McLean County Museum of History

Keep the Heritage Alive!

Lue Anna Brown Sanders Clark

Transcription of Oral History - Tape 1- Continued


MP	When did you leave your home in Kentucky?

AC	I was about twelve years old when I left.

MP	Oh, you were about twelve years old?

AC	My sister got married, and she lived in southern Illinois. And I come over there and lived with her the rest of the time.

MP	Do you know what town or what area in Illinois?

AC	Olmsted, Illinois.

MP	Olmsted, Illinois?

AC	Olmsted, Illinois. OLMSTED

MP	And what do you remember about life there, when you lived in Olmsted?

AC	Well, it was just a rural life.

MP	And is that where you went to school also, you went to school in Olmsted?

AC	Yes. I went to school there.

SS	When your sister moved to Illinois, did she move there because her husband had a job there?

AC	No, he lived there. That was his home. When they got married, that's where they lived. And she lived there. I went to school some there, but my father was kind of a tight man and he-the first year I was there I didn't have any books. I just had to copy off some of the kids' books at school.

MP	Did you have to buy books? As students you had to buy books, is that right?

AC	Yes.

MP	And so you went to what grade in school?

AC	Eighth.

MP	To the eighth grade. And I guess, how old were you then in eighth grade?

AC	I guess I must of been about sixteen, seventeen.

MP	Seventeen?

AC	Yes.

SS	How long did you stay in southern Illinois?

AC	I stayed there until I moved up here.

SS	How old were you when you left to come up here?

AC	I was twenty-three.

SS	So you were there for a long time, about ten or twelve years?

AC	Yes.

SS	When you got ready to come here, what brought you in this direction?

AC	There was a lady that lived down there in southern Illinois, and she had been working up here in a private family. She was coming home in the spring of the year because her husband-she wanted to help her husband with the crop. And she told me the woman she worked for wanted somebody, and I told her to tell her about me. And so she did, and she told her to tell me to come. So I got off the train and went right to her house.

SS	You were one of the lucky ones.

AC	That was the good part about it, I didn't have to room around.

MP	That's right, you didn't have to look for a job. Now what was the name of this family?

AC	Kitchell, A. [Albert] M. Kitchell.

MP	Kitchell, A. M. Kitchell. And what did-was he a wealthy person? Were they wealthy, well-to-do?

AC	They were pretty wealthy, I think. He run an ice cream parlor downtown.

SS	You started to say something about them being nice people.

AC	Yes, they were nice people. They were kind of elderly. There was just the man and his wife.

SS	So they didn't have any children?

AC	No.

SS	What kind of work did you do? How did you work for them? What kinds of things did you do?

AC	Well, I worked along with her. She was a working woman.

SS	You really were lucky then!

MP	You didn't have much to do then, did you?

AC	Well, I went along with her. She would work till she'd just practically fall out. She wanted to be the cleanest housekeeper in town. That's what she wanted.

MP	That was her goal?

AC	Yes. We'd run the sweeper, and we'd have to get down with a whiskbroom and go all around the edge.

MP	Did you do any cooking?

AC	Yeah. I cooked. I did everything, washed, and ironed. There wasn't too much washing and ironing.

MP	Did you have any days off and what days did you have off?

AC	I had a half a day off on Thursday and a half a day off on Sunday. That's what all the girls who worked out in service had.

MP	Oh, that was the general practice?

AC	Yes.

SS	Did you actually get your time off?

AC	Yeah. You got your time off. By the time you fixed lunch there wasn't much time left. I'd fix their lunch, and I would have enough left so all they had to do was sit it on the table.

SS	When you worked from day to day, did you have a certain work routine so that on certain days you did washing, and on certain days you did ironing?

AC	Yes.

SS	How did you organize your work-day or work week?

AC	I just knew what I had to do and did it.

SS	So give me an example of how your work day or work week might have gone.

MP	From the time you got up in the morning.

AC	On Monday you washed, and on Tuesday you ironed, and you cooked during this same day. That's just the way it went. Monday you washed. Tuesday you ironed. And the rest of the time you cooked and done housework.

MP	Did you feel that you had a lot of work to do? Did you feel tired most of the time or did you have a feeling that you had sufficient time to rest?

AC	Well at Kitchells I had time to rest, but then when I went to work for the Reads, [Burt Read, 920-930 East Grove] I didn't have too much rest time.

SS	Did they have children there?

AC	They had one adopted daughter and.... (someone entered the house)

SS	So, go ahead. You were talking about the Reads, how different it was working for them.

