Margaret Drew McCONNELL, (also known as "Dolly," "Babe.- "Precie," and finally settled down to my mother's nickname, "Madge") was born in New Orleans on February 14, 1902, and was a problem from the start. Mother had been suffering from severe pleurisy; they had tapped her lungs to draw water off, and I came into the world a puny wheezing mess. While we both recovered, Mother's health was never very good so every summer she and I would be shipped off, out of the humid heat of the city, to "the Pines" in Hammond or Covington, or to Bay St. Louis on the Gulf. Douglas and Britton stayed with Nanan and Ettie, as did Father. As I grew older Mother and I would sometimes be sent to Denver, Colorado, to stay with her brother and his family, the Cyrus King Drews, or to the Rockies where her sister, Mary King ("Mame") Drew had a summer cabin.
I have very little remembrance of my childhood in New Orleans. My schooling was frequently interrupted by sickness so I would be taken out for awhile and on my return would be put into the next grade whether I had earned it or not. Usually I hadn't, and as a result I have large gaps in my education, notably in fractions and decimals, the geography and history of the United States, that have never been completely filled.
After Mother's death, when Nanan had come to Los Angeles to take care of me, Father, Nanan and I moved to the West Adams district and I was put into a girls private school where I finished the elementary grades. At that stage, Father considered the possibility of returning to New Orleans, largely because of Nanan's acute homesickness, so she and I were sent south to see if the climate would permit me to live there again. It became quickly apparent that it would not; I had to be taken out of school and sent to "the pines" in Covington, to recover from my usual bronchial infection. This settled any possibility of my growing up a Southern belle, much to Nanan's chagrin, so back to California we came where it was soon found out I had contracted tuberculosis. This necessitated a half-year out of school in a relatively high area near L.A., known as Sunland, where with rest and Nanan's constant care I recovered.
On our return to civilization I entered Hollywood High School, graduating in 1921. The next step, following my brothers, was Berkeley and the University of California, where I completed my freshman and sophomore years. Father's death in January 1923 left a financial situation that required I leave school and find a job to support Nanan and myself. This I luckily did, through a sorority sister, and went to work in the Registrar's Office of what was then called the "Southern Branch" of the University of California, later U.C.L.A. No sooner had I started than it was discovered I had developed severe kidney problems, necessitating removal of the left kidney and a long convalescence. eventually I was able to return to the Registrar's Office, where I arranged a schedule that permitted me to take classes in hopes of finishing for my degree. (I never did receive it, despite four years of study, but to graduate I had in those days to have a full semester on campus and this I could never afford to take.)
My first marriage in 1928 to Carl L. Elver, whom I had met while he was a student at the Southern Branch, ended in divorce. In the summer of 1933 I took a two-week vacation trip though the Panama Canal to New York and stayed for 25 years! There I met and married an old flame from the Southern Branch, (Ormond Knox) Ladd Haystead, who had also married and divorced while living in Santa Fe, New Mexico, after leaving the campus.
Ladd and I lived in a "railroad" flat in New York City, meanwhile building a small home in the country 85 miles northwest of Manhattan in Ulster County. meanwhile we both worked in the Arthur Kudner Advertising Agency, where he was copywriter and I research assistant. In 1940 I got a job as secretary to Russell W. Davenport, managing editor of FORTUNE; Ladd continued with the agency until Pearl harbor when nothing would do but he must rush off and enlist in the U.S. Army. Much too old for any use as a regular G.I. he was assigned to Intelligence (G-2) -under cover of reporter to "Yank," the Armed Services newspaper, and in this guise was sent to the South Pacific for two years. Returning to New York, he was discharged and, much to my surprise, hired as the Farm Column Editor of FORTUNE, a specialty in agricultural "big business" having been certified by two books published before his entry into the service. (Because our editor-in-chief, Henry R. Luce, had issued an edict against nepotism, I never used the Haystead name but remained "Miss McConnell" for the 20 years of my employment at Time Inc.) Ladd remained with FORTUNE until 1947 when he left to free-lance, publishing six more books in his then-established field. (I meanwhile had written and published one children's book, "Bobo, the Barrage Balloon" during his absence in the South Pacific; on his return to authorship I edited and copyread his manuscripts as he completed them, which task with my own job left little time for creativity.) The three-room cabin in Ulster County grew to 19 rooms and this became our home although I maintained an apartment in the city, and the scene of much entertainment on weekends and vacations.
