Once again, my subject in this series is my maternal grandmother, Emma Taylor Hopkins. Until I read this prompt, it had never really occurred to me that she was the only female direct ancestor I have who worked outside the home. She had several different jobs over the years including working at the Post Office, at a bank and teaching school all before she married my grandfather a few days before her 20th birthday.
Emma had always wanted to be a teacher but was too young to take the teacher's exam when she graduated from high school in 1916. She went to work at the Post Office until she could take the test. She passed the teacher's test on her first attempt and got a job in a neighboring county for for the 1918-19 school year. She was enjoying teaching until the flu caused schools to be closed in February that year and she never taught full time again. She returned to work at the Post Office and before long the Postmaster came down with the flu and his Assistant left to join the Navy. So at the age of 18, Emma was running the Mt. Vernon Post Office. By 1920, she was working at Peoples Bank as an Assistant Cashier but resigned when she got married.
Emma behind the counter at the Loyall Post Office.
In March, 1937, Emma became Postmaster at Loyall, Kentucky and held that position until September, 1941. She was the bookkeeper for a small coal mine for a couple of years after that and then about thirty years after the flu cut her only year of teaching short, she returned to the classroom as a substitute teacher.
Fearless Females is a series of daily prompts for March in honor of Women's History Month created by Lisa Alzo at The Accidental Genealogist.
