Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 3, 1994 TAG: 9407050107
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-17 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By DONNA ALVIS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Long
Like the dove, she has grace, a sense of purpose, a sense of peace.
And at 95, Esther Alice Critchfield's years have flown by, as Byron would say, "... with the wings of a dove."
A 1917 alumna of Kent State University in Ohio, she is the oldest living graduate of the university, founded in 1910.
She was also one of the Internal Revenue Service's earliest employees, going to work for the then-Bureau of Internal Revenue in 1919 soon after it was established during Woodrow Wilson's administration.
She received her law degree from Southeastern University in Washington, D.C., in 1932, the same year her only child, John, was born. In 1939, she was one of only two women to receive certificates admitting her to serve as an attorney and counselor of both the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia.
Still, Critchfield never thought of herself as a pioneer among women in the workplace. In fact, she didn't give much thought to her gender at all.
Her grandson, Blacksburg businessman Steven Critchfield, once asked her why she became a lawyer.
"Your grandfather was disabled," she answered. "Someone had to make money."
She was born Esther Alice Swartz on June 3, 1899, in Akron, Ohio, the second of four girls. Her mother was a talented pianist, she says, and her father was a farmer.
"Because there were no boys, I substituted for my father's boy," Critchfield said recently at the home she shares with her grandson near Blacksburg. "Everything that a boy could do, I could do. I was excused from the household chores to help milk the cows and do the farm work. I could drive a team of three horses on my father's harvester."
She remembers her first teacher, a man she called Oliver Dick.
"He wanted to board with us because my mother was such a good cook. My mother was reluctant to take him in because she said I was such a nuisance she was afraid I would pester him. He said, 'I'll take her to school with me.' That's why I started to school when I was 5 years old."
When it came time to go to college, an unusual choice for a woman in the early 1900s, a local real estate executive, W.A. Johnson, paid her tuition when her father couldn't.
"You know, I didn't repay that debt until I had been working for Uncle Sam for two or three years. I don't suppose Mr. Johnson would have said a word had I not repaid it, but I felt an obligation."
Critchfield not only repaid the obligation but also the kindness extended to her by the generous man.
"She has put four or five people through college now because she felt they were worthy and they had no other funds," said her grandson. "She's always felt that education was the key."
Critchfield met her husband, Emil, at the First Christian Church in Barberton, Ohio. The year was 1918. She was 18 years old.
"My father, not knowing that I knew Emil Critchfield, introduced me to him," she explained. "He said, 'I'll sell her to you for a quarter.'"
Critchfield's eyes sparkled with amusement as she remembered her future husband's response:
"Mr. Critchfield reached into his pocket and said, 'I'll give you 50 cents.'"
About a month after their marriage, Emil was called to duty with the U.S. Army and fought in France during the last year of World War I.
"The hardest time of my life was that year he was overseas," Critchfield said.
At the end of the war, her husband returned, but not as he had left her. Emil Critchfield had been shot and wounded in France, sustaining injuries that eventually led to his death in 1957.
While her husband was in France, Critchfield said, her brother-in-law urged her to come to Maryland and take a civil service examination. She passed the test, took a job with the Bureau of Internal Revenue and moved to the nation's capital.
It was there that she and her husband set up housekeeping.
"My husband decided to build a house," she recalled. "We ordered a ready-cut house from Sears, Roebuck." Her husband, who remained physically active despite his disability, assembled the lumber, all cut to size, while the couple lived in a tent - huddling one night against a snow storm outside.
"I lived in the same house for 42 years, the Sears, Roebuck house."
What started as a clerical job with the Internal Revenue office became a legal job after Critchfield graduated from law school in 1932. She was put in charge of interpreting tax laws before new regulations were issued. It was complicated work because there were changes in the law each year as Congress continually amended it.
Although she had the credentials to practice before the courts, she never had the occasion.
"I think she's very proud of the fact that none of her interpretations of the law were ever overturned by the Supreme Court," said Steven Critchfield. "She was very exact, meticulous, precise. She measures. She calculates. I doubt any members of the court ever questioned her interpretations."
"I used to go up to the Congress, get the Congressional Record and read what the men who made the laws were discussing," Esther Critchfield explained. "See, we had no regulations and someone had to answer all the letters that came in."
Critchfield eventually had several men working directly for her, as well as a personal secretary. She said the men did not resent her position as their supervisor.
"I guess I was easy to get along with."
Perhaps part of Critchfield's success can be attributed to her attitude. She thought of herself as a person with a job to do. Her abilities were abilities she defined herself, not those defined by the social standards of her time. Therefore, she placed no limits on herself.
She was, however, aware of inequities between male and female employees.
"Women were consistently underpaid," she noted, "paid less than men for the same work." After she had passed the bar, she steeled herself and marched into her boss' office. "I told him that I had gone to law school and had passed the bar and didn't see why I couldn't have a better job."
She paused and smiled before she continued.
"And I got it!"
When Critchfield began her federal career in 1919, she made $81 per month. After her retirement in 1966, she worked for several years as a consultant for Ernst & Ernst accounting firm. She earned $81 per hour there.
"I often wondered why Mommo knew so much about baseball because she knew so little about other sports," said Steven Critchfield, referring to his grandmother by his childhood name for her.
"My aunt told me once that during the war when her husband was gone, his baseball team needed a coach. Mommo did it because it needed doing."
"That's basically her attitude toward everything," he added.
Critchfield's grandson, an energetic 37-year-old Blacksburg entrepreneur who operates four successful businesses, said he values his grandmother's judgment.
"She's been a major influence in my life," he said.
Recently, Critchfield listened in while her grandson interviewed candidates for an administrative job with his company, Tele Works.
"After one interview, Mommo said, 'Hire him. He grew up on a dairy farm. Anyone who grew up on a dairy farm is responsible.'"
Steven Critchfield took his grandmother's advice.
Because she uses a walker to get around these days, Critchfield's grandson has built ramps and decks for her all around his house in the woods.
Surrounded by shady oaks, a sleeping black dog near her feet, Critchfield enjoys sitting in the warm breeze, listening to the melodies of the wind chime.
Her plans for the summer include a trip on the Delta Queen riverboat from Cincinnati to New Orleans.
"I'm a good sailor," she said. "I've been everywhere in the world, but I never got to go straight around the world on one trip."
When she's asked what has given her the most joy in her 95 years, she ponders briefly before answering:
"Singing provided me with the most satisfactory moments of my life. I sang in the church choir at the National City Christian Church. I sang with a group of women and that was really enjoyable."
"We made good music," she added.
It's not hard to imagine Critchfield, with her clear, genteel voice, breaking into song.
Just like a bird.
Keywords:
PROFILE
by CNB