I had left FORTUNE to become Letters Department head for Time the Weekly News magazine in 1946; in 1950 I was moved to the corporate personnel department serving all the staffs, FORTUNE , Time, Life, Sports Illustrated, as well as the business sections, as Personnel Manager for Women. There I remained until 1960 when health reasons - again the old bronchial bugaboo - forced my retirement and return to California.
Ladd and I had separated and later divorced; his remarriage to one of the head researchers on Time did not work out and he returned to California, settling in the southern section of the state where his health deteriorated to serious extent and in, 1961 he died having had open-heart surgery to remove a growth from the heart and lung area.
I lived for the fifteen years following my departure from New York City in Berkeley and Oakland, part of that time working as assistant to the Chancellor on the Berkeley campus, doing research and writing speeches. It took two retirements more before I permanently left the campus to assume a life of idleness except for volunteer projects and some abortive attempts at writing.
In 1974, again pursued by bronchial problems, I moved to Southern California where the warm dry air seems to agree with me.
(Notes from: The McConnell's in California, by Margaret D. "Madge" McConnell)
Resume of Margaret D. McConnell:
CURRICULUM VITAE
Margaret D. McConnell
Home Address:
440 East 79th Street
Apartment 5-J
New York 21, New York
Phone: LEhigh 5-7092
Office Address:
Time Inc. 9 Rockefeller Plaza
New York 20, New York
Phone: Judson 6-1212
REASON FOR CHANGE:
I am moving back to California and wish to continue working there in some field where my experience and ability can be utilized. As to salary, I am open to any reasonable offer, since I will have a small annuity that will permit me to take a job at less pay than I have been getting at Time Inc.
EXPERIENCE IN TIME INC. - 1939 to present
Personnel Manager for Women - 1952 to present
- in charge of interviewing staff on all women's jobs for TIME, LIFE, SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, FORTUNE, ARCHITECTURAL FORUM, HOUSE & HOME. My two assistants and I see approximately 5,000 female applicants a year.
- recruiting at 10 major eastern colleges every year. This involves writing brochures and information bulletins about the training programs and other starting jobs in Time Inc., as well as interviewing several hundred students interested in Time Inc.
- directing Editorial Training Programs for young women qualified to go into research on TIME or LIFE; arranging assignments in various departments on each staff; holding progress interviews with each trainee at regular intervals
- counseling with department heads and employees on transfers, promotions, dismissals or other matters pertaining to performance on the Job
- making speeches at college career conferences, secretarial schools, radio and TV appearances
Head of Letters Department, TIME Magazine - 1946 to 1952
- in charge of 17-member staff who answer all mail addressed to the Editors of TIME
- screening of 800 to 1200 letters per week for inclusion in TIME's Letters Column
- editing answers to all letters, with special attention to public relations aspect
- writing top-policy letters for signature of TIME's Publisher
Assistant to Managing Editor, FORTUNE Magazine - 1939 to 1946
- "house mother" to secretarial and clerical staff, arranging for all supplies and office space; secretary to Scheduling Committee; copy reader and assistant in Proofroom; wrote FORTUNE's Wheel, an informal descriptive commentary of the features in each issue
ADVERTISING AGENCY EXPERIENCE - 1935 to 1939
Kudner Agency, Inc.
- secretary to vice president and copy chief; research assistant on consumer interviews and letters contests for Buick, Goodyear, National Distillers, Association of American Railroads and other accounts
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES - 1925 to 1935
Registrar's Office
- secretary to the Registrar
- secretary to the faculty Committee on Reinstatement, handling problems of student probation and dismissal for scholarship deficiencies. Arranged individual interviews with students and often with their parents to discuss the home situation, work schedule, financial pressures, eventual goals, and other aspects of the students' problem as a whole. Wrote all letters for committee members, followed up on each report, kept minutes, etc. etc.
