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Town Honors Woman Who Worked as Legal Secretary for 63 Years

By Lynne DeVenny

The Town of Middleboro, Massachusetts actually recently honored Muriel Howard, 104, as its oldest resident. But what I found notable about her life is that Howard worked as a legal secretary for over 60 years - and started her legal career while she was still a teenager.

Mrs. Howard began her career as a legal secretary at 17, working for [the late Fletcher] Clark on the second floor of what are now town offices in the Bank Building at the corner of South Main and Center streets. She continued with the law firm after Mr. Clark's death, climbing the stairs to the law offices each day for 63 years.

Born on January 10, 1906, this means Howard's legal secretarial career spanned the years from approximately 1923 to 1986.

Here's a picture of an early No. 4 or No. 5 Underwood typewriter, made anytime from 1923 to 1931:

I bet Howard has some wonderful tales to share from her many years in the legal profession, including witnessing the evolution of office technology from manual typewriters to the introduction of MS-DOS and WordPerfect 1.0 in the early 80s.

Sources: SouthCoastToday.com; Wikipedia

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Full post as published by Practical Paralegalism on June 19, 2010 (boomark / email).