A former employee of the Salem City Sheriff's Office marched on the sidewalk in front of the city courthouse Friday, wearing a sandwich board that read, among other slogans, "They say I've resigned, show me where I signed!"

It was Mary Crowder's one-woman protest and, in a sentence, that was her complaint.

She had worked in the office for the past 10 years, answering phones and handling paperwork for three Salem sheriffs. But after a heated argument with her superiors in July, she said, a letter arrived signed by Sheriff Eric Atkins.

He wrote: "I have decided to accept your verbal request of July 24 to resign from this office."

But, as Crowder told the midday traffic along Calhoun Street for about 90 minutes, she never quit.

"There was no resignation. There was no two weeks," she said. And now, she worries, there may be no health insurance and no retirement benefits.

"Am I employed? Am I unemployed?" she asked earlier this week from her Salem home. "I'm 58 years old. I'm panicking."

Friday afternoon, Sheriff's Office Maj. David Rorer said that Crowder had given "a genuine resignation."

The Salem City Sheriff's Office declined to elaborate, saying that specific issues of her employment were a personnel matter and confidential, according to an official statement.

"We respect Ms. Crowder's constitutional right to express herself as we would for any other citizen," Atkins said in the statement.

Crowder was still pictured Friday on the sheriff's office Web site, where she was listed as an administrative staff specialist.

The protest overlapped with a promotion ceremony in the courthouse that recognized two new appointments among the staff. And there was supposed to be a third recognition, Crowder said: herself. She had recently achieved a professional certification for administrative staff, after a year of preparation.

As Crowder tells it, her troubles began in May. After years of strong performance reviews, she was written up for making an "unacceptable comment," she said, though profanity was common in the office.

However, a quarrel over her hours was the true flash point, she said. Since 2006, she had worked from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. to leave time in the afternoon to tend to a family matter, she said. The previous sheriff, Roger Surber, had approved the schedule.

Crowder said that her current superiors had raised questions about the hours, leading up to an argument on July 23. Fearing that she was about to be terminated from her position, she asked for the chance to resign first, she said, but the offer was declined and she was later given a day of paid leave.

The letter from Atkins arrived July 25, Crowder said.