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They sent a couple of us up to Washington to beef up our Washington bureau and
I actually got to you know, go to the White House and cover, covered Ford's first
few days and started going to the national conventions and covered all the
national conventions until uh, until I left in 2002. But it was just a, it was totally
different environment for women in those days, and I think you know, women
had to be twice as good and work twice as hard to be accepted, and to get the
opportunities that just normally accrued to men. And I, (laughter) I should have
looked at my bio before y'all came. I got pregnant, after I moved back to Dallas,
went to work for the Morning News. I got married, very quickly, and I got
pregnant and I had my first baby in January of 1968. So there was an unwritten
rule at the time that...that a woman could work until she was 6 months pregnant
and then she had to leave, and so I was fairly newly married and we needed the
money, I wanted to work, I wanted to work as long as I could, and so my city
editor was very progressive and he said "Ok, you can work until somebody notices
you.
Nishimoto - (laughter)
Barta - And once you get, you know, one of the execs notices you then you have to leave.
So one day I'm sitting there working at my typewriter and one of the execs walked
through the newsroom, I don't remember if it was the president or who it was,
but one of the executives from upstairs walked through the newsroom and saw
me, stopped by for a little chat and so the next day the city editor called me and
said whelp, I guess you're going to have to take off. And so I was actually fired at
the time for being pregnant. And there was no policy for somebody to have a baby
and then come back to work and not lose their job. So my progressive city editor
who happened to be Bob Miller, who's still working for the Morning News as a
business columnist, he said, well after you have the baby as soon as we have an
opening I'll give you a call and you can come back to work. So I was off for about
maybe five months and two months before I had the baby and three months after
and he called one day and said we've got a spot, come on back. And so I went
back to work. So it was after that, that I started covering city hall and then when I
was pregnant with my second child, and this is 1971, once again I was ... well no
this time my city editor said ... we agreed on the day that I would ... I would take
off and I was like maybe eight months pregnant and then I would be off for I
think maybe four weeks and then I'd come back. And he said you know we'll save
your job for you while you're gone so and I went back to work. And he said "well
you need to go down to personnel and take your physical."And I said "Why do I
have to take the physical again?" and he said "Well, because you were terminated
while you were gone and now we have to rehire you." So by then I had maybe,
'65-'71; I had six years in, you know toward better benefits and pension and
everything that I'd lost, so, you know that was just their policy then. In 1980, we
had a new executive editor who came in named Burl Osborne who was
progressive, fairly progressive, and so the women on the staff by then decided
that ... there had been other; there had been a couple of other women who had
come to work there and gotten pregnant and there was one at the time who was