Miss "B" - more than just a secretary

Below is the written summary of a 1969 interview with Louise J. Buechner, or "Miss B," as she was known to most. Miss B worked as a stenographer, then secretary for the Patrol from 1934 to her retirement in 1975. She is pictured in the photo beside Col. George Mingle, the seventh person from the left at the meeting table.

"Miss Buechner, 'Miss B' as she is known to General Headquarters, came to the Patrol as a secretary - technically, as a stenographer - on March 21, 1934. She had gone to work for the state government as a stenographer right out of high school in December of 1929 in the Department of Industrial Relations, and stayed there until her job was abolished in an economy drive in March of 1933. The state called her back in August and gave her a job in the Department of Highways, but it was not actually stenographic work and she asked for a change and was sent to the Patrol.

"Until March of 1944, she worked for George Mingle as a regular secretary, both when he was Uniform Division Captain and later as Major-Inspector. Occasionally, she substituted for the other secretary who worked for the Colonel (Lynn Black). When this woman left in March of 1944, Miss B replaced her and has worked as secretary to all of the superintendents ever since.

"When she started to work for the Patrol, the General Headquarters was located on the Eighth Floor of the State Office Building. As she recalls, there were two rooms, but in fact, only one - a partition set off a smaller part of it for the superintendent and assistant superintendent. Besides these two men, there were a total of eight other people working there, all with desks in the larger part of the room. There were four men and four women.

"When with the Department of Industrial Relations, Miss B observed she had been part of a smooth-functioning operation. By comparison, the Patrol General Headquarters was very disorganized - which she realized was to be expected in a new organization, but was still unsettling. The worst part of the State Office Building setup, she remembers, was that when the girls went out for lunch, they were likely to come back and find the desks rearranged by the men! The room was so crowded that they were always searching for a pattern that would give them a little more room.

"When things settled down and the General Headquarters was moved to East Broad Street, Miss B, as secretary to Captain Mingle, found herself in charge of the personnel files. As she admitted, the staff arrangements were confused, but Mingle was actually (until the 1940s) the man who handled the personnel matters - uniform and radio, as well as civilian.

"Miss B remarked that she had enjoyed working for all six of the superintendents, and had thought well of all of them. Mingle, of course, was the one she knew best. As to the first three of them - Black, Mingle, and (Fred) Moritz - she remarked that all three were similar to work for. This was probably from the fact that they had been with the State Highway Patrol from the first and had been the senior officers from the first months; over the years, their outlooks, and ideas tended to merge."

wwwohp@dps.state.oh.us
Last modified on: February 19, 2010