AC	They had a big house and two acres of ground. They had a yardman, and the yardman kept taking care of the flowers. He'd mostly work on the flowers. And they were big eaters.

SS	So you had to cook a lot?

AC	I had cooking to do. She had a daughter-in-law and her son lived there. And she was a good cook. A lot of times she's come out-special things you know, she'd come out. She was a good cook. She did a lot of cooking there, too.

SS	What were your living quarters like in both places?

AC	Nice.

SS	Did you have a room or an apartment?

AC	I just had a room. It was nice both places. I had a room upstairs.

MP	Did you have a separate bath?

AC	No. No, I didn't have a separate bathroom.

MP	You didn't have a separate bathroom. You used the family bathroom.

AC	Un-huh.

MP	Now when you entered to go to work, were you required to enter through the back door or could you enter through the front door of the home?

AC	Well, they never said, but I always went to the side door.

MP	Was there any reason why you did? Was that generally the practice of women who worked in service to go in the side?

AC	Yeah. I think they did. I don't think they come in the front door. They used the side. There wasn't a real back. It was the side door.

SS	That probably would have been the same door that a lot of delivery people would use. Did the deliverymen from town use that same door?

AC	Yes.

MP	Were you free to have your friends visit you on the premises?

AC	Yes. I had friends come to visit.

SS	I wanted to ask one question. I forgot what it was. Oh, were these the two families that you worked for most of the time that you worked out?

AC	Yeah. The longest time I worked in both families. I worked for the Kitchells about nine months, I guess. Then I worked for the Reads after my husband died.

SS	So we're talking about-there was a big time gap in between the two times you worked out. I wanted to ask one more question about that. Did they treat you like one of the family? Did you feel like one of the family where you lived, where you worked? Did they treat you like a member of their family where you worked?

AC	They treated me nice.

SS	Did you feel like you were part of the family or did you feel like...

AC	No, I didn't feel like that. I never feel like that around them-however you say it.

SS	Employers?

AC	Yeah.

MP	Around white people is what you mean.

SS	That's all right. People you worked for. You didn't feel like that around who? You didn't feel like one of the family around people you worked for-is that what you were going to say?

AC	Yeah. I didn't feel like I was one of the family. They just treated me nice, and I treated them nice, and I'd get away from them as quick as I could. I guess I was kind of brought up like that. My father used to tell us so many things about during slavery.

MP	Could you tell us some examples?

AC	Well, there's a lot of things I kind of forgot.

SS	Yeah. As they come back to you, tell us about them. When you left your first work situation, did you leave them because you were getting married? Why did you leave the Kitchells? Tell us about when you left the Kitchells. What happened after you left the Kitchells?

AC	I got married. I got married in 1917 or 1916. So I told them I was getting married. They didn't give me anything.

MP	They didn't give you any present or anything? Is that right? I guess they were angry that you were leaving.

AC	No, they didn't show it if they was. She asked me if I could find somebody to work for her, and I tried. I think I did send her somebody.

?	I don't think they were particularly angry. I had to leave a couple of domestic situations, and it seems as though if you left to have a child, it was more acceptable than if you left to get married. I don't know what that means, but like she said they didn't give you no present. There was no big "wish you well" on your marriage or anything. It seemed to be a little different.

MP	I wanted to ask you one thing. You said the woman, who worked for the Kitchells and who recommended you-the woman who worked there, she had to go back and work on the farm and she recommended you. Now you said she normally came to Bloomington to work in service, and then she would go back and work on the farm. Is that correct?

AC	Yes.

MP	Did a lot of women do that-Black women tend to come to the city?

AC	Yeah. They would, I don't if a lot of them, but she had a sister here, and she'd come up here during the winter and work and sent money back home, I guess, to help him. Then in the spring of the year she went back.

MP	Yes. Uh-huh.

AC	Things were kind of hard then. Women would work and try to help their husbands, you know. They had a farm, but it wasn't enough to keep them well. They was trying to pay for the farm and trying to raise hogs, cows and things like that, you know. Her sister got her that job here, and that's what she did. They wasn't separated or anything. She was just helping out.

SS	Was it very hard for women to get jobs outside then? Was it real hard for women to get good paying jobs?

AC	No, it wasn't.

MP	What kind of jobs did they take? Did most Black women work in service?

AC	Yes. Most Black women worked in service just like I did. Most of them stayed on the place.

MP	Now, did any Black women work in a department store, grocery stores, businesses or factories?

