Cecil A. Partee Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

shipment all over the world.
It was just laboring work.
Q: And you say you just came to Chicago to look for work then because you
wanted to see what Chicago was like?
A: Yes, and I had a cousin here. I stayed with him and held that job that
summer.
Q: What was his name?
A: Calvin Wills. He had been a Pullman porter for a number of years and I
stayed with him. The Pullman porters in those days were in pretty good shape.
They had regular jobs and they made pretty good money. He took me down one
day to get me a job. He made the mistake of telling my correct age, which
was a year younger than they were hiring, and I didn't get the job. The man
said to us, "we need people so badly. If you had just lied about it, we'd
have taken him. But now that I know," he said, "I can't." So I missed
being a Pullman porter and traveling all over the country. But I got this
other job.
Q: What did you do during the year you were recovering from the leg injury?
A: Taught school.
Q: Oh, you did?
A: Yes.
Q: Where was this?
A: A little town called Birdsong, Arkansas. It was a three-teacher school.
I taught the sixth, seventh and eighth grades, every subject. I had them all
in the same room. 1 suppose there must have been thirty-five kids in the
three grades. They had another teacher for third, fourth and fifth. The
primary teacher taught first and second, and I was the principal.
Q : Well !
A: Yes. The school didn't start until late in November and then I got out
there. They were a very interesting little group of kids. In my eighth grade
class graduation, there were eight youngsters. My mother came down and
delivered the commencement address for me. Of my kids, I know where about
three of them are. One of them went on to finish high school and college and
got a masters and is the head of the art department in the high school system
in my hometown.
Q: Oh, is that right?
A: Another has a masters and is teaching in Chicago. The third one is teaching
out in California, out of that eight. Now, I don't know about the other five,
I just don't know where they are.