Cecil A. Partee Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

Q: Because of your standing in high school.
A: Yes.
Q: Had you worked toward this, knowing it as a goal?
A: Not as a goal, no. I just had always been impelled to do as well as I
could and that's why I did it. Scholarships weren't that wide-open like
they are now. There were a lot fewer scholarships in those days than there
are now. But I always figured wherever I went to school I was going to have
to work anyhow, so the scholarship wasn't the main incentive. Just doing
well was the incentive.
Q: Who sponsored that scholarship?
A: Well, Morehouse at that time had very close affiliations with the Baptist
church and we were Baptists and I suppose I got a recommendation from my
minister and then they looked at your record against the records of others
who sought to come there .and then decided from among them who should get
the few scholarships they had.
Q: What year was this when you entered Tennessee State?
A: 1938.
Q: What type of job did you find there?
A: I didn't find any, they gave me one. You know, you just came in and you
said you wanted to go to school and you wanted to work part of it and--they
gave me a job. They gave me a job in the laundry. I worked in the laundry
about two or three months when the head of the business department told the
president that I was too smart to work in the laundry and they wanted to
change my job and they brought me up to the comptroller's office. So I worked
in the business office from that point forward.
Q: How soon was this after you had started working there?
A: About three months. That sounds braggadocio but I'm just telling you what
the lady said. (chuckles) Not bragging, telling you what the lady said.
Q: What did you do in the comptroller's office?
A: Oh, worked business machines, regular office work, filing, just regular
office work, clerical work.
Q: You started school then, I guess, in September of 1938?
A: Of 1938, that's correct.
Q: What were the living conditions like there?