Dear TIME reader

TIME Researcher Mary Elizabeth ("Liz") Fremd walked up to the huge new ship still abuilding at the Newport News shipyards. At her side as they approached the superliner United States was a sturdy gentleman in a blue suit. A guard stopped them: no women allowed on board. "Oh, that's all right," blandly quipped Miss Fremd's escort. "She's my wife." The guard looked puzzled: "And who are you?" "I," said the gentleman, "am the captain of this ship."

Thus, with the good-humored help of Commodore Harry Manning, Researcher Fremd became the first woman to set foot aboard the United States. The trip was part of her research assignment on the cover story on Commodore Manning and his ship (TIME, June 23, 1952).

Liz Fremd is head researcher for TIME'S Business section, with a staff of five researchers who go out on interviews, gather background material for writers, run down elusive figures and check facts. As it happens, Researcher Fremd's job at TIME is somewhat different from the career she had originally planned. In the seventh grade at Larchmont, N.Y. she decided to become a police reporter. She joined TIME in 1946 after editorial and production jobs on industrial trade magazines. By then her interests had veered from crime to finance, and she was hired as a researcher for the Business section. Says she: "I remember my first story conference all too vividly. Everybody spoke in code: '. . . The CAB is going to do this . . . T.W.A. and Pan Am are going to do that . . . The SEC is due to announce . . . The SCOTUS decision is expected . . .' Everything was initials. I didn't understand a word they were saying."

She soon learned that SCOTUS meant Supreme Court of the U.S.: one of her stories to research that first week was a court decision on an antitrust suit against tobacco companies (TIME, June 24, 1946). Six months later Liz was assigned her first cover story--Railroader Robert R. Young (TIME, Feb. 3, 1947)--and in 1951 she became head researcher of the Business section.

Among the people Researcher Fremd has interviewed are such TIME cover subjects as Movie Magnate J. Arthur Rank; Dress Designer Sophie Gimbel; Crawford Greenewalt, president of Du Pont; Fashion Model Lisa Fonssagrives; and David Sarnoff of RCA.

While working on the Greenewalt cover story (TIME, April 16, 1951), Liz spent many days in Wilmington, Del. Once, during the course of the research, she and Mr. Greenewalt found themselves in a long, theoretical discussion on how TIME researches and reports a story--particularly such a complicated one as this. The discussion finally wound up in a bet. If there were no errors in the Greenewalt cover story, he was to pay Liz $5; for each error, Liz was to pay him $1. Says she: "I had to send him $1. I got Pierre du Font's age wrong. He was not 80, he was 81."

Another person she talked with on the Greenewalt story was the late Lammot du Pont, whose great hobby was wood chopping. During this discussion Liz got a long lecture on the theory and rewards of wood chopping. "I must admit," she says, "that I was still a bit skeptical about the rewards after it was over."

For the cover story on John and George Hartford of the A. & P. stores (TIME, Nov. 13, 1950). Researcher Fremd and writer managed to arrange for an interview that was scheduled for 30 minutes; it lasted some five hours. There was also a tour of an A. & P. store in New Rochelle, N.Y. with John Hartford ("He was wonderful; I got 30 pages of quotes including his dismay at the high cost of radishes") and an invitation to tour the Hartford country place in Valhalla, N.Y. The Valhalla tour was made with "a magnificent horse drawing a real fringe-topped surrey." After the ride they all raked leaves together before lunch, and when it was time to go, Liz was presented with a dozen fresh country eggs.

Another memento came from Charles E. Wilson, when he was president of General Electric. Liz had left New York in dry weather for a tour of Schenectady plants, where she found ankle-deep slush. While sloshing around in open-toed shoes, she noticed Mr. Wilson whispering to his chauffeur, who returned a short time later with a shoe box which Wilson gravely presented to Liz. It contained a pair of rubbers. After that, whenever she phoned him, Mr. Wilson's sign-off to TIME Researcher Fremd was "Keep your feet dry."

Cordially yours, James A. Linen

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