He’d really prefer someone who’s been published.’ Because Welton gets out a magazine, his secretary has to be able to type and take shorthand, know all about insurance, be familiar with advertising and layouts, draw well enough to illustrate the magazine and be able to write and edit articles.
“Mary said, ‘Stop interrupting and you’ll find out. “I tried to keep my voice normal as I asked, ‘Just what have you told this Welton Brown I could do, Mary?’ Here’s the conversation that ensues after Mary announces to Betty that she’s volunteered her for a job “at the Western Insurance Company being private secretary to a perfectly darling man named Welton Brown”: It’s about Seattle during the Depression and Betty’s wacky family - they’re all back home, living with their chain-smoking, novel-reading, mild-mannered mother - which is headed up by the oldest sibling, Mary, and how Mary gets Betty, who is divorced with two young daughters, a succession of odd jobs for which Betty is completely and utterly unqualified. She’s perhaps best known as the author of “The Egg and I” (1945), the book that gave rise to the characters Ma and Pa Kettle.īut as the gap between the rich and the poor grows ever wider, the book I’m turning to again is called “Anybody Can Do Anything” (1950).
As popular in her day as David Sedaris - and every bit as funny - Betty MacDonald (1908-1958) retains a small but devoted following of which I’m a proud member.
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