Does any one in the family remember where she worked? That might help in the identification process.

I was wondering the same thing. I believe the lady is an aunt to DDILs best friend. Unfortunately I believe neither the aunt or the mom are alive, but not positive about the aunt. Haven't had a chance to talk to DDIL since all these wonderful ideas have come in. I think I will e-mail her the link to this thread so she can check out the comments. The friend has also posted this on Facebook trying to get ideas.

maybe a school teacher. in the auditorium opening the curtain for a play.. just a thought

A voting booth?....as good a guessas anything else...lol.

Ladibug

I think it is a voting machine. I used to work the election and when you voted you went in the booth, pulled a curtain, then pulled down a lever for each person you were voting for. After polls closed there was a crank that you attached to the machine that cranked out 8 sheets of paper that were the size of the machine that had the votes and totals on it. I think this resembles that machine.
Jothesewer

I asked my grandparents, who are in their late 80's. Their reply - "She's shredding office documents". I'm going to double-check with my mom. I didn't think shredding or recycling was a thing until the 70's or 80's.... maybe that's because I'm not old enough?

I'd say she was at work, maybe during the war and she is cranking an air raid siren lol

I say she dropped in some coins and is cranking out the postage stamps. Looks like mail boxes in the background.

Everyone has such great ideas. I sent DDIL the link to this thread so she can keep track without continually sending her a new post.

As far as the paper shredding, I am a child of the 40's, and don't remembr there being a lot of paper being around. I never heard of recycling before now. I just remember using handkerchiefs, cloth dish towels for everything. We never had paper towel that I remember. What I remember is "scrimping and saving", maybe the forrunner to recycling.

And yes, it does look like a mailbox, but seems like an awful heavy duty crank for cranking out stamps. We still can't figure out what is in the background, we thought it looked like a picture of "The coliseum".:D

Keep 'em coming guys! Love all the ideas!

I think she is a post mistress