Barker, Elsa, 1869-1954

Elsie Barker was born in Leicester, Vermont in 1869 to Albert Galvin Barker and Louise Maria (Taylor) Barker. When she was 13, her father died. The following year, as she related, she put on long skirts and took a teaching job elsewhere in Vermont, but came home on weekends and played with her dolls. At 16, she left teaching and learned telegraphy. At 18, she learned shorthand by taking night courses and became a private secretary first in Boston and then New York City and then a court stenographer.

In 1889, she married Edwin E. Gay of Springfield, Massachusetts and although the New York Times obituary reported that he died shortly after their marriage, there are legal papers in the collection stating that Elsa divorced him in New York State in 1893. For a while she was known as Elsie Gay, then, in 1900, she resumed her maiden name but dropped "Elsie" for the less homespun "Elsa".

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