Las Sabinas, Volume 17, Number 2, April 1991 Page: 53
[6], 78 p. : ill. ; 28 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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from the Orange Leader May 26, 1985
TIMES CHANGE, BOND REMAINS BETWEEN OLD BANK EMPLOYEES.
by Linda Farris, Lifestyles Editor
The age of computers was still many years away when
Elsie Ritter, Edna Stanbrough, Dorothy Meadows, Barbra Mouton,
Martha Armstrong, Virginia Johnston, Ann Tyus, Jerry Harmon,
Betty Jim Herring and their friends started work at the old
First National Bank at the corner of Fifth and Front streets.
But business was booming in Orange with thousands of
servicemen and shipyard workers arriving daily. World War II
was raging and young Orange County men "were going off to
service"; women were being hired to take their places.
Mrs. Armstrong recalled that Shon Hudson, a bank
employee at the beginning of the war, left for his tour of
duty the same month that she began working at the bank -
March, 1942. Her starting bank salary was $50 a month.
Hudson, of course, returned to the bank following the
war and advanced through the ranks to serve as president
and vice chairman of the board of directors before retiring
in 1984.
"The work was slower then (in the 1940s) but we worked
together, staying until everyone balanced. Sometimes we worked
very late," Mrs. Armstrong said.
She kept a diary of the times, noting that by July 20,
1942, Consolidated Steel - with its lucrative government
contracts - employed 14,000 persons. When paychecks were
issued at Consolidated, located at the east end of Front
Avenue, lines stretched down the street in front of the
bank as employees waited to cash them.
The payroll was handled one week by First National, the
next week by Orange National Bank, which stood then where the
Fifth Street Unitedbank parking lot is now.
"Orange was a quiet little town before the war", she
remembers. "The sidewalks rolled up at dark - except on
Saturdays, when everybody came to town and stayed till the
stores closed at 9 o'clock". She was working at Perry Brothers
store then.53
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Orange County Historical Society (Tex.). Las Sabinas, Volume 17, Number 2, April 1991, periodical, April 1991; Orange, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth312877/m1/69/: accessed August 15, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Orange County Historical Society.