Dates

• Existence: 1911 - 1993

Biography

Muriel Anne Dryden was born on December 26, 1911 to Clifford and Grace Dryden. The eldest of four sisters, Dryden grew up in Waterloo, Iowa, and graduated from East High in 1930. She attended business college in Des Moines as well as communications school to qualify for duty in World War II.

Dryden's professional career was spent in governmental service. In 1944, she joined the Office of War Information and continued her employment with the United States government until her retirement in 1974. She spent twelve years in New York City working in communications for the Office of War Information, the United States Mission to the United Nations and the Voice of America (VOA). Most of her work during these positions involved handling news desk copy. In 1956, she moved to Washington, D.C. with the VOA under the wing of the United States Information Agency (USIA). She transferred to the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, taking a position in a research library in 1962. From 1969 to 1974, she spent five years at the White House during the Nixon administration as a mail analyst in the Executive Office Building.

Throughout her professional career in Washington, Dryden worked at the Washington bureau for several newspapers including Newsweek, The Christian Science Monitor, and The Baltimore Sun. In these positions, she moonlighted as a part-time teletypist responsible for minor editing on both government and private-sector news items.

Upon retirement from the White House in 1974, Dryden wrote but did not finish a book about Dr. George Lamsa and his translation of the Holy Bible from the Aramaic language. The book remains unpublished.

Dryden passed away on December 14, 1993.

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