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Telephone Firm Honors Employe For Long Service

Telephone Firm Honors Employe For Long Service image
Parent Issue
Day
28
Month
July
Year
1943
Copyright
Copyright Protected
Rights Held By
Donated by the Ann Arbor News. © The Ann Arbor News.
OCR Text

Telephone Firm Honors Employe For Long Service

More than 100 fellow employes and officials of the Michigan Bell Telephone Co. will gather at the Barton Hills Country Club at 7 o’clock tonight to honor Mrs. Elizabeth C. Lelling, first woman in the history of the Ann Arbor exchange to complete 30 years of service with the company.

Mrs. Lelling will be presented with a 30-year service emblem, set in a black onyx ring. Mrs. Edna Withrow, chief operator for the company at Ypsilanti, will be the toastmistress.

From Detroit for the occasion will come Arthur L. Leazenby, general traffic superintendent; Guy Green, general supervisor of traffic; and G. P. Rose, general traffic employment supervisor. Other officials to attend will include R. I. Jackson of Grand Rapids, division traffic superintendent, and John C. Sessions, district traffic superintendent at Ann Arbor.

Actually, it was 31 years ago that Mrs. Lelling, as a 16-year-old Ann Arbor school girl, walked into the telephone office here and took her first job as an operator. Except for a ten-months interlude she has remained continuously with the company since. Virtually her entire career has been spent in the Ann Arbor exchange.

Assigns Duties

She has worked as both a local and long distance operator, progressing through the ranks to become clerk to the district traffic superintendent and finally, at the first of this year, to traffic assignment clerk. Her work involves determining the lines and types of service that can be made available for applicants for new service and the war-busy facilities that have made her new duties among the most important of her long experience.

Service in wartime is no new experience, however, for Mrs. Lelling. In World War I, she was loaned to the Battle Creek office for a month to help take care of the busy traffic to and from Camp Custer.

Despite her telephone work, Mrs. Lelling has had time for her home at 515 Detroit St. A daughter, Frances, is a senior at St. Thomas High school.

Mrs. Lelling has been a member of the Telephone Pioneers of America since 1938. The organization is comprised of men and women with 21 or more years of telephone experience.

Honored

Mrs. Elizabeth C. Lelling, first woman in the history of the Ann Arbor Bell Telephone Co. to complete 30 years of service, will be honored tonight at a dinner given by the company at Barton Hills Country Club. She will be presented with a service emblem.