Sepia Saturday #284: Loise and Joyce Sigford, 1940's Business Women

The  old manual typewrite is a self-explanatory theme with the immediate "jump-ours" of typewriters, writing and words emblazoned on the prompt image.  However, my mind immediately zeroed in on my twin aunts, Loise and Joyce, my mother's older sisters (12 years older).
The twins were born on 19 February 1907 to Frank Clemmon and Agnes Laura Sigford.  The girls carried the names of the grandmothers as their middle names. Loise Aurerlia for her maternal grandmother, Agnes Aurelia (Brown) Keyes, and Joyce Maria (pronounced in the family as Mariah) for her paternal grandmother Maria (Salisbury) Sigford.

Joyce Maria (Sigford) Williams
at the Baronoff Hotel, Juneau, Alaska
circa 1944
Courtesy of the Roots'n'Leaves and J.G. Hill Arcives

My strongest early memories of the twin aunts were when I was about 9 to 11 years old.  I remember that they came for the holidays a couple of years during that period.  Joyce was, as I remember her telling about it, the head bookkeeper for the Baranof Hotel in Juneau, Alaska.  Loise, not to be out done said about the same thing of her job in San Francisco.  I remember my mother laughing at the way the identical twins, each related their work and activities -- almost identically.  I remember one Thanksgiving in particular.  Joyce arrived first and regaled us with the great responsibility of her job and the difficulties that presented themselves. A few hours later we went in to pick up Loise from the bus station and were treated to exactly the same description -- just different jobs, different cities.

Loise Aurelia (Sigford) Stradtman,
probably at Hinch & Kaye in San Francisco
circa 1949
Courtesy of the Roots'n'Leaves and J.G. Hill Arcive

At that time in my life, these two extraordinary women epitomized the business woman of that era.  They loved their jobs and were evidently very good at what they did.  They were classy in dress as well as how they viewed themselves in those pre-feminist days.   Although neither would readily admit that they came from a poor Klamath county farm family,   they always kept close to their upbringing -- did a days work for a days pay, paid their debts (and in Loise's situation, those of her husband), and above all kept busy.  Even in leisure moments, my aunts were busy, they gardened, kept their homes fanatically clean, and did needlework worthy of the greatest of those old taskmasters of needlework.  As a child, and adult, I was the recipient of hand knitted sweaters, crocheted doilies, table runners, and afgans.

 These two aunts of mine, I know realize, molded much of how I view a women's role in the world of work  -- and they would be quite surprised that in many ways they would be considered feminists.  In fact,  women of the 1940s, such as my Aunts Loise and Joyce,  taking their place in the business world paved the way for those who followed them.  And they did it without fanfare or even thinking it was out of the ordinary.

Now click you way over to see the words and pictures of other Sepians .

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 © Joan G. Hill, Roots'n'Leaves Publications