Shown on the cover of Radio Retailing Today 75 years ago this month, September 1943, is Mrs. Wallace Courtney, the wife of the owner of Courtney’s Radio Service in Stratford, Conn. When a representative of the magazine entered the shop, he was greeted by Mrs. Courtney, who was busily engaged in her work of servicing radios. When the reporter asked about the set she was working on, she reported that the rectifier was intermittently glowing red hot. After some poking around, she found a high voltage lead with frayed insulation that had been shorting out against the chasis.

Mr. Courtney was working in a war plant installing radios in airplanes, and left the shop in the able hands of his wife, who juggled the business with caring for the couple’s twelve-year-old son, who was said to be earning good marks. It was her quiet, pleasant voice that answered the phone when customers called. She wasn’t able to make service calls, but when customers brought in a set, she would get it repaired as fast as humanly possible.

According to the magazine, Mrs. Courtney was “typical of a lot of American wives and mothers, who without any fuss or furore, have stepped calmly into their men’s places for the duration in whatever capacities the jobs may call for.” She ran the shop during the day, and in the evening helped her husband work out any repair problems in whatever hours he could spare.