Anna Louise Tittman Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

Anna Tittman
He said, "She was out Saturday evening, and I saw her ha&
the bland Hotel. l1
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€2. This is one of his teachers? !
dinner at
A. He was so extra clean in everything; in his housekeepbg inl.the school.
He had four mts outside. When the children went out, thqy had to march
in, wipe thefr feet so many tims on each mat and then they could gojin.
It was that kind of thing, it was regimented, you might sqy . He didh l t
approve of m too mch. When I called the first tirr~ on qhe phone to say
that I would like to c m one day this next week.
to help E. " And he says, "Oh, we take care of all that. don't need
it l1 I said, "The Board of Education has assigned m to all schools
and so I will be there." We got along a11 right.
Q. More or Less. (chuckles) 1
A. Yes.
Q. Were the other principals . . .
"1 had yo-and-so assigned
A. Oh, sore of them were just wonderful, just wonderful. And the t achers
would call me up sometimes where I lived. I Uved with t Edward demon
family on Walnut Street at that the. I would be called % the evening about
some child in their classroom by the teacher, or at noon +UP, those that
went horn for lunch. The teachers generally approved of 4t; very mch. And
they'd call m up because I couldnlt get there very oftenN you see, ei&teen
schools and I'd have to spend me day at each school. I'd go through the
school' and have these routine examinations and that was there was to my
testing. But I would say what to do about it, get the pants, get ahold
of the parents, and ask them to . . .
Then one boy was very ill and &om a very poor family. I gpent a weqkend
taking care of him Fn hfs own home. I couldnlt do much of that, youiknow,
either.
Q. You went out to hfs home to take care of him?
A. Yes, he wasn't having the right kind of care and I toad show the famLly
much.
Q. DSd the parents ever act as thou& you were a busybody?
A. Well, I started to tell about one little colored girl mo had had
an injury in one of her wrists, and she went h~m and whatever she told
them, I don't know. The colored man, the father, reporteg to the principal
who came back to me, and to the Board of Education that I bd pulled her
hands, and had broken her wrist. I didn't touch them. They knew that was
my routine. The fdly didn't know that, but; he [the principal] knew I
didn't break her wrist. It cam out then that it was an a~cident some tim
before, long before, and hadn't been taken care of proper
heal. Anyhow, that was one wlhappy tim that I had, but
right.
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