Concord College of Business
How better to come to know my mother, before she was my mother, than through the papers she left behind. In them, I begin to see who she was becoming—the thoughts she carried, the paths she chose, and the quiet decisions that would one day shape my own life.
When I look at this certificate dated June 25, 1937, I don’t see just a course completed, I see my mother at the beginning of her life as an adult.
My mother graduated high school at sixteen and she didn’t pause. The next step was the Concord College of Business, a place not for theory or exploration, but for purpose. At seventeen, she was already preparing for the world.
The certificate reads that she completed the theory and practice for the Library Bureau course in Indexing and Filing and that she passed the test for speed and accuracy. Precision and discipline were the foundation of my mother’s life.
I imagine her in a classroom, with other young women, learning the systems that would allow her to step into the office life where she would eventually spend over fifty years of her life.
This was 1937, the country was feeling the weight of the Great Depression. Opportunities were not taken for granted by my mother. She prepared and she learned something that would matter for her employment.
Knowing the life my mother led, there is something so special about holding this certificate she earned at just seventeen. So young, and yet already stepping into her future.
Organized. Capable. Reliable.
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A Wartime Marriage
This is the marriage certificate of my parents, Roger Edward Watson and Mary Elizabeth Hannigan. They were married on May 3, 1944, at Saint John the Evangelist Church in Concord, New Hampshire, while my father was home on leave during World War II. My father came from West Virginia, while my mother had grown up […]
A Wedding Reception at Home
Another invitation my mother saved takes us to October 10, 1942, when Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Henderson invited guests to the wedding reception of their daughter, Edith Louise, and Mr. C. William Blakey. The reception was to begin at 12:30 in the afternoon at the Henderson family home at Seven Lake Street in West Concord, […]
A Glimpse of My Mother at Fourteen
A ChildNovember 14, 1936 Among my mother’s papers was this handwritten school assignment, completed when she was fourteen years old. The poem, titled A Child, received the handwritten comment “Splendid” from her teacher, along with the date, November 14, 1936. I was struck not only by her beautiful penmanship but also by the values expressed in […]
