Growing up, I went to St. James, an all-girls school in my hometown of Salem, Mass. Since I was athletic and couldn’t play sports in school, I spent a lot of time playing with kids down at Salem’s Mack Park. The guys never minded that I was a girl. I had as many male friends as female friends.

When it was time to pick a college, I felt confident going with Bentley. I chose it because my godfather had gone there — and he made more money than anyone else I knew. He told me I’d do all right, even though there weren’t a lot of women who went there at the time.

In 1964, I was one of three women to graduate. Being a class officer, I walked ahead of the others, so I became the first woman to receive a bachelor’s degree at Bentley College.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said.

I started at Bentley in September of 1960, when it was on Boylston Street and the sounds of the Prudential Center’s construction seemed ever-present in our classrooms. There wasn’t a whole lot going on besides class.

After Bentley became a four-year school in 1962, a lot more female students came into the picture. The sorority Delta Omega started around my junior year, and I became its president. There were no more than 15 or 20 members, and all we did was have meetings and raise a bit of money to give back to the community.

In 1964, I was one of three women to graduate. Being a class officer, I walked ahead of the others, so I became the first woman to receive a bachelor’s degree at Bentley College. I got a CPA job right out school, working right down the street from Bentley for Harris, Kerr, Forster. I made $100 a week, a really good salary at the time. They didn’t let me leave the office — women didn’t do that back then. But I had a few clients that I did accounting and bookkeeping for. There was another woman there, also a Bentley grad, who’d worked on the consolidation of a large hotel chain.

Accounting was a male-dominated field, and it still is, but we didn’t feel things were tougher for us at Bentley because of that. The professors were supportive and the guys coming out of Bentley treated us with the same respect we gave them.