In June, 1941, Anna Stepchuck was a New York City high school graduate who, financially unable to pursue her college education, took a clerical job at one of the Long Island defense factories because it paid more than clerical jobs in New York City; who started a sandwich take-out business for factory workers which ultimately blossomed into a diner; who over the years achieved a bachelor's degree, and then a master's, with a thesis on Jane Austen; and who managed to record, without his knowledge, confidential conversations of a Suffolk County Republican Party town leader over a number of years for grist for her mill as a writer.