asked the School to focus its attention on her good friend Edith House, who earned highest honors as co-valedictorian of the class. "I never have figured that I accomplished anything extraordinary," Miss House once said.
It didn't occur to her that she was ahead of her
tjme -- a pathblazer in opened to them in the
a~
era when single career women had few doors
trad~tionally
male-dominated field which was the
legal profession in 1925. Yet she had no stories to tell of struggle for survival or acceptance.
Instead, she thought that it was an embarrassment of
riches to have three job offers upon graduation and to have to turn . ·down two of them.
She accepted a position with a law firm in
.Clearwater, Florida, wherethe land boom was on, ahd earned a princely salary of $175 a month.
Four years later the U.S. Attorney of the
Southern District of Florida persuaded her ·to join the legal staff as assistant U.S. Attorney, ·and she had found her· niche.
During the
course of the next 34 years, she handled every't hing from condemnation work and counterfeiting to moonshinlng and drug violations. When the district was · sub-divided in 1963, Miss House was appointed acting U.S. Attorney until the position ·w as -permanently filled through
~
presidential appointment and Senate confirmation.
No
doubt the position could have been hers, but ·she dec.ided to retire at that point.
The cancer had been diagnosed and she was ready to step
aside •nd do some private ,practice for a change.
Her attention turned
to assisting family members in legal matters related to business and estate planning and she never did open her general practice nor collect a fee.
Somehow it just wasn't in her nature to do so.
helping others without compensation.
·•,
She enjoyed