In a move that was very unusual at the time, the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad appointed a woman as Stationmaster in Pine Grove, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, effective March 4, 1955. This was reported in area newspapers such as the West Schuylkill Press and Pine Grove Herald on March 4, 1955 (shown above) and the Elizabethville Echo, March 10, 1955 (not shown).
PINE GROVE HAS ONLY WOMAN STATIONMASTER ON READING COMPANY LINES
Mary I. Sherk has been appointed stationmaster for the Reading Railroad Company in Pine Grove effective today, March 4 [1955].
This position previously was always filled by male personnel, and the most recent stationmaster was Thomas H. Haeseler, now retired.
Miss Sherk is the only woman on the Reading System in the position of stationmaster and is responsible for all freight and telegraphy, and also acts as weighmaster. She has three clerks in the depot under her supervision.
Mary I. Sherk reflected on her time with the railroad in a brief piece that appeared in the West Schuylkill Press and Pine Grove Herald, July 13, 1972:
VETERAN TELEGRAPHERS ENJOY REUNION
Miss Florence C. Day, who spent two weeks in Pine Grove with Mary I. Sherk, returned to her home in Oceanside, California. She and Mary Sherk both worked for the Reading railroad Company as agent telegraphers. They were employed during War I, because of the shortage of men. Later, Miss Day was transferred into commercial telegraphy while Mary retained her time in transportation.”Women’s Lib” of that time.
Mary died in September 1974 at the Hershey Medical Center. While the obituary in the Lebanon Daily News, September 9, 1974, mentioned that she worked for the Reading Railroad, it did not state that she served as stationmaster in Pine Grove – only as the telegraph operator.
Mary I. Sherk
The funeral of Mary I. Sherk, Pine Grove, was held on Saturday morning from the Snyder Funeral Home in that community.
Widely known, for many years she was employed as the telegraph operator at the Reading Company Railway Station in Pine Grove.
She died in the Hershey Medical Center at the age of 79.
The Rev. Lance Mills, pastor of St. Paul’s Evangelical Congregational Church, Pine Grove, officiated during the services. Interment took place in Gravel Hill Cemetery, Palmyra.
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News articles from Newspapers.com.
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