The Girl on Wheels
At one time she, and 1200 of her graceful sisters, made life in dozens of operating rooms just a little gayer, just a little more dashing. (And perhaps -- but only perhaps, says the mellow voice of memory -- just a little bit confusing.)
She is gone. And there are some who are glad, but many who will miss her,
On January 23 (1961) the last roller-skating route aide in the New York Headquarters building operating room made her final trip between the Atlanta and Los Angeles circuits, and handed in her skates. There was no fanfare, no photographer to immortalize the event, no museum official to take note of the passing of what had become -- sadly -- an anachronism. One of Western Union's most colorful jobs passed quietly into history.
No one seems to remember the first girl on wheels, but by 1931 nearly 400 skaters were
expediting messages in main offices all over the United States. In a day when
operating equipment was so bulky that positions could be spread over an entire city
block, and when there was no other efficient way of getting messages from one trunk line
terminal to another within the center, these girls were the logical, if unorthodox
solution.
Anyone who has ever found an hour's hike on foot tiring, when an evening at a roller rink is exhilarating, knows that skates are by far the easier form of locomotion. The girls maintained that their jobs as route aides were more fun, less tiring, and in general, very desirable. (So desirable were they, in fact, that literally thousands of women began their W. U. careers on skates).
Skating became big business during the thiries and early forties, when mechanization had not yet caught up with message volume. Engineers worked on special material for the more than 10,000 wheels in circulation, and two maintenance men had a full time job caring for the skates.
Many of the girls enjoyed their work so much that they spent their evenings at local rinks. A few, like Mary Lou Kaplanoff and Carol Gunther, turned professional, and entered show business. Those were heady days.
After World War II, roller skating went into a decline. As switching systems took up some of the load, and more compact equipment cut the distances a route aide had to travel, skates became more and more rare. It had now become easier to walk, and the route aides of the future will probably never know what they missed.
But if, when you visit an operating room in Chicago, or Los Angeles, or San Antonio, a sudden rush of air sweeps by you, and a ghostly whir of wheels spins around a corner, don't be alarmed. The spirit of the girl on wheels is still with us, and who wants to tell her to go away?