AC	There was one girl who worked in a grocery store. It was the Nierstheimers' grocery store down on North Main Street. She worked there. Her name was Vera Brown. But outside of that...

SS	They were just primarily...

AC	Seemed to me Kathryn Dean worked there after she left.

MP	What year was that? Do you have any idea when that was that these two women worked at the store?

AC	The grocery store?

MP	Yes, the grocery store. Approximately what year?

AC	It must have been 1917 and 1918.

MP	Please go ahead, Stephanie.

SS	I was just going to say that you started talking about when you left your job. You left your job and got married, and you were going to go into what happened in your life after you got married. How it changed and what kinds of things you did after you got married, and we sort of got away from that. Let's talk about your life after you got married. The kind of things you did. Something about your husband?

MP	Where you lived?

AC	I lived down on West Washington Street. That big building across the street.

MP	Is it still there?

AC	It's still there. He had a business there. He had a working man's club. He had a pool hall, a restaurant and rooming house, and a barbershop all in the same building. It was a big building.

SS	What was his name, Mrs. Clark? What was your husband's name?

AC	Ike Sanders.

SS	Ike Sanders?

AC	Isaac Sanders, but everybody called him Ike. I'll show you his picture.

MP	Tell us how it came to be known as the Working Man's Social Club and when it was started. Tell us all about it.

AC	Well, he started the club, and he just named it. He had about a dozen men to sign that they were interested-wasn't interested, you know. But to sign that they were partners. And he just named it Working Man's Social Club.

SS	And men lived there?

AC	So he went down to Springfield and got the charter, and Mr. Stevenson he didn't charge him a penny 'cause he knew him.

MP	What Mr. Stevenson?

SS	The older Adlai?

AC	No, it was his son. His name was-Edgar, no....

SS	We can find his name, Adlai's son?

MP	What was his position?

AC	He was Secretary of State.

MP	What year was this, approximately, when he started this club?

AC	1917.

SS	Tell me some more about the club. Did people live there on a daily basis or yearly basis? Did they board there, room and board there?

AC	Some of them did. We only had men. We didn't have no women 'cause they were troublemakers. (laughter)

?	Why weren't women allowed? Why were they troublemakers?

AC	To room at a place to live there, they're just desperate. I don't know what's wrong with them. (laughter)

MP	Are you saying that some of them were, how do you say-he didn't want women around because they were prostitutes or something like that?

AC	Well, we had plenty of women to come in there, but no women stayed there.

MP	To live there?

AC	No women stayed there. But we had as many women there as we did men, but we didn't let them stay.

?	Do you think women were more open to letting men come in and stay the night with them, but men wouldn't?

AC	Yes.

?	Okay. And then that causes trouble for somebody else.

SS	This working man's club, how did it affect your work? You probably had to do a lot more work to help keep this business going.

AC	Not too much. I helped. I cooked. He cooked and I cooked, and we had a man there to help. Mr. Johnson, he stayed there and he helped. The people, the women, that would come there, they were all for...

End Side A


Side B

SS	Okay, you were saying that when things got too busy at the club, the women who came in to visit and socialize would help with the work.

AC	They did. We always had fish on Friday. It went so fast sometimes, you couldn't hardly cook it fast enough, you know. Some of the women would say, "Well, I'm going to cook my piece of fish," and they'd get up and cook it like they wanted it. We had a big coal stove, and they'd get up and fry their own fish.

MP	Now these working men, what kind of work did they do?

AC	The men?

MP	Yes. Who signed up for the club?

AC	They had a coal mine here at that time and a lot of men worked in the coal mine, but most of them worked in the shops. They had a big shop, railroad shop. And some of them worked in private families, doing different kinds of jobs.

SS	Were they single men or men that just moved to this area?

AC	No, most of them was married men. They had their own homes, but they always come there.

SS	Their homes were some place else other than Bloomington-Normal?

AC	In Bloomington.

SS	So they stayed with you and worked during the week?

AC	No, they didn't stay there. They went home. They just come there to buy their food and buy their drinks, whatever they want. Then they'd go home.

MP	Who were the men who stayed overnight? What kind of people stayed overnight?

AC	People that come out of town mostly, and probably didn't have no home here and no family. So they'd stay there.

MP	So you had kind of a hotel then, right?

AC	Yeah.

SS	Were they any other places like that in town where Black working men or Black men could have stayed overnight? Did you have the only place in town where Black men could get a room or a bed for the night or week?

