Careers

My career life is sort of like our furniture: varied and eclectic.
As a teenager, I loved to swim, took lifeguard and WSI training, and was a life guard at various country clubs in the summers during college. You had to wear a black one piece bathing suit and sit on a chair all day and watch the kids. At the Jewish country club, it wasn’t very busy, so I learned to play the ukulele during my breaks. At the Canton country club, where the Hoovers were members, I got fired after a few weeks. I had failed to rescue a child who was in trouble because I saw the parent was going to get there first. It also might have had to do with the fact that I dated one of the Hoover boys and he raped me.
During college I waited on tables because I had a small scholarship. I only went to Allegheny College in Meadville, PA for three years. I knew I wanted to be a Medical Technologist, and the requirement was to only have three years of college. I petitioned my Biology Dept Chair, Mr. Bugbee, to allow me to get credit for the one year internship, but was denied. So I left school and entered the Akron City Hospital school of Medical Technology. We rotated in and out of every department for a month or two, and had lectures every Friday. There were tests along the way and a final national exam at the end of a year. At this time I was paid $50.00 a month because we actually did work in the lab. We also got our meals free. After completing my training, I moved to Shaker Heights in Cleveland and started work at the Jewish Hospital there in Hematology. I got really good at making blood smears for differentials. They did their difs by sliding two coverslips with a drop of blood in between quickly apart. Most everyone else in later labs used glass slides, using the cover slip as a slide.
After a year, I moved to a job in Microbiology at the Cleveland Clinic. I loved the challenge of figuring out the puzzle of which bacteria and down to the species, we had isolated. Because it was such a big hospital, we also cultured Tuberculosis and fungus. We had people who made our augers and reused the glass petri dishes. We always pipetted with glass pipettes and when I later worked in Chemistry, we made our own reagents out of the elemental materials or acids kept in the reagent room.
My roommate and I had planned on working in our careers for two years and then go to live in Switzerland which had a program for importing skilled workers to this 0% unemployment country. Mary Pat met someone and got married, so I decided to go on my own. I had my ticket for the ship and all my paperwork complete when I got a postcard from the Peace Corps that they finally had a medical need for a team to go to Africa. I had applied a couple years before and never heard anything until then. But I was committed to Switzerland, so off I went.
In Switzerland, I was assigned to a heart catheterization lab. There was Herr Prof. Dr. Gurtner in charge, and four Residents under him, plus one other Med Tech, Fraulein Mueller, and one Secretary, Fraulein Stahli. I would be present when a catheterization took place, then take some blood and test it for oxygenation. We used this complicated glass contraption that was very hard to calibrate, the test was very time sensitive and subject to error. It was fun to interact with the other people in the lab, we had five weeks of vacation a year, and I loved living in another culture, but the work was sort of boring. Once or twice I would help them translate their scientific articles into readable English. Everyone there spoke English, so it was hard for me to learn German, but somehow I managed through the Berlitz School.
I almost married one of the Residents, Dr. Peter Walser, but he went off to study in Mexico under a famous Cardiologist there and I remained in Bern for another year and met other people.
After returning to the United States, I came home to Akron, OH and decided I should finish my degree. I got a parttime job at Akron City Hospital again, working 30 hours a week, and went full time to University of Akron where I majored again in Biology. This time, I knew what I wanted to learn, was paying for the classes out of my pocket, and had to structure my study and work time wisely, so I ended up with straight A’s. It took me a year to complete the requirements to get a degree from a different institution. My Great Grandfather had been the President of Buchtel College, the original liberal arts college out of which the University grew. My Grandfather and Grandmother were Professors as their first careers at that school. Grandma Evelyn Smith received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Akron, so I was proud to finally graduate from this University.
A failed relationship inspired me to travel to Seattle to end up getting a Medical Technology job at Harborview Medical Center in Chemistry. Soon an opening came up in Microbiology and I was back into the job I loved. While working there I met David Case, and we were married in 1973. After he graduated from Law School, he had to find a job. So far I knew that I could find a Med Tech job just about anywhere, so we concentrated on finding him a job. We traveled for a week all over Washington State to small towns that had Legal Services offices, because he liked to serve poor people. He had participated in a program that gave legal services to prisoners, and worked with his Native Law professor. We happened to go to a party one night where a Vista Volunteer recruiter told us about opportunities in Alaska. We signed up, and by early August, were settled in Anchorage.
My job was as an Investigator for the Alaska state Commission on Human Rights. The Alaska oil pipeline was just beginning to be built. There was a huge influx of people at that time coming to get jobs. The US government and the state had recently written laws that said that employers could not discriminate in their hiring practices for reasons of race, religion, sex, natural origins or religion. Alaska added parenthood. We were flooded with complaints from these immigrants to Alaska who were unable to find the golden jobs promised. We had caseloads in the hundreds, and there were eventually 12 of us investigators, all housed in a tiny office above Replacement Glass Co on the corner of Arctic and Fireweed. It was exciting. David was working at Legal Services. We got $600 per month between us that we had to live on, and our rent was $350.
Close to the end of my year of service, the State opened up several real salaried positions for this office. Of course I applied. I had my interview for an Investigator position, but a Native woman from St Lawrence Island got the position. Then the Assistant Director position became available. I applied for that also, and to my surprise, I was chosen! So now I was supervising the lady who got the job I wanted! Our Director, a tall, handsome, well respected Native man was killed when driving to Fairbanks by hitting a moose. My new Supervisor and Director of the Agency was Niel Thomas. We had outgrown the tiny offices and moved to a real office building downtown. I had my own office and Secretary! I helped write the regulations for the Human Rights laws we were to enforce. I made sure that all the complaints were assigned and trained the Investigators. It was a really wild, busy time because the pipeline fueled the economy and stretched all the State agencies. I even was inspired to go to Law School after I completed a class in legal research. It was much like microbiology, searching out clues to find the precedent to back up your argument. I was accepted to one school and enrolled, but decided not to pursue that when my husband made it clear he would not join me in Washington State. His career was blossoming in the field of Native Law.
