Olive Katherine Lee's Story

Olive’s story is that of a woman whose world seems to have focused on family, but also on the changing roles of women. Olive never married, though she sought education and a career outside of the house.
Olive was born the third child and first daughter of parents Nellie Jane and Oliver Tree Lee in December 1904. She lived around the corner from her maternal grandparents, and then, later with her family in the home of her grandparents.

When Olive was still quite young, her grandparents died within a day of one another in January 1912.
Olive attended Russell Sage College in Troy, NY when it was a relatively new school for women. She graduated in 1926 with a degree in stenography. Olive was shy, and no photographs can be found of her while she attended the school.
By the 1925 New York State Census, Olive is listed as an office clerk; it would appear that she was attending classes while also working. The family lore indicates that her older brother, C. Herbert would send money home so that Olive could attend college. In fact, Olive was the first person in the Lee family to graduate from college, though her older brother attended Syracuse University.
By 1930, Olive made her way in to the shirt collar industry, where she will spend her entire professional career working for a major employer in Troy, NY, Cluett Peabody. Cluett, Peabody & Co. was the collar and cuff company that lasted the longest. It produced a number of brands, of which Arrow Shirts was the most famous. For the longest time, Arrow Shirts were synonymous with Troy. The Troy plant was thought to be the largest shirt factory in the world, and it sprawled along the river. In 1912, the New York Times would report that Cluett, Peabody & Co., "the largest manufacturers of collars, shirts, and cuffs in the world, is to become still larger." At that time it had factories at Troy, Rochester, Corinth, and Waterford, NY; Leominster, MA; South Norwalk, CT; and St. Johns, Quebec. The combined annual output of those plants was then 7,000,000 dozen collars and 500,000 dozen shirts.
According to the 1940 census, Olive is supporting herself and her parents on $1,500/year and her father’s post office pension. .
In 1947, Olive is living with her parents at the same address. Her siblings are all married, living in other parts of the State. Only her older brother, Herb, has had children, Virginia and Charles, Jr. By this time, Virginia is graduated from college and married and Charles is attending Princeton. Both children are a source of pride for the family.
At some point between 1947 and 1953, the three Lees move from Troy, New York to Yonkers, New York. The three of them live together at 1428 Midland Avenue, Bronxville, New York. The belief is that Olive has climbed the corporate ladder as an Executive Assistant at Cluett, Peabody & Co.
Olive’s father dies in 1953 and her mother, Nellie Jane, in 1968. In her handwritten last will and testament, Nellie kindly pays off Olive’s mortgage and appeals to the other three children to ‘be nice to Olive who will be alone.’

Olive and her widowed sister Margaret move in together to a retirement community in Somers, NY. Margaret passes in 1992 and Olive follows 7 years later at the hospital associated with her retirement community in Somers, on August 21, 1999. Olive is taken back to downtown Troy, NY to be buried in the Kirkpatrick family plot in Oakwood Cemetery. She joins her parents, sister, grandparents and other family members in Plot 242 in Section D-3.