Education:
Hollywood High School, California - graduated, 1921
University of California at Berkeley - 1921-23
University of Southern California, Los Angeles - 1923-24
University of California at Los Angeles, on part-time basis only - 1928-34
Business schools at Los Angeles and New York night sessions - 1925 and 1935
References at Time Inc.
Mr. Edward L. Rhett, Director of Personnel
Mr. James A. Linen, Vice President and Publisher, TIME
Mr. Ralph D. Paine, Jr., Vice President and Publisher, FORTUNE-ARCHITECTURAL FORUM
I have very little remembrance of my childhood in New Orleans. My schooling was frequently interrupted by sickness so I would be taken out for awhile and on my return would be put into the next grade whether I had earned it or not. Usually I hadn't, and as a result I have large gaps in my education, notably in fractions and decimals, the geography and history of the United States, that have never been completely filled.
After Mother's death, when Nanan had come to Los Angeles to take care of me, Father, Nanan and I moved to the West Adams district and I was put into a girls private school where I finished the elementary grades. At that stage, Father considered the possibility of returning to New Orleans, largely because of Nanan's acute homesickness, so she and I were sent south to see if the climate would permit me to live there again. It became quickly apparent that it would not; I had to be taken out of school and sent to "the pines" in Covington, to recover from my usual bronchial infection. This settled any possibility of my growing up a Southern belle, much to Nanan's chagrin, so back to California we came where it was soon found out I had contracted tuberculosis. This necessitated a half-year out of school in a relatively high area near L.A., known as Sunland, where with rest and Nanan's constant care I recovered.
On our return to civilization I entered Hollywood High School, graduating in 1921. The next step, following my brothers, was Berkeley and the University of California, where I completed my freshman and sophomore years. Father's death in January 1923 left a financial situation that required I leave school and find a job to support Nanan and myself. This I luckily did, through a sorority sister, and went to work in the Registrar's Office of what was then called the "Southern Branch" of the University of California, later U.C.L.A. No sooner had I started than it was discovered I had developed severe kidney problems, necessitating removal of the left kidney and a long convalescence. eventually I was able to return to the Registrar's Office, where I arranged a schedule that permitted me to take classes in hopes of finishing for my degree. (I never did receive it, despite four years of study, but to graduate I had in those days to have a full semester on campus and this I could never afford to take.)
My first marriage in 1928 to Carl L. Elver, whom I had met while he was a student at the Southern Branch, ended in divorce. In the summer of 1933 I took a two-week vacation trip though the Panama Canal to New York and stayed for 25 years! There I met and married an old flame from the Southern Branch, (Ormond Knox) Ladd Haystead, who had also married and divorced while living in Santa Fe, New Mexico, after leaving the campus.
Ladd and I lived in a "railroad" flat in New York City, meanwhile building a small home in the country 85 miles northwest of Manhattan in Ulster County. meanwhile we both worked in the Arthur Kudner Advertising Agency, where he was copywriter and I research assistant. In 1940 I got a job as secretary to Russell W. Davenport, managing editor of FORTUNE; Ladd continued with the agency until Pearl harbor when nothing would do but he must rush off and enlist in the U.S. Army. Much too old for any use as a regular G.I. he was assigned to Intelligence (G-2) -under cover of reporter to "Yank," the Armed Services newspaper, and in this guise was sent to the South Pacific for two years. Returning to New York, he was discharged and, much to my surprise, hired as the Farm Column Editor of FORTUNE, a specialty in agricultural "big business" having been certified by two books published before his entry into the service. (Because our editor-in-chief, Henry R. Luce, had issued an edict against nepotism, I never used the Haystead name but remained "Miss McConnell" for the 20 years of my employment at Time Inc.) Ladd remained with FORTUNE until 1947 when he left to free-lance, publishing six more books in his then-established field. (I meanwhile had written and published one children's book, "Bobo, the Barrage Balloon" during his absence in the South Pacific; on his return to authorship I edited and copyread his manuscripts as he completed them, which task with my own job left little time for creativity.) The three-room cabin in Ulster County grew to 19 rooms and this became our home although I maintained an apartment in the city, and the scene of much entertainment on weekends and vacations.
I had left FORTUNE to become Letters Department head for Time the Weekly News magazine in 1946; in 1950 I was moved to the corporate personnel department serving all the staffs, FORTUNE , Time, Life, Sports Illustrated, as well as the business sections, as Personnel Manager for Women. There I remained until 1960 when health reasons - again the old bronchial bugaboo - forced my retirement and return to California.
