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Today's Featured Biography

 
Donna Tate Reiter

I worked for Mailing Shoe store downtown and sold shoes, purses and nylons (the kind with the seam in the back)! Graduation from Pontiac Northern took me to Pontiac Community Bank in the Mortgage Loan Dept. and then as a legal secretary until I left Michigan.

Married in 1960 to John Dover who I met at Mailing Shoe Store. We were in the same grade but I never met him until I went to work at Mailing's. I remember we knew many of the same people but we just had never met previously. Lots of dates took us to Ted's Restaurant on Woodward Ave. where I also dropped the transmission in my Dad's new Pontiac by downshifting an automatic gear shift into second while doing about 55 miles an hour.

John and I had a beautiful daughter in 1967 after building a house in Rochester. One Thanksgiving the whole family was over and everyone was talking about retiring to Florida one day and I said why wait and by January we had quit our jobs, sold our house and moved to Florida!

We divorced in 1976 and have remained good friends. I was running my own company which was part time and needed more income so I applied for a sales position at a company which had 2,200 salesmen. They had to hire a minority because of government contracts and could not find anyone that could pass the mechanical test. Because John and I rode motorcycles and were into sports cars, I passed the test and they finally hired me.

This was an important time in history as women were just beginning to be given the same opportunities in many jobs as men. They tripled my income, gave me a company car and some good training. I really worked hard because I felt I was not only paving the way for the hire of other women, but opening doors for my daughter when she grew up. Hey, gals, do you remember our possibilities...nurse, teacher, secretary and mother!

My daughter loves to tell the story (her version) of when I got her a surrogate mother and ran away from home to Chicago when she was 16. She forgets she had a sports car, a credit card and a mother who trusted her. It was a one year assignment for a timeshare resort and I wrote the training manual,appeared on radio and TV shows to introduce this new concept and was a sales trainer. We flew back and forth every other weekend and she got to see/shop in Chicago which wasn't too shabby for a 16 year old!

I returned and went to work for a coin operated laundry company who provides laundry rooms at apartment communities and haven't been able to get out of dirty laundry ever since! I was an RVP for five years and in 1987 married the love of my life...giving me the name Reiter. He passed away in 1993 but we had plenty of time to celebrate life and say our goodbyes with trips to Montreal, Nova Scotia, Cancun, Cosumel and riding every death defying roller coaster we could find at Disney, Epcot and Sea World. At the end when he was wheelchair bound and very weak, we took one last ride by lifting him out of the chair and into the ride!

I went back into sales, having enough of management for a few more years and then my sister company who rents washers/dryers to residents in apartments asked me to come work for them as a Regional. I now have 9 sales people and cover 5 States and absolutely love my job and plan to work until 70 years old if my excellent health holds up.

I finally gave up motorcycles and took up golf and while I am quite pitiful at the game, dearly love it and play every week.

I have had a child that has brought joy everyday to my life. She married and brought to me a step granddaughter and grandson who are now 18 and 16, having them since they were 2 and 4. I sent her to college on Visa and Master card and now she oversees 17 funeral homes in Orlando.

I carry with me the saying my father gave me years ago. "When its all said and done, what really counts is you have lead a life so that those who gather to say goodbye, talk about what a great friend, spouse, brother, sister, mother, father you were and will keep you alive through wonderful stories and laughter while God greets you to welcome you to your next great adventure". I hope I have lived my life that way and will continue to live up to his wise words until my next great adventure.

Thanks for the opportunity to go back and share with all my school buddies. I am certainly a long way from what we all called home at one time and the re-connecting has been wonderful.

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