Cecil A. Partee Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

Q: Is her mother still living?
A: Her mother still is alive, yes.
Q: Still here in Chicago, I guess.
A: Yes.
Q: All right, sir. Let's see, when was it that you asked for the precinct
committeeman position? What year?
A: Probably the fall of 1947.
Q: When did you first think that this might be a good move to make?
A: Well, I suppose right after I got out of law school. I started reading
some books about how to build a law practice and one of the statements that
kept recurring was that a young lawyer should be a "joiner," you should join
as many organizations as you felt was necessary to get to know some people
and get some exposure to the population. And I suppose that's probably the
motivation, I saw this joining an organization as being something in that
vein. 1 think I ought to point out that when I started joining various
organizations, including the political organization, 1 had no idea of ever
going into politics.
A: It was a matter of just trying to get to know some people.
Q: I see, yes. (pause) Now, were you living in the precinct that was
assigned you at that time?
A: Yes, I was.
0: How was it decided that you would have that precinct?
A: Well, T suppose nobody else wanted it, frankly. It had been an overwhelmingly
Republican precinct in the election before that and I guess they were
just pretty glad to get somebody who wanted to take it. They had snmeane
there who was just sort of there as a part-time person, to help them out a
little bit, but they never had anyone just assigned to it who had rhe same
kind of interest I had in developing it. So, it was just sort of a natural
that they would give me that precinct.
Q: Who was the Republican precinct committeeman when you . . .
A: It was a woman by the name of Viola Montoya. She incidently was one of the
best Republican precinct captains in the City of Chicago.
Q: a, is that right?