Ladd and I had separated and later divorced; his remarriage to one of the head researchers on Time did not work out and he returned to California, settling in the southern section of the state where his health deteriorated to serious extent and in, 1961 he died having had open-heart surgery to remove a growth from the heart and lung area.
I lived for the fifteen years following my departure from New York City in Berkeley and Oakland, part of that time working as assistant to the Chancellor on the Berkeley campus, doing research and writing speeches. It took two retirements more before I permanently left the campus to assume a life of idleness except for volunteer projects and some abortive attempts at writing.
In 1974, again pursued by bronchial problems, I moved to Southern California where the warm dry air seems to agree with me.
(Notes from: The McConnell's in California, by Margaret D. "Madge" McConnell)
Resume of Margaret D. McConnell:
CURRICULUM VITAE
Margaret D. McConnell
Home Address:
440 East 79th Street
Apartment 5-J
New York 21, New York
Phone: LEhigh 5-7092
Office Address:
Time Inc. 9 Rockefeller Plaza
New York 20, New York
Phone: Judson 6-1212
REASON FOR CHANGE:
I am moving back to California and wish to continue working there in some field where my experience and ability can be utilized. As to salary, I am open to any reasonable offer, since I will have a small annuity that will permit me to take a job at less pay than I have been getting at Time Inc.
EXPERIENCE IN TIME INC. - 1939 to present
Personnel Manager for Women - 1952 to present
- in charge of interviewing staff on all women's jobs for TIME, LIFE, SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, FORTUNE, ARCHITECTURAL FORUM, HOUSE & HOME. My two assistants and I see approximately 5,000 female applicants a year.
- recruiting at 10 major eastern colleges every year. This involves writing brochures and information bulletins about the training programs and other starting jobs in Time Inc., as well as interviewing several hundred students interested in Time Inc.
- directing Editorial Training Programs for young women qualified to go into research on TIME or LIFE; arranging assignments in various departments on each staff; holding progress interviews with each trainee at regular intervals
- counseling with department heads and employees on transfers, promotions, dismissals or other matters pertaining to performance on the Job
- making speeches at college career conferences, secretarial schools, radio and TV appearances
Head of Letters Department, TIME Magazine - 1946 to 1952
- in charge of 17-member staff who answer all mail addressed to the Editors of TIME
- screening of 800 to 1200 letters per week for inclusion in TIME's Letters Column
- editing answers to all letters, with special attention to public relations aspect
- writing top-policy letters for signature of TIME's Publisher
Assistant to Managing Editor, FORTUNE Magazine - 1939 to 1946
- "house mother" to secretarial and clerical staff, arranging for all supplies and office space; secretary to Scheduling Committee; copy reader and assistant in Proofroom; wrote FORTUNE's Wheel, an informal descriptive commentary of the features in each issue
ADVERTISING AGENCY EXPERIENCE - 1935 to 1939
Kudner Agency, Inc.
- secretary to vice president and copy chief; research assistant on consumer interviews and letters contests for Buick, Goodyear, National Distillers, Association of American Railroads and other accounts
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES - 1925 to 1935
Registrar's Office
- secretary to the Registrar
- secretary to the faculty Committee on Reinstatement, handling problems of student probation and dismissal for scholarship deficiencies. Arranged individual interviews with students and often with their parents to discuss the home situation, work schedule, financial pressures, eventual goals, and other aspects of the students' problem as a whole. Wrote all letters for committee members, followed up on each report, kept minutes, etc. etc.
Education:
Hollywood High School, California - graduated, 1921
University of California at Berkeley - 1921-23
University of Southern California, Los Angeles - 1923-24
University of California at Los Angeles, on part-time basis only - 1928-34
Business schools at Los Angeles and New York night sessions - 1925 and 1935
References at Time Inc.
