Cecil A. Partee Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

somebody or something foul. So, had a little column, "Mrs. So-and-so had a
party, a birthday party, or a grandson came to visit from Oceola," or something,
you know.
Q: How old were you at this time?
A: Oh, about nine, ten, something like that.
Q: What was your deadlbe for getting your copy in?
A: Well, you would have to get it in by Tuesday, which meant it usually had
to go out Sunday night so they would get it Tuesday. The paper was printed
abovt Wednesday or Thursday. You would get it back on Friday or Saturday.
Q: Was this for all three of the newspapers, you sent the . . .
A: Yes. I think I had two at one time and then, at one time, I had all three
of them.
Q: What were the names of the papers, sir? Do you remember?
A: The Chicago Defender, the Pittsburgh Courier and the Kansas City Call.
Q: How did you sell these? Did you deliver or did you have a stand?
A: No, I would deliver and I would go downtown on Saturday. A lot of people
came in from the country on Saturday, you know, from all the rural areas. I
would just circulate through the crowd and sell them. But I had some regular
customers, you know. Paid six cents for them, sold them for a dime.
Q: And did you get paid for the column that you were writing?
A: No, the incentive for writing the column was to get more people to buy the
paper.
Q: About how many did you sell each . . .
A: Oh, I used to sell maybe fifty to a hundred a week or maybe sometimes a
hundred and fifty. They sold pretty good.
Q: And you were about nine or ten years old at this time?
A: Yes.
Q: How long did you conduct this business?
A: Urn, until--1 guess a couple of years.
Q: Why did you stop?
A: I don't know. I don't know. I got a little past that and started working