My father in law, Harry Klemfuss passed away last week at the age of 88. He was a doting grandfather to our children Katie and Max and his twinkling blue eyes were almost always accompanied by a clever, sometimes astringent commentary on whatever was going on in our house or in the world. Although we never talked much about it, in his younger days Harry was a prominent PR guy, a profession dear to my heart. His brother Richard Klemfuss wrote the following obituary for him:


Harry F. Klemfuss, a career publicist during the mid-20th century and credited as the male champion who gave inspirational birth to National Secretaries Day in 1952, died July 27 of natural causes. Klemfuss, 88 years old, had been hospitalized at Chilton Memorial Hospital in Pompton Plains, New Jersey, where he died.

His surviving wife Olga Yukich Klemfuss, a consultant with the national Girl Scouts of the USA, resides at the couple’s home in Ringwood, New Jersey. A daughter, Rosemary Carroll, an entertainment attorney in New York City, her husband Danny Goldberg, and their children Kathryn and Max Goldberg, are residents of New York City.

Klemfuss will be cremated and buried in a family plot in California. Memorials can be made to the Girl Scouts of the USA.

The year 1952 – before Betty Freidan had written the landmark book The Feminine Mystique, Klemfuss, a publicity man at Young & Rubicam Advertising, was assigned The Dictaphone Corporation account and quickly noticed national surveys which identified a growing shortage of secretaries in the burgeoning post-war economy. He also felt strongly the secretaries deserved a special compliment: these were the gender heirs of Rosie the Riveter and the auxiliary military women who had served valiantly in World War II and Korea. Himself a veteran of the Pacific War, he convinced U.S. Secretary of Commerce Charles Sawyer of this view and registered National Secretaries Week and the Day in the national calendar. Klemfuss won the support of Mrs. Mary Barrett, President of the National Secretaries Association, and C.K. Woodbridge, Chairman of The Dictaphone Corporation, who agreed to head the first National Secretaries Week Council. Secretary Sawyer acclaimed the first National Secretaries Week and Secretaries Day in June of 1952. In the ensuing 57 years to the present, the last full week of April is celebrated as National Secretaries Day as the centerpiece of a week set aside to honor their skills and civilizing influence. It has metamorphosed in the Information Age to become Administrative Professionals’ Day, recognizing that the national memory has been fast-forwarded from that earlier time when there were fewer career opportunities for women.

From the very beginning the annual publicity campaign sold lots of Dictaphones. It also altered the collective consciousness of “I’m-too-busy-to-notice” executives. The new awareness suggested to the bosses resulted in an avalanche of floral bouquets and boxes of candy appearing on the desks of their newly discovered partners in business. Perhaps next to Mothers’ Day it continues to hold that special place among our national holidays.

Public relations efforts for other sponsors during his career included the introduction of aureomycin for Lederle Laboratories, and of Amtrak rail service; General Electric home products, the greater New York Red Cross, and tourism promotion for the Cayman Islands.

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