Notes & Asides.(Gertrude Vogt dead at 99)(Brief Article)

-- Old-timers in and around National Review (1955-1968) will have knknown Gertrude Vogt. She was my secretary and office manager and, like her successor, ran the shop, with her quiet, feral will. Her passion was books, and she had worked under the legendary Isabel Paterson at the New York Herald Tribune Book Review. She married, was widowed, and lived with, and cared for, her mother, with her characteristic, efficient affection. Exercising her custodial concern for her employer, she gave a two-year notice of her departure, and arranged for her successor to cohabit at the office for several months, to accustom her to the particular strains of the job. Then, reaching 65, she went off to live in San Francisco, near to her son in Sacramento.

She loved to walk great distances, and did so whenever she wasn't reading books or listening to music. Her apartment was trim and book- lined, with only a few decorations, one of them an original oil painting depicting (or trying to) five sailboats racing to the mark. They bore identifications, "ILG-1," 2, 3, 4, and 5. "What class is that?" she asked, accepting the gift. The "I Love Gertrude" class, she was told, and the painting might have depicted a thousand such boats.

She died last week in Sacramento, close to her grandson and nine-month- old great-grandchild. If she had lived until June 30, she'd have been 100.

-- WFB

-- Dear Mr. Buckley: With all due respect (by which I mean my mother totold me I'd be stupid to question you), I don't think you correctly answered Mr. Kyllonen on the subject of "women pilots" (April 22).

While it may be common usage to use "women" as an adjective, we do not use "men" in the same way (as in "men teachers" or "men nurses"). "Male" is the accepted adjective in those cases, and also in the singular. I know women are special, but I think we should also be correct. So, tell me, is my mother right?

Catherine Ortiz