Jim Kershner’s this day in history

From our archives, 50 years ago

A visiting speaker gave a Secretaries’ Day talk at the Davenport Hotel, outlining the qualities of an outstanding secretary, circa 1962.

Mrs. Hazel A. Kellar, international vice president of the National Secretaries Association, said that a secretary must stay informed about the world. A good secretary, she said, reads a minimum of one newspaper a day, one news magazine each week and an assortment of business publications.

Also, a good secretary must “never, never let a mistake go out of the office.”

She must also, of course, “regard confidential matters as confidential.”

Bosses should “encourage her to assume more responsibility and keep her well-informed on all aspects of the business.” And a good boss knows that he doesn’t need to dictate every word – a good secretary can handle “routine correspondence on her own.”

Mrs. Kellar was worried about one trend: office automation. However, she said, a secretary’s most important job, human relations, cannot be replaced by automation.

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1937: German and Italian warplanes raided the Basque town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War, resulting in widespread destruction. Estimates of the number of people killed vary greatly, from the hundreds to the thousands.