Digital Extra

 Gertrude I. Johnson and Mary T. Wales (Died 1952 - Died 1961)
'Very proper ladies' start a small school

  By KATHERINE IMBRIE
Journal-Bulletin Staff Writer

"We should teach a thing not for its own sake, but as preparation for what lies beyond."

So believed Gertrude I. Johnson and Mary T. Wales, and on that simple and pragmatic premise these two women friends ("maiden ladies" in the parlance of the early 1900s) founded a small Providence business school that eventually would become Johnson & Wales University.

The year was 1914. The two women, who had been friends for some two decades since both had attended the Pennsylvania State Normal School at Millersville, were teaching business courses at Providence's Bryant College when they decided to open their own school. The Johnson & Wales Business School opened with seven secretarial students and at first was housed in Miss Johnson's Hope Street residence. Soon it moved to 222 Olney St. and later to larger quarters on Exchange Place downtown and eventually to the Gardner Building on Fountain Street.

In 1920, the Misses Johnson and Wales promoted their school as offering "Private Instruction in Shorthand, Typewriting, Bookkeeping, English, Arithmetic and Penmanship. Preparation for Civil Service and Court Reporting" - practical job training for the times. Most of the students were men until World War II opened employment doors to more women.

During the war years, "things were topsy-turvy in all lines of work," wrote Miss Johnson, who handled the administrative duties for the school while Miss Wales focused more on teaching.

After the war, in 1947, Miss Johnson and Miss Wales retired to their Warwick home, selling their successful business school, which by then was serving some 120 students, to two Navy veterans, Edward Triangolo and Morris Gaebe, who in the decades to follow expanded Johnson & Wales, branching into the area of culinary training which is today the school's primary focus.

In a telephone interview from his home in Florida, Gaebe, now retired, recalled the two women fondly.

"Miss Johnson was a large stern lady, and all the students who were veterans referred to her as GI Johnson. Miss Wales was very petite, and she was more of the academic influence. They were very proper ladies - they liked music and animals, particularly cats, and they drove an old automobile very carefully.

"In those early days of the school, they set a standard of education, discipline and job placement that we've always been proud of. Together, they started something that has now become a big part of Rhode Island."

Miss Wales died in 1952; Miss Johnson in 1961.

Source: Johnson & Wales University.

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