| Transcription of Oral History - Reginald Whittaker - 1986 |
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| Narrator: Reginald Whittaker |
| Interviewers: Mildred Pratt and Mary Williams |
| Date: 11, 1986 |
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| Side A |
| MP |
11, 1986, and I'm interviewing Mr. Reginald Whittaker, who lives at [address omitted] in
Normal, Illinois. All right. |
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| RW |
I was born here at [address omitted] at in Normal, April 23, 1925 a son of Walter
and Caddie Whittaker. I went to school here in Normal. I went as far as high school. I graduated from Normal Community High School. |
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| MP |
Where did you start to school? You said there was a small school here. |
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| RW |
I started school at Normal Central School, the old Normal Central School. |
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| MP |
Where was it located? |
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| RW |
It was located over on School, Mulberry, and what is now College, but it was Ash Street
then. Those eighteen-story dorms are setting over there on part of the property of that school now. |
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| MP |
I see. |
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| RW |
I went there from kindergarten to fourth grade. Then they built the Eugene Field School across the park over here, and I went over there one year, fifth grade, and then back to Normal Central School from sixth through eighth, and then over to the Normal Community High School. And that's where I graduated from. |
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| MP |
And then... |
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| RW |
I didn't go to college because at the time I didn't know-I had the opportunity, but I
didn't know what I wanted to go into because everything was so limited for us at that time. I didn't want to be a teacher, and that was the biggest thing then. And so it's more or less been here in the Twin-Cities. |
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| MP |
What did you do then, after you graduated from high school? |
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| RW |
I went to work for F. W. Woolworth Company. I was working there after school, and I when I finished school, the war had ended, and everything was closing up in way of war plants. So I just remained on there with the idea I was going to remain there temporarily, I thought, because I was headed to Chicago or some place to make my fortune. (laughs) |
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| MP |
What did you do at Woolworth? |
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| RW |
Worked in the stock room. Twenty years and six months later I left Woolworths (laughs)
and went to work for the telephone company. |
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| MP |
In Bloomington, yes. |
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| RW |
In Bloomington. |
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| MP |
And what did you do there? |
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| RW |
At the telephone company? |
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| MP |
Yes. |
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| RW |
Well, a janitor. |
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| MP |
I see. |
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| RW |
I guess you could say I might be the first Black janitor they hired at the time. They
were starting that. They had already hired some telephone operators. They had one Black switchman working there. Then I went there so I've been there ever since. |
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| MP |
You retired from there? |
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| RW |
No, I'm still working... |
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| MP |
You're still working, I see, yes all right. |
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| RW |
Working on twenty-one years there. So concerning my parents-my father at the age of
eight or nine, I don't remember which, his father moved here in this house. Bought this property and moved here, and my father finished his schooling, elementary schooling here in Normal, and he went to ISNU for I think about one year. Then he transferred to Wilberforce University and finished out there, and then came back to Normal and he was here. My mother-I don't know what year she came to Bloomington from Georgetown, Kentucky, but she was quite young. She met, and after being here a while she married John Duff and had a daughter Fay Wesley Duff and was carrying her son John Wesley Duff when her husband passed away with typhoid fever. So I think, I guess, in the meantime my father had returned to Bloomington-Normal and was living here with his parents. And my mother and her husband lived down on Oak Street about four or five blocks south of here. Of course, John R. Duff and my father, Walter Whittaker, were very good friends. So eventually, I think, after John R. Duff died, five or six years later my mother and father married. And by that time my father's father had passed. Of course, his mother was gone, too. So they bought this property in 1893. It still remains Whittaker property. This is where the Whittaker children-Josephine, my brother who has passed Walter, and myself were born. |
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| MP |
So there were three children born from that family, the Whittakers, and how many
children did your mother have now before she married your father? |
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| RW |
Two. |
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| MP |
Two children, what were their names Mr. Whittaker? |
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| RW |
John. Fay, the oldest, and John. |
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| MP |
Are they still living now? |
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| RW |
Yes. |
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| MP |
Where do they live? |
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| RW |
Well Fay has Alzheimer disease, and she's in a nursing home over at McLean County. |
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| MP |
I see. |
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| RW |
And my brother John Duff is in Bethesda, Maryland |
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| MP |
I see, would you tell me what your father studied at Wilberforce? |
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| RW |
Business Administration. |
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| MP |
And when he returned? |
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| RW |
It was wrong for that time. |
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| MP |
Oh is that right? Why would you say so? |
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| RW |
Yeah, there was nothing for Blacks in the way of business. |
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| MP |
Oh is that right? |
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| RW |
No, I guess he should have studied farming or something of that nature, but he might of
could have done all right if he had left Bloomington-Normal and gone to Chicago or New York-somewhere where there were a few Black businesses. But so far as breaking into the business world, there wasn't any back in those days. |
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| MP |
What did he do when he came back here? What kind of work did he do? |
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| RW |
Well, what I remember, he worked for what was know as Model Laundry. Worked there twenty-three years. |
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| MP |
Is that right? |
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| RW |
Down on Market Street in Bloomington. So I don't know what he did prior to that. |
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| MP |
Was that a white or Black business? |
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| RW |
It was white... |
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| MP |
It was a white business, yes. |
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| RW |
Course it has changed ownership, and the new owner brought in his people, and my father
was let out. I think around 1934-[19]33 or [19]34 ([unclear) he worked around here in Normal doing odd jobs, and then finally, WPA or PWA whatever started up. He worked on that until the war started, and of course, he worked downtown Bloomington at the Livingston Building as a janitor down there. He was very fairly well up in age then probably. I shouldn't say fairly well up in age, but he was probably in his fifties then. He was too old to go into the army or anything like that. And that's where he worked until he passed. |
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| MP |
Is that right? |
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| RW |
1964 at the age of eighty-four years old. |
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| MP |
Mr. Whittaker do you remember if your father ever talked with you about how he felt that
he had a college degree and was not able to find employment related to the degree? |
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| RW |
No, he never talked about it. He was a type of man-I guess, you call him a studious
person. He was always reading, and he wasn't a-he didn't get out play catch with any of us kids here. He would go to school functions with us or things of that nature, but other than that, any free time was spent reading the Bible or the paper or encyclopedia. He'd set here and work math problems, things of that nature. But far as talk, he just I don't know anything about his family because he just never talked about it. |
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