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Carolyn Kay Schafer served as Walt Disney’s secretary in the 1930s.

She was born on September 22, 1905, in Evansville, Indiana, the sixth of seven children to Jacob Shafer and Sarah Gleason. In 1924 she graduated from Reitz Memorial high school and worked for a while in Evansville as a member of the faculty of Oldenburg College before moving to Kentucky in 1929 to accept a job at the St. Joseph’s Academy.

In June 1930, while on a summer vacation to visit her parents who had moved to California a year earlier, she was hired by the Disney Studio and soon became Walt’s secretary. According to historian David Lesjak, in a letter written to a friend in Texas on February 5, 1932, Shafer spoke briefly about her career before moving to California: “For the most part I have been going to school and teaching. My last mission was at Mt. St. Joseph Junior College in Kentucky. I taught physical culture, dancing, all the sports and the commercial subjects. I also substituted.”

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