AC	The only business place. But a lot of them had rooming houses. Like I have this house, I'd maybe have a room to rent. A lot of people had that.

SS	How long were you married to Mr. Saun-Saunders or Sanders?

AC	Sanders?

SS	How long were you married to Mr. Sanders?

AC	Thirteen years.

SS	Did you work with the working men's club for the whole time?

AC	No. He went out of business after the war, after the soldiers come back.

SS	Which was that? The second war? The first war?

MP	World War I.

AC	Then we lived out on South Main Street, down there by the viaduct. The viaduct wasn't there then. They built the viaduct while we was there. They had a rooming house there, just rooms for men. (tape is turned off)

MP	Mrs. Clark is telling us that her husband-what is this picture? Would you tell us about it?

AC	That's the restaurant he had down on South Main before I met him. That's him there and that's his wife, and that was his brother-in-law.

MP	Was this the first restaurant.

AC	In Bloomington.

MP	that a Black person...?

AC	Yes. He went in with another man by the name of Skinner.

MP	Skinner?

AC	And he ordered up a lot of tables and chairs and began to bring his family in on Sundays. They'd all sit down and eat and not pay and everything, and he had quite a bit of debt. So, finally he told him, "Sanders, I think I'm going to pull out of this. You just go on with it." So he said he had that debt, and he went to Mr. Kirkpatrick. You know...

?	I know Mr. Kirkpatrick.

AC	He went to his father. His father was running a big.

?	Mr. Kirkpatrick was kind of an old-line supporter of Black people in the community.

MP	This is a white person?

?	A white person, un-huh.

MP	What's his first name?

AC	That's where he got his tables from and chairs. He went to him and told him just what had happened. He told him that this fellow that had went in with him had pulled out, and he told him, he said, "Now I'm gonna wipe this debt. You don't have to pay anything." He give him the whole thing, and he said, "I'm gonna tell ya never go in business with anybody else." See when you're in business with somebody and they order something and they don't pay for it, you got to pay. So he told him, he said, "(inaudible) these things are yours and never go in business with anybody."

SS	Do you want to talk about any of these other pictures you have?

MP	Could you tell us about that one? (begin looking at photographs)

AC	That's the soldiers, and they coming back from the first war.

SS	World War I?

AC	Uh-huh.

SS	These are local men?

AC	Uh-huh, local men all of them. They all dead.

SS	Looks like army and.

AC	This is another, the Spanish-American War. They all dead.

SS	These are local men who were in the Spanish-American War?

AC	Here's a boy who lived with me. He's a doctor in here in (inaudible).

SS	This is a person who lived with you?

MP	Now would you tell us the circumstances under which you had some young people living with you from Illinois State University? You had several young people living with you from ISU.

SS	And tell us when it is because I think we've jumped a big time here. We shouldn't have...

AC	It was just before the Second World War 'cause they all left the same night, going to the war. There was eight of them, and they lived there with me. I had one great big room and two small ones. I had two beds in the big room and a cot and a big bed in the other room. Some of them couldn't find no place to live, and they couldn't live in the dormitory 'cause they didn't take them at that time. They cooked and ate there. They didn't-they couldn't eat. I was out there working at the school so they all cooked and ate there. And the way they'd do, they all got together and they wrote out a menu and put it on the wall behind the stove for the week. One of them would cook one week, and two would wash the dishes. The next week-they went alphabetically-the other one would cook, and two would wash the dishes. They got along fine. They bought their food together. They all got along fine. That boy I just showed from Gary, Indiana. I was talking to a friend in here last night....

SS	He's graduated, and he's a physician now? He's a doctor now?

AC	Yes, he's a doctor, medical doctor. There I got a picture.

SS	Can we back up a little bit now? Would you mind if we go back to something else we started talking about before. I wanted to go back to something else that we started , or do you want to keep going through these pictures?

AC	No, it don't matter. Oh, that's Mr. Hunter. He used to work out to the school. He died.

?	I heard he did.

AC	That's the boy I helped so much. I know'd him all his life. I know'd him when he was born. He's a bone specialist over in Ohio. He was here last year.

MP	He went to ISU-Illinois State University?

AC	Uh-huh.

SS	This is interesting. He signed his picture "a possibility."

?	I'll have to bring Connie over some time, Ms. Clark, and let her see all these pictures.

AC	Here's Ms. Brent.

?	Lucinda?

AC	She's the Woman of the Year.

MP	Yes.

AC	Do you want that picture?

