Cecil A. Partee Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

Q: What part of Chicago was that?
A: It was 47th and Champlain, in the 4700 block south on Champlain Avenue.
Q: What did you do at the Fair?
A: Just saw the exhibits and took some of the rides and that kind of thing,
nothing that I can focus on as being more important than anything else. But
it was something I had never seen. It was a huge kind of thing. In my
hometown, all I had seen were, you know, carnivals that came to town or the
circus which came once a year, that kind of thing. But to see all of this
mass of people and all this activity, of course, was very interesting.
Q: Did you see anything else in Chicago during that trip?
A: I went to the museums and that kind of thing. Spent some time at the beach
and swimming and, you know, that kind of stuff, just what a kid would do in
the summertime.
Q: How long a trip was it, about two weeks?
A: I guess I was here about two, three weeks, something like that. Yes. I
can remember one thing. It's so funny how you--I remember my cousin's wife
fixed me a lunch. In those days they, they would give you a lunch in a shoe
box. There was chicken and apples and boiled eggs and that kind of thing and
my cousin and I forgot the lunch and when we got on the bus to go back home,
we realized that we had left the lunch at home. And that has been--let's
see, thirteen, fifty-eight--that's been forty-five years ago and I still
remember it.
Q: Yes, it's funny how things stick out. (laughter)
A: 1sn't it?
Q: Yes, sir. You mentioned Mrs. Haley, which brings up the "roots" business.
Have you had any desire to go back in that "root" sort of thing to find your
ancestry?
A: Well, yes. As a matter of fact, the summer before last, we had a family
reunion down in Dyersburg, Tennessee. Actually, home is Ripley but Dyersburg
was more convenient. It's twenty-five miles from Ripley, but there's a
Holiday Inn there that would accommodate us so we went back there. There were
about fifty people from the family who were there. One of my cousins, who is
now a retired teacher and a retired supervisor of schools, put together a
booklet called Roots of Our Family. One of the most interesting things was
that she had gone backto Book 6 in Hayward County, Tennessee, to find a wedding
certificate for my grandmother and grandfather. They were married on
March 13 in 1874. They found the wedding certificate and we were very proud
that they found that, because so many families aren't able to find that kind
of thing. I suppose many of the families didn't--maybe some didn't get married.
But they were married and had these ten children.