Mr. Edward L. Rhett, Director of Personnel
Mr. James A. Linen, Vice President and Publisher, TIME
Mr. Ralph D. Paine, Jr., Vice President and Publisher, FORTUNE-ARCHITECTURAL FORUM
Margaret Drew McCONNELL, (also known as "Dolly," "Babe.- "Precie," and finally settled down to my mother's nickname, "Madge") was born in New Orleans on February 14, 1902, and was a problem from the start. Mother had been suffering from severe pleurisy; they had tapped her lungs to draw water off, and I came into the world a puny wheezing mess. While we both recovered, Mother's health was never very good so every summer she and I would be shipped off, out of the humid heat of the city, to "the Pines" in Hammond or Covington, or to Bay St. Louis on the Gulf. Douglas and Britton stayed with Nanan and Ettie, as did Father. As I grew older Mother and I would sometimes be sent to Denver, Colorado, to stay with her brother and his family, the Cyrus King Drews, or to the Rockies where her sister, Mary King ("Mame") Drew had a summer cabin.
I have very little remembrance of my childhood in New Orleans. My schooling was frequently interrupted by sickness so I would be taken out for awhile and on my return would be put into the next grade whether I had earned it or not. Usually I hadn't, and as a result I have large gaps in my education, notably in fractions and decimals, the geography and history of the United States, that have never been completely filled.
After Mother's death, when Nanan had come to Los Angeles to take care of me, Father, Nanan and I moved to the West Adams district and I was put into a girls private school where I finished the elementary grades. At that stage, Father considered the possibility of returning to New Orleans, largely because of Nanan's acute homesickness, so she and I were sent south to see if the climate would permit me to live there again. It became quickly apparent that it would not; I had to be taken out of school and sent to "the pines" in Covington, to recover from my usual bronchial infection. This settled any possibility of my growing up a Southern belle, much to Nanan's chagrin, so back to California we came where it was soon found out I had contracted tuberculosis. This necessitated a half-year out of school in a relatively high area near L.A., known as Sunland, where with rest and Nanan's constant care I recovered.
On our return to civilization I entered Hollywood High School, graduating in 1921. The next step, following my brothers, was Berkeley and the University of California, where I completed my freshman and sophomore years. Father's death in January 1923 left a financial situation that required I leave school and find a job to support Nanan and myself. This I luckily did, through a sorority sister, and went to work in the Registrar's Office of what was then called the "Southern Branch" of the University of California, later U.C.L.A. No sooner had I started than it was discovered I had developed severe kidney problems, necessitating removal of the left kidney and a long convalescence. eventually I was able to return to the Registrar's Office, where I arranged a schedule that permitted me to take classes in hopes of finishing for my degree. (I never did receive it, despite four years of study, but to graduate I had in those days to have a full semester on campus and this I could never afford to take.)
My first marriage in 1928 to Carl L. Elver, whom I had met while he was a student at the Southern Branch, ended in divorce. In the summer of 1933 I took a two-week vacation trip though the Panama Canal to New York and stayed for 25 years! There I met and married an old flame from the Southern Branch, (Ormond Knox) Ladd Haystead, who had also married and divorced while living in Santa Fe, New Mexico, after leaving the campus.
Ladd and I lived in a "railroad" flat in New York City, meanwhile building a small home in the country 85 miles northwest of Manhattan in Ulster County. meanwhile we both worked in the Arthur Kudner Advertising Agency, where he was copywriter and I research assistant. In 1940 I got a job as secretary to Russell W. Davenport, managing editor of FORTUNE; Ladd continued with the agency until Pearl harbor when nothing would do but he must rush off and enlist in the U.S. Army. Much too old for any use as a regular G.I. he was assigned to Intelligence (G-2) -under cover of reporter to "Yank," the Armed Services newspaper, and in this guise was sent to the South Pacific for two years. Returning to New York, he was discharged and, much to my surprise, hired as the Farm Column Editor of FORTUNE, a specialty in agricultural "big business" having been certified by two books published before his entry into the service. (Because our editor-in-chief, Henry R. Luce, had issued an edict against nepotism, I never used the Haystead name but remained "Miss McConnell" for the 20 years of my employment at Time Inc.) Ladd remained with FORTUNE until 1947 when he left to free-lance, publishing six more books in his then-established field. (I meanwhile had written and published one children's book, "Bobo, the Barrage Balloon" during his absence in the South Pacific; on his return to authorship I edited and copyread his manuscripts as he completed them, which task with my own job left little time for creativity.) The three-room cabin in Ulster County grew to 19 rooms and this became our home although I maintained an apartment in the city, and the scene of much entertainment on weekends and vacations.
