Week 15: Taxes

My mother, who died in 1979, worked her entire life as a secretary/stenographer and, as an extension of those skills, left behind well organized files. Going through her papers for the umpteenth time, I stopped to look at the business sized enveloped labeled "Tax Returns", stuffed with Forms 1040 dating back to 1948, the year she and my dad got married.

I found it interesting, and sad as well, to see her salary progress from earning $3,200 in 1948 working for the Texas & New Orleans Railroad in El Paso, TX, and topping out in 1972 at a little more than $6,500 as a clerk for the federal government in Memphis, TN.  Such was the life for a divorced woman, a single parent with lots of smarts, but only a high school education.  It's also a statement about the time and place(s) where she lived too.

Perusing these tax returns, I learned where she and my dad worked in El Paso.  I found the addresses where they lived before I was born, and before they bought their first and only house together.  And from those addresses, I can deduce they bought their house sometime in 1953.  In 1952 they claimed a combined income in excess of $8,000, a very comfortable income for a small family of 3 in El Paso, I would think. Their earnings were only slightly less in 1953.  I learned that my mom usually earned more than my dad.

Then...(cue dark clouds and ominous music)...things went bad for them in 1954 and 1955. It looks like they filed a joint return in 1954, but the 1955 return is filed in my mom's name only.  The attached earnings statements were from El Paso, Seattle, and Memphis. My parents separated, then divorced in July 1955, with my mother removing us from the drama in El Paso and settling in Memphis where she had a very small network of cousins she could rely on for support.  Memphis was also a big enough city where she could easily find employment, as opposed to the small towns in Louisiana where she grew up.

Her 1956 tax return includes a typed explanation of why she claimed a deduction for license plates from both Texas and Tennessee, a result of my father not living up to his end of their property agreement.  I remember the event when that car, a two-tone 1954 Mercury, was repossessed on a weekend while I played out front and watched, incredulous, as a strange man went into the apartment building, then returned and drove away with our car!

I can see it took her 5-6 years to regain the earning power she lost when she left her job at the railroad in El Paso and went to work in Memphis for several of the oil companies that had offices there.  She also would occasionally work a half day on Saturdays to earn a few extra dollars.  I would oftentimes get to go with her to those Saturday jobs, and I would run the halls of the empty office building, where my footsteps echoed off the marble floors and high ceilings.  I would always beg for a nickel to buy a cold bottle of Coca-Cola from the vending machine downstairs, sometimes starting to badger her just as we entered the building.  If I could sit still long enough, I would marvel at her taking shorthand and transcribing her scratches on the steno pad to the typewriter with lightning speed.  I heard more than once about her outstanding secretarial skills.  I think I could probably match her typing speed, but I never mastered shorthand well enough to get close to her expertise!

In 1966, a friend referred my mom for a job with a Federal bankruptcy judge, who also happened to be the friend's father-in-law.  My mom had to take a cut in pay, but the benefits such as health insurance, were enticing. There were several additional W-2s attached to her 1966 return for side jobs she took.  The side jobs continued for another year or two, then stopped.  This may be because of the built-in "step increases" the government offered, so her salary increased a little every year.  Or perhaps the timing coincided with my starting college, where I was able to live at home and work on campus to cover all my expenses.  At the same time, her health began to decline, and in 1972 she qualified for a disability pension.

Even though her disability and Social Security incomes were less than she had earned her last years of working, it was sufficient for her to live modestly.  She certainly deserved those last few years of not having to struggle financially.

Charlotte Leary Moskal (circa 1964)