MP	Oh, yes, I do. If you're going to give it to me, I certainly do. She's a lovely lady. (tape is turned off)

SS	I don't know quite where we left off. After you got married and you and your husband started-were working in this business together? What I wanted to get to is what happened. Your husband died, right?

AC	Uh-huh.

SS	How long were you married?

AC	Thirteen years.

SS	What I'm trying to get at, I guess, is what happened to you after your husband died?

AC	I got a job with the Reads, and I stayed there until.-then I got a job out at the Soldiers and Sailors School.

AC	I worked at Livingston's Store before he died. I worked there twelve years.

SS	Before your husband died?

AC	Yes. Then after he died, the Depression come. They didn't need me anymore, and I got a job at Mrs. Reads, and I stayed there about a year or two, and then I went out to Soldiers and Sailors School. And I stayed there twenty years.

SS	What did you do at the Soldiers and Sailors Home? What kind of place was it? What kind of school was it?

AC	Soldiers and Sailors? It was for soldiers' and sailors' children. Like their mother and father was dead, they could go there and live. That's what they started out as.

SS	What did you do there?

AC	First, I started in the laundry-ironing. Then I went from the laundry up to the hospital. I served the trays to the sick kids. But they'd bring the food over in containers and I'd put it on a tray, and they had a pulley to pull it up the stairs so that's what I did. After that I would clean around in the hospital, make the beds and things like that. The nurses wouldn't want to do it. They wanted me to do it. It was they job. The beds that they didn't use, I had to take care of them, but the beds that were used-that was the nurses' job. (looking at pictures) There's my nephew.

MP	Did you want to pursue something else?

SS	I was just interested in how you went from one situation to another. After your husband died, you went to work some place different than where you had been working all along. You went to work at the Reads after your husband died, and then at the Soldiers and Sailors?

MP	At Livingston's. She worked at Livingston's.

SS	Livingston's?

AC	I worked at Livingston's store for twelve years.

SS	You were working there while you were married.

AC	While he was living. After he died, I worked there until the Depression came. So they let me go then. Then I went to Mrs. Reads in private home.

SS	Did you see a lot of Black people changing jobs here through the Depression? And whites, too? How did people's jobs and work change during the Depression?

AC	They didn't have much work. It was kind of hard for everybody. They had the WPA for men and women-they had jobs for them. They'd go around to sick people and work and take care of old people. They had that kind of job, just like they have now. It was kind of hard for everybody. So many people was out of work at that time, white and Colored.

MP	Is it true that I heard someone say that during the Depression, some white people decided that because there were a lot of white people out of work that they preferred to give jobs-their service jobs, to white people rather than Black people? Is that correct?

AC	Yeah.

MP	Would you tell us what you know about that?

AC	Well, there was a millionaire woman that lived-a Mrs. Ewing of the Ewing Castle. Colored people worked there. They had a man and his wife and another girl, and a yardman. I don't know just exactly, but the girl that worked there told me that the Association of Commerce asked Mrs. Ewing to let them go and give the job to some white people. And she told them "no." She said, "I hire who I want." Mrs. Ewing was very nice to her help. She used to have riding horses, and she'd let the help ride the horses. Golda Manuel in Gary, Indiana-I was talking to her night before last, and Golda-Mrs. Ewing she liked to ride horses-and Golda would ride with her, and they used the house for parties, things like that. She was a millionaire woman. She was a Wrigley, the gum heir. Now Roberta told me that Mrs. Ewing told her that the Association of Commerce had asked Mrs. Ewing to let them go and hire white people.

SS	And Roberta was the woman who worked for her? She was a Black woman who worked for her?

AC	Yes. She worked there for years.

MP	Do you know any other prominent white families who did let their Black help go?

AC	I wouldn't know that. They probably did, but I wouldn't know that.

?	I think the ones around here who did kind of stick it out were the Beich's, the Ewings, the (unclear). Those kinds of people seemed to keep Black people on during that time from things that I've picked up.

AC	There were a lot of people let go, and they didn't know why.

MP	Tell me something about the Association of Commerce.

AC	I don't know anything about them. That's all I know. (talk about stopping the interview and returning at a later dare. tape is turned off)

AC	It's a nice thing that they're doing that. I was telling her-she said her mother worked for the Burr's. And I said, "Well, I knew the Burr's, too." So she said-and I told her I said I know the woman who used to wash for the Burrs. And she said Mr. Burr never did have no draws. (laughter) All the years she worked there she never did see them. (lots of laughter drowns out some talk) I guess he just didn't wear them.

