.

When they finally retired and sold the business, they promptly moved to Southern California, where my brother and I had immigrated. They both lived into their 80s and, I'm happy to say, got to know all their grandchildren.

But I didn't realize, until my own retirement, how difficult it must have been for those two old firehorses to go out to pasture. There was no such word as "workaholic" in those days. You just took the deal life dealt you and did what you had to do. And my mother had to do an awful lot in her lifetime.