July 11, 1918 - Education

Since June 24 Mary has been training to master the Comptometer, an adding machine.  On June 26 she comments: "I haven't had much schooling...."  By today, still training on the Comptometer, she struggles with division:  "Well I had an awful time trying to understand it.  That's the worst part of being stupid."  And: "Education didn't get me anything."

According to the 1940 census where the question was asked about the highest grade of school completed, Mary indicated 8th grade.  Yet her sisters, Nora, Gertrude, Kathleen and Marguerite, all living together in the same house as in 1918, had all completed high school.  Brother Vincent completed two years of high school.

The four sisters never married and over the years the oldest three worked as bookkeepers, secretaries and stenographers, except Marguerite who seemed always to be the family housekeeper.

According to The National Center for Education Statistics, in 1920 the median number of years of school completed by those 25 years of age and older was 8.2, so Mary was not unusual.  Whether the difference in her educational achievement compared to her siblings was because of a learning disability or the coincidental death of her sister Florence in 1914 around the time Mary would have been entering high school is unknown.