A J ale of iwo Women
Marjon Stonemnan Douglas and laijoric 1 larris Carr

Segment: Working as Marjory Stoneman Douglas' personal secretary

Source: Interview with Sharyn Richardson, Secretary of Friends of the Everglades and personal assistant
to Marjory Stoneman Douglas. Videotaped at the Douglas House in Coconut Grove.

Length of Segment: 00:02:24

Transcript and audio recording are copyright 1983-2009 Florida International University.

TRANSCRIPT

Interviewer: You were telling us about what your job is...

Richardson: Okay, I'm secretary of Friends of the Everglades. That entails basically working with Marjorie
on-- she gets a lot of mail --and a lot of it, most of it, is addressed to Friends of the Everglades, which
Marjorie is, Friends of the Everglades, basically. Because she doesn't see to read or write, I do all of her
correspondence for her. I read the mail to her. We basically go through the membership, because that
all comes here. Somebody else works on membership because we have three thousand members and
it's not something that I could do and do everything else. So we have a person who does only
membership. And, we get all that together, for her, and then we do the mail and Marjorie has quite a bit
of correspondence, that she keeps up at a regular rate. People, basically, all over the world. And there's
her book that she works on which I don't work on her book with her, but we do do a lot of
correspondence that has to do with her book. So, basically, I am secretary of Friends of the Everglades,
but I an also Marjorie's secretary, which gives me sort of a piece of her life, that I really enjoy being a
part of."

Interviewer: "How long have you been doing this?"

Richardson: "Since about October."

Interviewer: "So, this is something new."

Richardson: "Yes, it's fairly new. I just...she just fingered me. Just one day said, 'you," you know, 'Will
you?' I said, 'Yes! Yes! When do I start?' I've been here ever since. I started coming once a week and
now I usually come two or three time a week and it just seems like there is always something else,

always more. Just when we think we're-- we see the end --the light at the end of the tunnel, something
else comes up. Somebody, in Tallahassee does something and we have to launch a new campaign or we
find out about something going on, that we have to, that we have to respond to.