Community Chat

[Financialgrl]

---

@tends2dogs wrote:

Thanks to all!!  Yes it does make sense......in a way.  My mom (the one who wrote this) began working at the bank when she was sixteen.  She retired (forced out) when she was 70.  She took a brief time out when my sister and I were teenagers.  She felt it was more important to keep an eye on girls with boyfriends LOL.  Anyway, the note is dated 1968.  I would have been 15.  I wonder if this is when she returned to the bank???  It is fuzzy to my sister and I, and alas, my mom is no longer with us......dad either .  No one to ask anymore.

BTW my parents lived to be 87 and 84, respectively.  I MISS them everyday and there is SO much I still want to ask and tell them.

Thanks again!

(I thought for sure it said "I love you")

---

OP:  As someone said, I'd also keep this.   Mom died over 45 years ago, dad 4 years ago.  Dad threw out NOTHING.  He lived with me in a large home I bought when he could no longer live alone.  After he died, I took a year clearing out file cabinets and all his stuff.  Tossed TONS of stuff out - but in and among all this I found family treasures (dad's baptismal certification from early 1900s, he and his father's honorable discharges from the armed services, my parents' wedding - which was huge cuz their families were very poor and so they planned a small wedding for just the two of them - arranged to drive to another state to a beautiful very old large church where they'd made an appt to be married.).   They stayed in this little scenic town for a week but had few pics.  I'd found 2 pics apparently taken by someone in the church that day and mom wore a white lacy dress and dad a suit.  Chose to do a wedding their way and it looked beautiful. 

I memorialized some of what I found - bought 3 very small plastic containers and put all the sentimental family stuff in there and have marked it "Family Keepsakes".  I, as the oldest, keep it in my walk in closet and told my family when I die, pass it down to the next sibling to hold and keep.  So much I'd found were things I'd have loved to ask questions about when one or both parents were alive but sadly it'd always been stored in boxes in top of closets for years. 

[HULAGIRL]

Back to work at the bank!!

[bettyboop33]

I have a shorthand dictionary which I  bought in school when I was a Junior in HS.  (back in 1962)  and I still have it.   It is words followed by the symbol, no definitions.

According to that the 3rd symbol, read as rk is a brief form for the word work.

[tends2dogs]

@Financialgrl Thank you for responding.  Also, thank you for your trip down memory lane.  These keepsakes are sweet snippets of time and events that are what made up our parents and loved ones.  Oh, to have one more day with them.....so many questions.......so  many hugs and kisses.

[LilacTree]

---

@tends2dogs wrote:

---

@LilacTree wrote:

I learned Gregg in high school and used it in every job until the advent of computers.  Once I had a word processing program at my desk, my bosses would sit down next to me and dictate and I would type as they talked and have the letter printed out as soon as they finished.  They read it, signed it, and I put it in the office mailbox.  Rarely did this process take longer than 10 or 15 minutes.

Compare this to sitting in their offices taking dictation and then having to type it all out for them to read, and usually they were by then on to something else and the letter would sit on their desks for sometimes days before they got around to reading it . . . and then they would want to change it, and I would have to sit and take dictation again . . . and round and round we would go.  Sometimes it took a week to get a letter (or report) out of an office.  I always worked for professionals (lawyers, accountants, doctors, etc., the laziest people on earth).  At least the doctors would dictate to tape and I could type from that.

That said, I still remember steno and until my writing hand got bad, used to use it occasionally for quick notes. 

One of the lost "arts." 

---

So, @LilacTree, what do you say it says?  You called it a lost art.  I agree..... it is pretty to look at.  My mother had beautiful penmanship until she got Parkinsons.  Boy, that disease does a number on your writing.......not to mention a lot of other things.

---

@tends2dogs

I think it says "back to work with the bank."  Most think it's "at the bank," and that could be correct also.

So sorry about your mom.  I also think that disease is worse than RA, which is what I have.  It has disfigured my right hand.

[LilacTree]

---

@Financialgrl wrote:

---

@tends2dogs wrote:

Thanks to all!!  Yes it does make sense......in a way.  My mom (the one who wrote this) began working at the bank when she was sixteen.  She retired (forced out) when she was 70.  She took a brief time out when my sister and I were teenagers.  She felt it was more important to keep an eye on girls with boyfriends LOL.  Anyway, the note is dated 1968.  I would have been 15.  I wonder if this is when she returned to the bank???  It is fuzzy to my sister and I, and alas, my mom is no longer with us......dad either .  No one to ask anymore.

