WOMAN-OWNED BUSINESS IN THE FIFTIES

“Ruth sort of married the newspaper when she married Bob Grady," the article stated. My mother had never in this world dreamed that her husband would die at 49 leaving her with a weekly county newspaper to run. Imagine - a woman in 1958 - husband dies on Thursday and she takes over a newspaper business on Monday morning! She was petrified! Her assessment of the situation? "When I started in that Monday morning, I didn’t know I’d be here even two days. I was scared. Sometimes I still am!"

So there she was. Other women were at home keeping house and watching soap operas. My mom, who never had the confidence to think she was a good writer or a competent editor/publisher, was gathering news all over the county from morning 'til night, working with newspaper owners around the state, keeping up with an industry that was changing at lightning speed, managing employees, raising a difficult child (ahem!), and trying to have a life!

She took the bull by the horns and made it work. The modern liberated woman has nothing on my mid-20th-century mom!