The washcloth and the desk plaque.
Doesn’t get any more fundamental, or elemental, than that – but it’s also slightly ahead of the narrative.
First, some backstory:
All during March, the nation has been honoring female achievement in the form of Women’s History Month.
Women, with a diversity of experience, all working with a shared goal of simply making things better.
Morgantown has most definitely benefited from the above.
However, one of the University City’s more visionary of that roll call is a woman whose name you may not readily know.
That’s because Agnes Jane Reeves Greer (1880-1972) preferred it that way.
And really, it’s not that you don’t see and hear her name on a daily basis.
You just don’t always realize it.
Turn to the editorial page of The Dominion Post and look at the masthead.
That’s the box with the names of the publisher, editor and other officers who daily steer the newspaper of record for Morgantown and Monongalia County.
And that’s her name in italics up top.
Tune to 1440 AM, the news, sports and public affairs powerhouse everybody listens to, and it’s her name, and indirectly, her vision, that you’re hearing in the call letters.
WAJR.
Her maiden initials.
Greer’s grandsons include David Raese, the publisher of The Dominion Post, and John Raese, the chairman of the West Virginia Radio Corp., whose outlets include WAJR, the flagship of the network.
That made her a media pioneer in Morgantown, but her business acumen went far beyond that.
So did her work ethic.
An honest day’s work …
Greer was born into privilege, but she didn’t always act like it.
She was the daughter of a man who made a fortune through hard work, and by diversifying his portfolio.
Jeremiah Reeves was known for his profitable iron and steel factories.
Then he branched out to real estate and banking, before buying a streetcar line.
At a time in society when women were supposed to be more about the kitchen than the cost ledger, young Agnes simply wanted to go to work.
And not as the boss’ kid.
She was fascinated by the inner-workings of work, as it were.
The strategies, the hierarchies.
What was efficient – and what wasn’t.
A dutiful daughter began her work life as an assistant teller in her father’s bank.
No talking down
She was 28 when she married Herbert Greer, and her business-minded suitor came from a family big in the steel industry in neighboring Western Pennsylvania.
After earning a degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he went back home to work in the family business.
West Virginia’s natural resources brought the newlyweds to the other side of the Mason-Dixon line.
Three years into their marriage, Agnes founded a utility company in Preston County, to go with the coal mines and coke company already started by her and her husband.
Profits from those enterprises led to a successful startup steel company in Ohio in 1912, which, in turn, helped bankroll their signature Greer Limestone Co., in 1914, a company that’s still putting out product 107 years later.
Agnes and Herbert got into the newspaper business in 1923, purchasing a host of weeklies across the region, plus the Morgantown Post and Morgantown Dominion News, which were earlier incarnations of this paper.
WAJR, on the air right now, was formed in 1939.
Herbert Greer died in 1948, and Agnes moved into his offices and capacities to broadcast a strong, clear message.
Yes, she had a healthy sense of humor, and no, she didn’t harbor pretensions about her upbringing – which meant she was not about to let herself be patronized in what was still very much a man’s world then.
The honor of the name
Her namesake great-granddaughter, Agnes Raese, admires that grit.
It’s even more impressive, that great-granddaughter said, since the woman knew how every one of Greer’s operations ran – even to the point where she held 18 patents herself in steel manufacturing.
One of them came from the aforementioned washcloth.
While idly twisting the rag in her hands, she envisioned a rolling process that could better separate layers of steel for a manufacturing process that was more efficient and precise.
“I like that she was tough,” said Agnes, the younger, who is 23 and working in events promotions and marketing in Austin, Texas.
“But I especially like that she came up with those innovations that were patented and used in the industry. That’s a woman who was thinking and working, all the time.”
Indeed, her acquaintances said.
That was literally spelled out in the plaque on her desk that never failed to get notice, as it cut to the core – those who knew her said – of a woman who was never going to shy away from toil, even though she could have lived a true life of leisure.
The wording on the plaque: “The world owes you a living, but you have to work hard to collect it.”
Greer was still actively involved in her companies when she died in her Morgantown home in fall 1972. She was 92 years old.
“That’s a life,” the 21st century Agnes Raese said, of her great-grandmother.
“She was so far ahead of her time, I can’t put it into words. It’s an honor to carry her name and I just want to make her proud.”
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