Return to Norwalk, Connecticut
We stayed in Akron for five years, before we once again pulled up stakes and moved back to Norwalk. This was between my Junior and Senior year of High School. Although I loved Norwalk, I was not happy to change school again that year. But I was returning to graduate with the kids I had gone to grade school with.
My senior year in Norwalk High School was a strange mixture of things. While I remembered many of the kids, they had grown, changed, and made new friends. As for academics, it was a mish-mash. Senior history at NHS was what I had had as a Junior in Ohio. I repeated it but that meant I never had a course in the other History. The same was true with Math.
The senior Math was a repeat of what I had had the previous year so it was a breeze. However, then came some stumbling blocks just before graduation. I had never had a Health Course, which was required for graduation. I was given the book to study and the exam. Fortunately, I passed. I think there was also some problem with my driver’s ed program, but that got fixed also. I graduated.
College
When in Ohio, I had planned to attend Akron University as a day student my next year. Being now in Connecticut, the college had to be re-evaluated. I ended up going to Cedar Crest College in Allentown, PA as a boarding student. I went as a Medical Technician student, but that sure wasn’t my field.
The summer after my first year at CCC, my father once again changed jobs and the family was moving back to Ohio. I balked. I had had enough of the moving and I wasn’t keen on going back to Cedar Crest. So I went out looking for a job and was hired by a dentist as a chair-side assistant. Unfortunately, I knew zip about dentistry, but he said he would teach me and he did. I worked that job for five years, lived in a women’s boarding house, and met my husband.
Married Life
Then I got married in Bedford, NY in May of 1955. My husband was 13 years older, but we were both competitive roller skaters, which is where we met. We had a lovely home in New Canaan, CT. A year later, my son, Richard Scott Holt, was born, and then we built another house back in the Norwalk area. I took a couple of years off from work, but when my son was three, I went back to work.
I took a job with Pitney Bowes in Stanford, CT. It was as an Accounts Receivable clerk and I found the beginning of my lifetime niche. This was before the days of computers, so all of the processing was manual. I loved the accounting, and it followed me the rest of my working life, into my computer years. It gave me the hands-on experience to allow me to design accounting systems later in life. Having worked Accounts Receivable was a positive attribute on my resume when it came to designing computer systems for these same corporate departments. I understood the work.
Exit Norwalk Connecticut
Also at the same time, my husband got a second job working as the Skating manager in a new facility called the Bollerskate. This was a combination bowling alley and roller skating rink. With both of us working full-time jobs, me taking care of a three-year-old and a house, and my husband working both days and nights, the marriage fell apart. I reluctantly went back to Ohio to be with my parents and start another new life.