BTW my parents lived to be 87 and 84, respectively.  I MISS them everyday and there is SO much I still want to ask and tell them.

Thanks again!

(I thought for sure it said "I love you")

---

OP:  As someone said, I'd also keep this.   Mom died over 45 years ago, dad 4 years ago.  Dad threw out NOTHING.  He lived with me in a large home I bought when he could no longer live alone.  After he died, I took a year clearing out file cabinets and all his stuff.  Tossed TONS of stuff out - but in and among all this I found family treasures (dad's baptismal certification from early 1900s, he and his father's honorable discharges from the armed services, my parents' wedding - which was huge cuz their families were very poor and so they planned a small wedding for just the two of them - arranged to drive to another state to a beautiful very old large church where they'd made an appt to be married.).   They stayed in this little scenic town for a week but had few pics.  I'd found 2 pics apparently taken by someone in the church that day and mom wore a white lacy dress and dad a suit.  Chose to do a wedding their way and it looked beautiful. 

I memorialized some of what I found - bought 3 very small plastic containers and put all the sentimental family stuff in there and have marked it "Family Keepsakes".  I, as the oldest, keep it in my walk in closet and told my family when I die, pass it down to the next sibling to hold and keep.  So much I'd found were things I'd have loved to ask questions about when one or both parents were alive but sadly it'd always been stored in boxes in top of closets for years. 

---

@Financialgrl

So sad . . . but lovely what you did.

[LilacTree]

---

@kivah wrote:

I worked as a stenographer for most of my career and I know Pitman - studied it in Brooklyn, NY. If this is Pitman, the 2nd word looks like "rather than"; 3rd word looks like "name"; 4th word looks like "highly". The 1st and 5th words look similar - but not exactly the same. 

Do u know who wrote it and where they grew up? People on the east coast learned Pitman (English version) and most of the rest of the US were taught Gregg.

Gregg shorthand doesn't have dark and light strokes (all the same) and is usually written with a pen.

Pitman has dark and light strokes, has dots and dashes and other symbols to show how to pronounce the words and is usually writeen on a lined-pad. When someone knows shorthand well --- they can make up their own short-cuts which makes it more difficult to read.

It could be Gregg.

---

@kivah

I lived and went to school in NJ.  We were taught Gregg in our high school, not Pitman.  I remember the steno books were lined differently, wider for Pitman and narrower for Gregg.  I don't think I could read Pitman.  What is shown here is definitely Gregg.

[tends2dogs]

@LilacTree  I think if we live long enough, we are going to become challenged with something.  My uncle had RA.  He began getting it in his 20's.  His hands were so disfigured, but he persevered and did most everything he wanted to do.....just found a way to do it!  Thanks for answering.

[tends2dogs]

@LilacTree  After reading your post again, you said you read it "with the bank" rather than "at the bank".  "With" makes more sense to me as far as my mom goes........she felt she was part of the bank rather than it just being a job.  Just thinking out loud....

[LilacTree]

---

@tends2dogs wrote:

@LilacTree  I think if we live long enough, we are going to become challenged with something.  My uncle had RA.  He began getting it in his 20's.  His hands were so disfigured, but he persevered and did most everything he wanted to do.....just found a way to do it!  Thanks for answering.

---

@tends2dogs

I was lucky to get RA late in life (diagnosed at 66).  I don't even remember when my right hand became so deformed, it seemed to happen overnight.  I have read that it mostly affects the dominant hand (I am a righty) but it will eventually affect the other hand also.  I suppose I will have to deal with that when it comes.  So far the inflammation comes and goes with that hand.

Now I am able to do most things, but I can't grasp items like pencils, pens, and I break a lot of things because they slip out of my hand so easily.  So typing, which I have done all of my life (since high school) is something I can still do with my right hand because it doesn't involve grasping and holding tightly.

My RA is whole body though.  I can't make a bed, vacuum, sit and get up without help, climb stairs, etc.  Most of my pain is in my back from vertebral compressions.  Fatigue and exhaustion is the effect I hate the most, and that is every day.

Yes, as you age, you deal with whatever comes.  I consider myself lucky to have had many healthy years.  To get it so young as your uncle did is tragic.