I had left FORTUNE to become Letters Department head for Time the Weekly News magazine in 1946; in 1950 I was moved to the corporate personnel department serving all the staffs, FORTUNE , Time, Life, Sports Illustrated, as well as the business sections, as Personnel Manager for Women. There I remained until 1960 when health reasons - again the old bronchial bugaboo - forced my retirement and return to California.
Ladd and I had separated and later divorced; his remarriage to one of the head researchers on Time did not work out and he returned to California, settling in the southern section of the state where his health deteriorated to serious extent and in, 1961 he died having had open-heart surgery to remove a growth from the heart and lung area.
I lived for the fifteen years following my departure from New York City in Berkeley and Oakland, part of that time working as assistant to the Chancellor on the Berkeley campus, doing research and writing speeches. It took two retirements more before I permanently left the campus to assume a life of idleness except for volunteer projects and some abortive attempts at writing.
In 1974, again pursued by bronchial problems, I moved to Southern California where the warm dry air seems to agree with me.
(Notes from: The McConnell's in California, by Margaret D. "Madge" McConnell)
Resume of Margaret D. McConnell:
CURRICULUM VITAE
Margaret D. McConnell
Home Address:
440 East 79th Street
Apartment 5-J
New York 21, New York
Phone: LEhigh 5-7092
Office Address:
Time Inc. 9 Rockefeller Plaza
New York 20, New York
Phone: Judson 6-1212
REASON FOR CHANGE:
I am moving back to California and wish to continue working there in some field where my experience and ability can be utilized. As to salary, I am open to any reasonable offer, since I will have a small annuity that will permit me to take a job at less pay than I have been getting at Time Inc.
EXPERIENCE IN TIME INC. - 1939 to present
Personnel Manager for Women - 1952 to present
- in charge of interviewing staff on all women's jobs for TIME, LIFE, SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, FORTUNE, ARCHITECTURAL FORUM, HOUSE & HOME. My two assistants and I see approximately 5,000 female applicants a year.
- recruiting at 10 major eastern colleges every year. This involves writing brochures and information bulletins about the training programs and other starting jobs in Time Inc., as well as interviewing several hundred students interested in Time Inc.
- directing Editorial Training Programs for young women qualified to go into research on TIME or LIFE; arranging assignments in various departments on each staff; holding progress interviews with each trainee at regular intervals
- counseling with department heads and employees on transfers, promotions, dismissals or other matters pertaining to performance on the Job
- making speeches at college career conferences, secretarial schools, radio and TV appearances
Head of Letters Department, TIME Magazine - 1946 to 1952
- in charge of 17-member staff who answer all mail addressed to the Editors of TIME
- screening of 800 to 1200 letters per week for inclusion in TIME's Letters Column
- editing answers to all letters, with special attention to public relations aspect
- writing top-policy letters for signature of TIME's Publisher
Assistant to Managing Editor, FORTUNE Magazine - 1939 to 1946
- "house mother" to secretarial and clerical staff, arranging for all supplies and office space; secretary to Scheduling Committee; copy reader and assistant in Proofroom; wrote FORTUNE's Wheel, an informal descriptive commentary of the features in each issue
ADVERTISING AGENCY EXPERIENCE - 1935 to 1939
Kudner Agency, Inc.
- secretary to vice president and copy chief; research assistant on consumer interviews and letters contests for Buick, Goodyear, National Distillers, Association of American Railroads and other accounts
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES - 1925 to 1935
Registrar's Office
- secretary to the Registrar
- secretary to the faculty Committee on Reinstatement, handling problems of student probation and dismissal for scholarship deficiencies. Arranged individual interviews with students and often with their parents to discuss the home situation, work schedule, financial pressures, eventual goals, and other aspects of the students' problem as a whole. Wrote all letters for committee members, followed up on each report, kept minutes, etc. etc.
