Growing Up in the 1960s and 1970s in search of Role Models

I grew up in the 1950s and 1960s. Men worked, and women stayed home and raised their children. As a young girl, I did not consider or think about a career. My counselor in high school told me I was not college material or that if I went to college, I should major in home economics. This assessment of my potential hurt on a deep level I could not express because I did not know the damage he had inflicted. I could laugh, however, thinking about my home economics teacher's frustration as I struggled to arrange flowers and sew a simple triangle scarf. 

As I look back to that time, I wonder why I was ambitious. I have a college, MBA, and master's degree in management information systems. I have been involved in several entrepreneurial businesses and worked for large corporations. How were those seeds of ambition and striving to excel planted?

Like many women of my generation, we looked to our fathers and male role models for work-related consideration. I grew up in a small town transitioning from a rowdy, sleepy community of approximately  3,348  in the 1950s and 11,000 in the 1960s to 35,000 today. After World War 2, men went to college, taking advantage of the GI Bill.

My father owned a data processing service bureau. Jim owned a recording studio. Meryl operated a direct marketing company. Paul sold stereo equipment at his shop. All the households revolved around our father's schedules. No one took vacations. Our excursions were a Sunday at the beach or an early morning excursion to catch catfish at a lake in southern Wisconsin. Our fathers worked twelve or fourteen hours a day building their businesses. A few men would don their top hats and take the train into Chicago to work at the Illinois Bell Building, J Walter Thompson, or the Merchandise Mart.  

For years, I think of those men who all had some success as role models. I told stories about them and strove to emulate them as I excelled in my chosen career paths. They were focused, hard-working, driven, and had a purpose. Yet now, as I take a critical look back, I consider the influence women had on my career. How did they infuse my entrepreneurial spirit? Many women also influenced my work ethic. I will choose three: Gloria, 'Aunt' Babe, and Mrs. Briello, my friend Larissa's mom. 

Gloria lived in our neighborhood. She and her husband raised three children in a small three-bedroom ranch house. She started a business in the late 1950s selling clothes to women in the neighborhood. Soon, she and her partner rented space in a walk-up building in the town center on Shermer Avenue. In their later years, she and my mother would play poker occasionally with six or seven women in the neighborhood. I remember visiting their store and walking up the stairs with my mother, who tried on a black sweater. It must have cost three dollars, and my mother was concerned about spending that much on herself.

I remember her concern and Gloria's empathy and kindness as my mother deliberated whether or not to buy the sweater. Did she buy it? I do not remember. I do remember Gloria's compassion for her customers. Shortly after, she moved her store to a prime corner in the strip shopping center of Northbrook Commerce. Gloria always treated me with the same compassion, whether I was buying clothes for the new school year, wanting to spend my babysitting money on a new outfit, or just spending time in her store without buying any clothing. She had a keen eye for fashion. I wish there were more information about this trail-blazing women's business today. She was inspired and inspirational. I would love to know more. 

Babe, or Aunt Babe as I called her, had a flare for fashion. Her husband, Uncle Bert,  worked in a showroom in the Merchandise Mart. She was a spirited woman of six feet tall and wore her bleached blond hair in a perfect BeeHive, a popular hairstyle in the 1960s. She sold purses. She had an expansive network of friends in our neighborhood and sold merchandise to them. I don't know how she got the idea or who supplied her merchandise. It was probably a connection from Uncle Bert. The purses were fashionable suede shoulder strap purses with tassels. There was an assortment of colors from tan, coffee, purple, and black, and they came in two sizes. By the time I reached high school, she recruited me. For each $10.00 purse I sold, I earned $2.00. 

My father set me up in our office in the basement. The office had paper, a receipt book, pens and pencils, manilla folders, and a telephone. Over my first year, I sold twenty purses and made $40.00. I mostly sold them to my friends and sometimes would bring them to school and try to sell them to girls I did not know. Looking back, I am sure the school did not allow the selling of merchandise on school property. It was my second sales job, and I enjoyed it, the first being at the local bakery. I learned about accounts payable and receivable, side hustles, and the advantage of liking the products I sold. It would have been fun to learn more about supply chains. I was an easily distracted teenager, and soon, school and my job at the bakery took precedence. I love to remember my stately and inspiring Aunt Babe, who had the right personality for sales. 

Another role model was my friend Larissa's single mother, a mother of five and a widow. Larissa was her youngest. She worked at Ben Franklin's Five and Dime while Larissa was in high school. Mrs. Briello was petite, around five feet, and weighed around ninety pounds. She worked on weekends and a few days while Larissa was in school. Often, when she was upset with her, she would speak Italian in a loud voice. Her love for Larissa was fierce. Every year on her birthday, she would treat Larissa and a few friends to dinner at Como Inn, a favorite Italian restaurant in Chicago. We all enjoyed celebrating Mrs. Briello and listening to her colorful stories about her life.

 At work, she wore a Ben FranklinFranklin's jacket. She worked in the fabric department. We would assemble at the store to buy penny candy and hair ribbons that never held back our hair, no matter how many colors we purchased. She would kick us out of the store, expecting Carissa to go home and  clean the house and fix dinner. Mrs Briello had no career ambition, yet her purpose was as strong and grounded as any of the men or women who were my role models. She wanted to provide Larissa with the best life she possibly could. 

It turns out this is the goal of everyone I admire in the work world as I formed my own worldview about work. Their drive for success was about ambition for a better future and life. Mostly, it was about family love.