SS	So Ms. Clark so that we can go ahead finish today and not bother you again, tell us about your second marriage. Did you have any children in either marriage?

AC	No, I never had any children in my first marriage, and in my second I was too old to have children.

SS	In what year did you get married the second time?

AC	19.. It was about ten or twelve years after my husband died.

SS	So it was about 1945 or [19]48?

AC	Yeah, somewhere along in there. 1950-maybe along in there. I lived with him my first husband thirteen years, then he passed. And my second husband I lived with him thirteen years, and he died.

MP	What kind of work did your second husband do?

AC	He worked with the railroad. He was a porter down at the station. Later years, he used to work at the shops.

SS	What has widowhood been like for you since your husbands or your last husband died? What has being a single woman again, being a widow, what has that-how is that different for you?

AC	It's all right. I adjust to it pretty good.

MP	Any adjustments like, being able to manage your affairs?

AC	Oh yes, I manage pretty good.

MP	But it's not been a problem for you?

AC	Everybody says for my age, I manage pretty good.

MP	I think you do.

SS	I think irrespective of age you manage. (laughter)

MP	Have you had any health problems? Any since after your husband died?

SS	Have you had any illnesses?

MP	Have you been sick?

AC	No, I have pretty good health.

?	I think it's kind of funny because when me and my sister and Ms. Clark go out all the time, they're always worried about me. I'm looking at her-she's ninety some years old. I'm in my forties, and Ms. Clark is having to get in the back so I can get in the front. It's really different, isn't it?

AC	My sister she lived to be ninety-three years old.

MP	Are most of your relatives long livers?

AC	All except my mother. She died when she was thirty-five, and my father lived-he must have been about eighty or ninety. He'd probably be living yet, but a man run over him with an automobile.

MP	Would you say that when you got married to your first husband that you were part of the-how do you say, upper class Blacks in Normal?

AC	No, I wouldn't say I was upper class. I was just a plain old housewife.

MP	Were you active in clubs of any kind?

AC	Yeah, I was active in clubs, but not too active.

MP	What kind of clubs did you belong to?

AC	I belonged to the Three C club.

MP	What's the Three C club?

AC	It's a secret.

MP	Oh, all right. The Three C club. Any others?

AC	No.

MP	Any women's clubs?

AC	No.

SS	What about church groups?

AC	I don't belong. I go to Mount Pisgah.

SS	What church do you belong to?

AC	I don't belong.

SS	What else would you like to tell that we haven't thought to ask you? What else would you like to talk about that we haven't asked you? If you had to leave a legacy, how would you want people to remember you? It's kind of a dumb question.

MP	But it's a nice question that Barbara Walters asks, and I think it's always good.

SS	Well, how would you want to be remembered? What do you think has been important?

AC	Just that I'd like to be remembered-just the same thing over and over everyday. Just quiet-a quiet life. I don't want no great big hoorah. I don't live no hoorah life, and I don't want no hoorah.

SS	That's not what I meant. I meant, basically, how you would like other people to remember you? What do you think has been most important about your life?

AC	I'd like to be remembered as being nice and kind. I think anybody I ever met would remember me like that. My sister was a better woman than I am.

SS	Why do you say that?

AC	She was kind, done a lot of good things for people.

SS	Well, you have too. You have all these men who have grown up to be doctors. You've done a lot of good things too for people.

MP	That's what I was going to say, Ms. Clark. I think you've made a great contribution to young people because at a time when they could not stay at Illinois State University, many of them would probably never been able to get their education if you had not been willing to open your house to them. And, really, to be a mother to them.

AC	This boy, Elroy-I was down in southern Illinois. My sister lived there. He just come out of high school. People down there told me he was smart. And he and his mother lived together. She was married, but her husband was dead. So I said to him, I said, "Elroy." I know'd him since he was born. I said, "Elroy, are you going to college?" He said, "No, I guess not, Mama's not able to send me. I guess I'll just join the army." I said, "Elroy, if you really want to go to college, you can come up there and stay with me. I live just a block from the school, and you can come up there and work your way through." He said, "Well, I'll talk to Mama, see what Mama says." He went back home, and next day here he and his mom come. So she told me, "Now, I'm not able to give him much. I'll send him what I can get, but if he can work his way through, and he wants to go, why, he can go." So he did. He done all kinds of work. He worked on the railroad. One day, he come in-I had told him. I said, "Now anything that come up that you want to talk to me about, I'll tell you the best I know." So he went on. He worked in the restaurant, he worked in the.

End Side B

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