Cecil A. Partee Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

just on the weekend which was a lot better becauae if I had gone as a banquet
waiter at a hotel it would have been probably every night. You work the
nightclubs on the weekend, you could earn enough to survive pretty, pretty
nicely.
Q: Yes. (pause) Do you recall any other associations with people at the
university that have continued through the years?
A: Well, no, only just: the people I met as students. I, you know, see many
of them from time to time in various walks of life, But from the faculty,
I don't see many of them. A lot of my classmates I see from time to time.
Q: Well, you graduated, then, in 19462
A: In 1946, that's correct. October. September something. The end of
September, 1946, yes.
Q: While you were still at the university in school, had you started working
or figuring out what you were going to do with your law degree when you got it?
A: Well, yes. I had heard from some people who asked me to come into practice
with them. I had some options. There was a man who wanted me to come down to
Birmingham, Alabama, to work with him. I had an opportunity to go to
Memphis, Tennessee, to work with a lawyer there. And I had given some thought
to going west. I don't know how that got in my mind, hut I had been asked to
come to Portland, Oregon. I did not go,
In the meantime, during my final days at Northwestern, we went over to the
court building, to one of the courts buildings here, and I met a man who was
trying a case there that we observed and he aaid he would like for me to come
down and talk to him at his office. He might want to have me work for him.
His name was Joseph Clayton. I went down to talk with him and as soon as I
got out of school, I started to work for him. You see, we got out of school
in September, I guess, and we took the bar examination in early November and I
worked for him from early November up through January before being sworn in.
As a matter of fact, you didn't know whether you had passed the bar for almost
a month. I took it in early November and Thanksgiving I went down to visit
my mother and then I went up to Tennessee State to the football game, to the
homecoming game. I can remember the president wanted me to crown the queen and
asked me haw he should introduce me. He said, "Are you an attorney now?" I
said, "No, I can't say I'm an attorney because I haven't: passed the bar yet.
I haven't gotten the results from the examination I've taken." And he said,
'well, what is your degree?" I said, "It's a J.D." [Doctor of ~urisprudence]
He said, "Well, we'll just call you Doctor Partee." I said, "Okay, fine." So
I was introduced as Doctor Fartee and I crowned the queen.
Then the next day, I got a call from my mother. She said, "The results of your
bar examination are here. Shall I open them and read them?" I said, ''No,
honey, just read them. I know you've already opened them." And she chuckled