[3] Her first job was a secretarial position in a paper factory owned by her uncle, where she met a salesman whom she briefly married 1930–1932.

She was assigned "the woman's angle" and wrote on "childcare, etiquette, marriage, divorce, and household problems".

For this she had traveled across the western United States and this inspired efforts to obtain accreditation to report on events in Europe as a war correspondent.

They crossed the Elbe at Torgau and managed to make it to Berlin, but due to censorship the dateline of her April 27 filed story was finally published on May 8 front page.

Despite the more cosmopolitan locale, even in New York City she was often assigned the "woman's angle" again, making advice column contributions under the pseudonym 'Martha Carr', work she disliked.