Flora Flint started out, like many Akron women, as a secretary at one of the city’s rubber companies. She started at B.F. Goodrich (BFG) but Flint had tremendous organizational skill and drive. She soon became executive secretary to the general superintendent of the Tire Division of General Tire. Outside of work, she set up a student counseling service for Akron girls and led the city’s chapter of the American Association of University Women (AAUW).
Flora Flint was born in Webster, N.Y., in 1916. She was the third of six daughters of farmer Clarence Flint. Her father died when she was still a child. In 1933 – in the depth of the Great Depression – one of Flint’s older sisters found a job in Akron and the entire Flint family moved to the city. Flora finished her education at North High School in 1934.
Flint always wanted to teach mathematics but, during the Depression, the family needed the paycheck so she went to work as a bookkeeper at the old Yeagar’s Department Store. She did, however, enroll at night school at The University of Akron, majoring in secretarial science. It took seven years but Flint did get her degree, a B.S. in secretarial science, joining Theta Upsilon, the secretarial honorary along the way.
In 1941, she joined BFG; in 1946, she went over to General Tire.
After the war, Flint helped set up a student counseling service in the city’s schools which allowed high school girls get on-the-job experience in business and industry. She also was active in the AAUW, serving as president, vice president and secretary locally and secretary and president of the state organization and chair of national AAUW building fund. The local AAUW named one its scholarships after Flint.
Flint won many work-related victories as well. In 1953, she earned the Certified Professional Secretary award by passing exams in law, accounting, economics, secretarial skills and human relations. She was promoted to vice president of the General Investment Real Estate Holding Company – and was the first woman to earn the right to eat in the executive dining room.
Flint is now retired from General Tire and lives at the Rockynol Senior Citizens Home in Akron with several of her sisters. Those sisters call her the “smart one who always tried to do better than the rest of us.”
Photo Courtesy of the Beacon Journal.