Education:
Hollywood High School, California - graduated, 1921
University of California at Berkeley - 1921-23
University of Southern California, Los Angeles - 1923-24
University of California at Los Angeles, on part-time basis only - 1928-34
Business schools at Los Angeles and New York night sessions - 1925 and 1935
References at Time Inc.
Mr. Edward L. Rhett, Director of Personnel
Mr. James A. Linen, Vice President and Publisher, TIME
Mr. Ralph D. Paine, Jr., Vice President and Publisher, FORTUNE-ARCHITECTURAL FORUM
I have very little remembrance of my childhood in New Orleans. My schooling was frequently interrupted by sickness so I would be taken out for awhile and on my return would be put into the next grade whether I had earned it or not. Usually I hadn't, and as a result I have large gaps in my education, notably in fractions and decimals, the geography and history of the United States, that have never been completely filled.
After Mother's death, when Nanan had come to Los Angeles to take care of me, Father, Nanan and I moved to the West Adams district and I was put into a girls private school where I finished the elementary grades. At that stage, Father considered the possibility of returning to New Orleans, largely because of Nanan's acute homesickness, so she and I were sent south to see if the climate would permit me to live there again. It became quickly apparent that it would not; I had to be taken out of school and sent to "the pines" in Covington, to recover from my usual bronchial infection. This settled any possibility of my growing up a Southern belle, much to Nanan's chagrin, so back to California we came where it was soon found out I had contracted tuberculosis. This necessitated a half-year out of school in a relatively high area near L.A., known as Sunland, where with rest and Nanan's constant care I recovered.
On our return to civilization I entered Hollywood High School, graduating in 1921. The next step, following my brothers, was Berkeley and the University of California, where I completed my freshman and sophomore years. Father's death in January 1923 left a financial situation that required I leave school and find a job to support Nanan and myself. This I luckily did, through a sorority sister, and went to work in the Registrar's Office of what was then called the "Southern Branch" of the University of California, later U.C.L.A. No sooner had I started than it was discovered I had developed severe kidney problems, necessitating removal of the left kidney and a long convalescence. eventually I was able to return to the Registrar's Office, where I arranged a schedule that permitted me to take classes in hopes of finishing for my degree. (I never did receive it, despite four years of study, but to graduate I had in those days to have a full semester on campus and this I could never afford to take.)
My first marriage in 1928 to Carl L. Elver, whom I had met while he was a student at the Southern Branch, ended in divorce. In the summer of 1933 I took a two-week vacation trip though the Panama Canal to New York and stayed for 25 years! There I met and married an old flame from the Southern Branch, (Ormond Knox) Ladd Haystead, who had also married and divorced while living in Santa Fe, New Mexico, after leaving the campus.
Ladd and I lived in a "railroad" flat in New York City, meanwhile building a small home in the country 85 miles northwest of Manhattan in Ulster County. meanwhile we both worked in the Arthur Kudner Advertising Agency, where he was copywriter and I research assistant. In 1940 I got a job as secretary to Russell W. Davenport, managing editor of FORTUNE; Ladd continued with the agency until Pearl harbor when nothing would do but he must rush off and enlist in the U.S. Army. Much too old for any use as a regular G.I. he was assigned to Intelligence (G-2) -under cover of reporter to "Yank," the Armed Services newspaper, and in this guise was sent to the South Pacific for two years. Returning to New York, he was discharged and, much to my surprise, hired as the Farm Column Editor of FORTUNE, a specialty in agricultural "big business" having been certified by two books published before his entry into the service. (Because our editor-in-chief, Henry R. Luce, had issued an edict against nepotism, I never used the Haystead name but remained "Miss McConnell" for the 20 years of my employment at Time Inc.) Ladd remained with FORTUNE until 1947 when he left to free-lance, publishing six more books in his then-established field. (I meanwhile had written and published one children's book, "Bobo, the Barrage Balloon" during his absence in the South Pacific; on his return to authorship I edited and copyread his manuscripts as he completed them, which task with my own job left little time for creativity.) The three-room cabin in Ulster County grew to 19 rooms and this became our home although I maintained an apartment in the city, and the scene of much entertainment on weekends and vacations.
I had left FORTUNE to become Letters Department head for Time the Weekly News magazine in 1946; in 1950 I was moved to the corporate personnel department serving all the staffs, FORTUNE , Time, Life, Sports Illustrated, as well as the business sections, as Personnel Manager for Women. There I remained until 1960 when health reasons - again the old bronchial bugaboo - forced my retirement and return to California.
