Sunset (magazine)/Volume 31/A Secretary and Her Salary

by Will T. Kirk

A Secretary and Her Salary

MISS Fern Hobbs, age twenty-seven, is drawing the highest salary of any woman in public service in the United States. She is private secretary to Governor Oswald West at Oregon and receives $3000 a year. If she had secured her position through the manipulation of politics the telling about it would not be half so interesting; but she secured it because she earned it. She says she won the place because the governor is broad enough to employ a woman as readily as a man when she does the same work. All that he wants is results.

Born in Nebraska of early Puritan stock, at the age of six Miss Hobbs went to Salt Lake City, Utah, with her parents. There she lived for twelve years, finishing the high school. About that time her father met with serious financial reverses and she was compelled to make her own way and help support a brother and a sister. She came to Oregon and became governess in a wealthy home in Portland. She was ambitious. She wanted to get out into the

Miss Fern Hobbs, who is drawing the highest salary of any woman in public service in the United States. She is private secretary to Governor Oswald West of Oregon and receives a year. Incidentally, Miss Hobbs is an attorney, with a diploma from the law department of the Willamette University

commercial world, so she purchased a typewriter and a book on stenography and put in all her spare moments studying. It was not long until she obtained a position as private stenographer to the president of the Title Guarantee & Trust Company. While doing her office work she also kept house for her brother and sister, both of whom she was putting through school. Her ambition urged her toward further achievements, so she began the study of law, grasping the fundamentals so readily that her tutor gave her credit for being one of the brightest students in his class. While she was thus employed the bank failed, resulting in investigations and prosecutions. As confidante of the president of the bank she was in the thick of the financial storm, and she recalls the experience as one of the most trying of her life. But it was the loyalty and spirited defense of her employer during those turbulent weeks that opened the way for her to obtain her new $3000 position.

As a considerable sum of the state's common school fund was on deposit in the bank when it failed, Governor Chamberlain appointed Ben W. Olcott, now secretary of state, to represent the state in the investigation of the bank's affairs. When Olcott began to probe into the intimate papers and documents of the institution he met the open hostility of Miss Hobbs, who was then employed as stenographer to the bank's receiver. She did not hide her hatred of the men who were endeavoring to uncover illegal transactions on the part of her former employer. This loyalty caused Olcott to take particular notice of her and to make inquiries about her.

When the investigation was over Miss Hobbs was employed by the Ladd Estate Company. A little later Olcott became campaign manager for Oswald West, successful candidate for governor. Shortly before the time for the governor-elect to be inaugurated Olcott asked him if he had any one in View for his private stenographer. He had not, so Olcott told him he knew of a girl just suited for the position. Olcott sent for Miss Hobbs and on the day the governor took the oath of office she was presented to him. In the two years she served as his stenographer her mettle was put to the test in a number oi unusual ways and she proved so capable that when the governor appointed Ralph A. Watson, his private secretary, as corporation commissioner to administer the new "blue sky" law, he chose Miss Hobbs to succeed him. She took her new position on the third of June, being the first woman to serve as secretary to the governor in the history of the state. Then another laurel of success came to her. It was a diploma from the law department of the Willamette University. While at the capitol she had continued to give her law studies the time that most young women give to parties, halls and theaters. Yet she is young and girlish and a jolly companion, as proud of her success as can be, and is determined to "make good."

"I can't say how pleased I am" she said. "The money I make is not going to be spent for clothes and a good time; it is going to pay the mortgage. After that is out of the way then I can do just as I please." Will T. Kirk.