After VISTA, when we both had jobs, with combined salaries of $60,000 per year rather than $7,200, we moved into 2102 Forest Park Dr. The previous owners were kind enough to give it to us as a 6 month rent to own. We had 6 months to come up with $10,000 for the down payment! We just lived like VISTA volunteers for another 6 months and saved that amount of money!
I worked as the Asst Director until I got pregnant with Aaron, so until about the summer of 1978. After Aaron was born, I worked at the Ombudsman’s office part-time and brought Aaron to work in a little basket thing. Then I got a more permanent part-time job at the Office of Consumer Affairs, in the Attorney General’s office. I shared a job. I worked there for awhile, and then got fired. My supervisor was on vacation, and while she was gone, I apparently calculated some figures for a case that were wrong and the attorneys used them and got screwed. I was given a really old manual calculator you had to hand crank with no paper trail and it made mistakes all the time, but I did my best. I think they didn’t like the idea of job sharing either because the attorneys didn’t know who was working on what and when and where, and it made it difficult for them and difficult to supervise two people instead of just one. Anyway, as soon as Connie got back from her trip, I was called into the office and fired. I didn’t protest it or anything, but wish I did. But I was happy to not have to work.
After Aaron was born I went to a group called MotherShare. We met at least weekly with our babies and helped each other out. During that time I saw someone who made a big sack for her kid to go over the Gerry Backpack. She made it out of quilted material. I thought that was a great idea. I went home and tried to make one myself. I designed it much better, put pockets for bottles and baby food, adjusted it for the backpack’s stand, and added a hood. I started to make these for other people, and eventually received a patent and trademark “Babycase” and packaged it with a picture of David and Aaron. I did that for 5 years, still after Andy was born, and even went to Colorado to see if the Gerry Co would buy the patent. I set $30,000 as the price, but they were very nice, showed us around the factory, but didn’t buy it. I never saw anything like it, so they didn’t steal it either. I eventually sold the patent and patterns for $2,000 to a woman in Seattle whose husband was a doctor. I never saw one she made or knew if she did anything with it. I made several trips to Seattle to buy fabric ends at a fabric company and also bought wholesale thread and scissors. I paid for my sewing machine and trips and patent and materials from the Babycases I sold, to stores in Seattle, and Anchorage, and by myself. The price was $40.00 which was pretty high back then, but I still sold about 600 of them, mostly ones I made myself. I tried having someone else sew them once, but it didn’t work out.
During this time with young kids, I also worked as a bagger and eventually deli worker at Carr’s. I lost weight getting all that exercise pushing out carts for people. I could work at night and David would take care of the kids at home. It got to be too much and the deli supervisor was starting to suspect me of stealing. It was really this large woman who closed who once slipped in the cooler and claimed worker’s comp and damages.
I also once worked as a photographer at D and M photography which was on 7th ave where the big silver sky scraper is today. I took portraits, passport photos, did the darkroom work, and ran the store. Dick, the owner, wasn’t well. He latched on to a good looking man once who tried to get a job. He was a pathological liar. Dick gave him a car and loan and all sorts of stuff. He got engaged to the head of Personnel at the City of Anchorage. But he was a complete lie.
When we were in Fairbanks from 1982 to 1984 I didn’t work. We were renting our house and building the cabin and finishing the cabin in the summers and I had two small kids to take care of so I just did some babycases and was a Mom.
When we got back, David was asked to join a law firm from Seattle. He opened up their Anchorage office in that tall silver building on the 13th floor. Ziontz, Pirtle, Morrisett and something. Well six months after he was open, the law firm decided to split up because one of the partners wanted to move to Israel. So David had the choice of going with one of the firms or opening up his own office. I started looking at the numbers, and said that this was a gold mine and we should go in business for ourselves. So I became the office manager and did the books and some paralegal work and computer work. Back then it was a big deal to get our first fax machine. It was over $2,000. We only had one or two clients who had fax machines themselves, but we had too many faxes to take to a fax place, so we bought one. Computers were really expensive then too, over $2,000 and they had like 64mb of hard drive! We used 5 ¼ inch diskettes. You just had a C: prompt to start out with, and no color. We also bought a copy machine and then an office phone system which we put in our home in 1988. Dad hired an associate after awhile and we had a Secretary and me who did the filing and books and whatever else needed to be done. It was fun. I joined the Legal Administrator’s club in Anchorage, and even went to Chicago once for a Legal Administrator conference. I had to learn all about how to run a business, do all the business taxes and accounting (by hand in a ledger) and make sure we had all the insurances and leases and the legal book subscriptions, etc. David dictated everything and the Secretary had to transcribe it. I worked about 30 hours a week. We made lots of money and I kept the expenses down by watching everything and shopping carefully.
David’s practice became so busy and he had a big client, UIC, so David Wolf talked to him and offered him to join the firm of Copeland, Landye, Bennett and Wolf. Since then Mark Copeland quit suddenly, and David Wolf lost his biggest client and started another business and quit, so it is now Landye, Bennett and Blumstein. It has always been a thorn in David’s side that his name is not on the door, which it should be.
I started work as a Medical Technologist parttime at Alaska Hospital, then Humana. Then I got a full time job, but working the night shift. I was unable to get the sleep I needed and became very sick and had to quit.