Ladd and I had separated and later divorced; his remarriage to one of the head researchers on Time did not work out and he returned to California, settling in the southern section of the state where his health deteriorated to serious extent and in, 1961 he died having had open-heart surgery to remove a growth from the heart and lung area.
I lived for the fifteen years following my departure from New York City in Berkeley and Oakland, part of that time working as assistant to the Chancellor on the Berkeley campus, doing research and writing speeches. It took two retirements more before I permanently left the campus to assume a life of idleness except for volunteer projects and some abortive attempts at writing.
In 1974, again pursued by bronchial problems, I moved to Southern California where the warm dry air seems to agree with me.
(Notes from: The McConnell's in California, by Margaret D. "Madge" McConnell)
Resume of Margaret D. McConnell:
CURRICULUM VITAE
Margaret D. McConnell
Home Address:
440 East 79th Street
Apartment 5-J
New York 21, New York
Phone: LEhigh 5-7092
Office Address:
Time Inc. 9 Rockefeller Plaza
New York 20, New York
Phone: Judson 6-1212
REASON FOR CHANGE:
I am moving back to California and wish to continue working there in some field where my experience and ability can be utilized. As to salary, I am open to any reasonable offer, since I will have a small annuity that will permit me to take a job at less pay than I have been getting at Time Inc.
EXPERIENCE IN TIME INC. - 1939 to present
Personnel Manager for Women - 1952 to present
- in charge of interviewing staff on all women's jobs for TIME, LIFE, SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, FORTUNE, ARCHITECTURAL FORUM, HOUSE & HOME. My two assistants and I see approximately 5,000 female applicants a year.
- recruiting at 10 major eastern colleges every year. This involves writing brochures and information bulletins about the training programs and other starting jobs in Time Inc., as well as interviewing several hundred students interested in Time Inc.
- directing Editorial Training Programs for young women qualified to go into research on TIME or LIFE; arranging assignments in various departments on each staff; holding progress interviews with each trainee at regular intervals
- counseling with department heads and employees on transfers, promotions, dismissals or other matters pertaining to performance on the Job
- making speeches at college career conferences, secretarial schools, radio and TV appearances
Head of Letters Department, TIME Magazine - 1946 to 1952
- in charge of 17-member staff who answer all mail addressed to the Editors of TIME
- screening of 800 to 1200 letters per week for inclusion in TIME's Letters Column
- editing answers to all letters, with special attention to public relations aspect
- writing top-policy letters for signature of TIME's Publisher
Assistant to Managing Editor, FORTUNE Magazine - 1939 to 1946
- "house mother" to secretarial and clerical staff, arranging for all supplies and office space; secretary to Scheduling Committee; copy reader and assistant in Proofroom; wrote FORTUNE's Wheel, an informal descriptive commentary of the features in each issue
ADVERTISING AGENCY EXPERIENCE - 1935 to 1939
Kudner Agency, Inc.
- secretary to vice president and copy chief; research assistant on consumer interviews and letters contests for Buick, Goodyear, National Distillers, Association of American Railroads and other accounts
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES - 1925 to 1935
Registrar's Office
- secretary to the Registrar
- secretary to the faculty Committee on Reinstatement, handling problems of student probation and dismissal for scholarship deficiencies. Arranged individual interviews with students and often with their parents to discuss the home situation, work schedule, financial pressures, eventual goals, and other aspects of the students' problem as a whole. Wrote all letters for committee members, followed up on each report, kept minutes, etc. etc.
Education:
Hollywood High School, California - graduated, 1921
University of California at Berkeley - 1921-23
University of Southern California, Los Angeles - 1923-24
University of California at Los Angeles, on part-time basis only - 1928-34
Business schools at Los Angeles and New York night sessions - 1925 and 1935
References at Time Inc.
Mr. Edward L. Rhett, Director of Personnel
Mr. James A. Linen, Vice President and Publisher, TIME
Mr. Ralph D. Paine, Jr., Vice President and Publisher, FORTUNE-ARCHITECTURAL FORUM
