I Worked For Sir William Coaker

Ena Mifflin

Growing up in Port Union, Newfoundland, Ena Mifflin met and worked with Sir William Coaker. When she was seventeen she applied to work for the Union Trading Company.

WELL, IT WAS A FUNNY THING, why I learned typing. I don't know what kind of a creature I was. But when I was five or six years old I used to go to church. When I'd come home I'd put a book up on the chair and I'd be going with my fingers [make-believe keying the organ]. I never had typing in my mind then.

There was one girl there who went up to Butler's Business College, in St. John's. That was in the basement of Victoria Hall. She went up there to school and she came back to work with the trading company.

So, I said, "I'd like to know typing." But I didn't have it in my mind that father was going to say go.

"If you want to go, you can go."

I went to St. John's in September and I boarded at 102 Merrymeeting Road. I went to Butler's Business College. This is where I learned my typing and shorthand.

So anyhow, when I went to work, I was seventeen. When I went in Sir William's office, he was sitting down with the Fisherman's Advocate before his eyes. I was shaking in my shoes. I was there so long before he ever looked up. So by and by he looked up and he says, "Good day, Miss Brown."