OLD FORT — When Linda Brown accepted a job as a teller for Peoples National Bank in June 1969, she had no idea she would still be employed there 47 years later. On Jan. 25, Brown worked her last day at what is now First National Bank’s Old Fort branch, encouraged by a steady stream of well-wishers.
Brown, the daughter of Bob and Helen Weaver,, of Spring Mills, graduated from Penns Valley High School on June 6, 1969, having taken the school’s highly respected business course. Just 10 days later, she began working at the bank’s Westerly Parkway branch in State College. When she was interviewed for the job, the bank president said, “Those girls from Penns Valley tend to stay here a while.”
“Little did I know I would be here 47 and a half years later,” said Brown. She recalled that her starting salary was $280 a month, before taxes.
“The night I got my job, a guy came around selling cookware,” Brown said. “I knew then I needed a job because I had a payment.” She said she still has that same cookware.
Brown worked at the Westerly Parkway branch for 11 years. In 1980, she was transferred to a newly erected branch at Old Fort and promoted to the position of head teller.
The Old Fort site was formerly a sinkhole, but was filled in with soil, compacted and leveled, and the bank building, a modified mobile home, was placed on the site. “It (the building) was very small,” said Brown. “I worked there for 21 years.” In 2001, the current building was constructed on the site.
Brown saw many changes in banking over the years. “When I first started working, you wrote everything out,” she said. “We were handwriting receipts, and all the internal things we had to do were written by hand. If you made a mistake, then you had to find it. Now, everything is on your computer.”
Brown plans a busy retirement. She and her husband of 40 years, Garth Brown, who retired a month ago, plan to do some traveling. One of their two daughters resides near Pittsburgh, and is expecting her second child. “We have a fifth wheel (camper), and we’re prepared to go,” said Brown. “We’re going to be out there, hopefully, when the baby’s born.”
She said her daughters didn’t like when she had to work on Saturdays. “They used to bug me, saying, ‘Do you have to work today?’ That was the worst part of working — Friday nights and Saturdays.”
But, Brown has derived satisfaction from her long banking career, working for an entity that has helped many people buy houses and cars, and to meet other financial needs. “It felt good when people got what they wanted,” she said. “People are thankful for what you do.
“I’ve really liked my job.”
