My Name is Webster McAlpin Junior. I was born in 1927 to Mr. Webster and Mrs. Lillie Mae McAlpin. I was born in the city of Fairfield, a suburb of Birmingham, Alabama. I graduated from Fairfield Industrial High School where I majored in tailoring. After graduation from high school, I went to work at the "steel mill". The steel mill was basically a series of foundries that converted iron ore to steel. Birmingham was aptly called the "Steel City", and most of Fairfield’s citizenry worked at the steel mill at one time or the other, especially the Black people. The town of Fairfield had approximately 6000 Blacks and 7000 Caucasians, and you can imagine where all of the Black men went for employment.

My Son, Donald

Black men of my time (the forties) had to do menial and the most difficult work while their White counterparts did the more sophisticated work. Our job was very hard but we managed to survive the rotating shift: from 7am to 3pm, 3pm to 11pm and 11pm to 7am. Nobody liked the midnight shift, and that included me. Webster Senior worked at the same location and did the same tasks as me.

Now just a little bit about my earlier life: I didn’t play sports. One of the reasons was that my parents had little money to pay a doctor if I got hurt. Our all-Black school did not have an insurance program; (too bad, because I had the build of a football or basketball player). Of course, we didn’t have a football field in our town to play football. Nor did we have a track and field curriculum in high school. We were lucky to have an auditorium. It doubled as a basketball court. Most of the time I had to take care of my younger brothers.

After graduation from high school I did the expected. I went to work at the steel mill. There was absolutely no future in the steel mill, but the pay was sufficient to buy a few groceries from Mister Tony (an Italian who owned the neighborhood food store).

I met a nice young lady named Savanna and promptly got married to her. I immediately asked my father to build an extension to our two-bedroom house and he gave me consent, so I had a room built onto the front of our house. I thought I had everything; a nice low paying job, a wife and a place to bring my new bride. Unfortunately, things didn’t work out between Savannah and me, so we got a divorce.

I was born with a desire to travel. That is why I moved to Chicago, along with my neighbor and buddy, Joe Smith. Jobs were plentiful although the pay wasn’t very good. I got a job working at Goldblatts, which was a very large furniture store in downtown Chicago. No, I didn’t get a job as salesman. I got a job in their warehouse. I worked in the baby furniture department and it wasn’t long before my hard work habits landed me a supervisor job in that department.

I heard that Cleophas, one of my 5 younger brothers, was coming to Chicago. I got him a job through Mr. Pracher, my supervisor. Cleophas was appointed to straw boss in the mattress and hidabed warehouse. Cleophas had to manage a group of "daily workers" who worked sporadically and had little future in becoming a rich person with their 5 dollars a day salary. Cleophas made 6 dollars a day because of his supervisor position. He got used to the unloading of boxcar loads of hidabeds and mattresses down on Wentworth Avenue, right along with "Bob" and all the rest of the White daily workers. The very cold winds that blew in off Lake Michigan were very cruel, but they failed to undo Cleophas' determination to make enough money to send back home to mother and father.

I had a good time working at Goldblatts. I loved cars and was able to buy several of them during my stay at that job. I bought myself a brand new 1956 Chevrolet. It was green on green, had a nice shiny bumper and a superb color job. I worked hard every weekend to polish and keep it in top-notch condition. I really don’t know how I got so involved in cars. I learned everything there was to know about cars, especially mine. Snow and sleet, wind and rain were no deterrents to my going out to check the oil, give a tune-up, break down an engine, do a brake job, or replace a transmission, all by myself.

My girlfriend, Ellen, was very attractive and very short in stature. She had a lot of trouble getting me to stop working on my cars and take her and her daughter, Barbara, to a movie or out to dinner. Barbara was just 5 or 6 when I met Ellen and I readily accepted her as my daughter when Ellen and I started living together in our one room apartment. Ellen didn’t mind the community bathroom and the community kitchen. After all, most of Chicago’s Black population lived in such "apartments" as these. One of the other roomers was named "Dee", and her room was just off the kitchen. Another roomer lived in the room next to mine and I had to engage him in a bang-on-the-wall duel to get him to turn down his blasted radio. We never had a physical confrontation, but we came close on several occasions. The kitchen was a community one, as well as the bathroom. All of the tenants had a shelf in the refrigerator, but someone would occasionally "borrow" a piece of bread and a little bit of butter from someone else’s shelf.

I hated roaches, but the place was stuck with them. All of the 5 or 6 roomers were not as clean as me. Sometimes, I hated to go to the bathroom, because it too, was a community bathroom. Can you imagine the confusion with only one bathroom on your third floor? Or one cooking stove? And nowhere to go except your room?

There was some kind of "fire escape room" off my room and I "greased the palms" of the building manager to let me have it as another room. The stairs ran through this tiny room and thank God there was no fire, because my bed blocked the stairway. You might ask just what I needed with a room that was big enough to hold a regular sized bed and nothing more. Well, the answer is simple. I asked Cleophas to come to Chicago to continue his college education. And he did after completing one year at Miles College in Birmingham. I told him that he could attend the University of Chicago or the Illinois Institute of Technology. I’d heard he was plenty smart in high school and college and I wanted him to go to the very finest of schools. I sent for him and immediately purchased a bed for the fire escape room. You might think that a very pretty girl friend would object vehemently at being asked to stay in such a room as the "fire escape room". Ellen just smiled and gave Cleophas a very big hug when he arrived at our residence. She told our little daughter that she would sleep on the living room couch, which she did. We also told Cleophas that he would sleep on the bed in the "big room". We said it was necessary to do this because he needed somewhere to study whenever he went to school.

Ellen and I were extremely clean people. We had the finest of furniture in our "big room". We had a double bed, leather topped coffee table and a leather topped lamp table. We also had a pink, ribbed couch. Our room was on the third floor and overlooked South Parkway (now called Martin L. King Parkway). We paid more than the other roomers did, but we had the better room.

I took Cleophas to several school locations. We went to the University of Chicago where Cleophas took college entrance examinations. We also went to the Illinois Institute of Technology and he took similar examinations. Cleophas passed both entrance examinations, but alas! The tuition was way, way, way out of our reach. Fourteen hundred dollars a year was an astronomical figure at the University, and similarly at the Illinois Institute of Technology. I often asked myself if I would ever be able to afford such an expensive college education. I asked myself why Black people had to go to City College, while White people went of to a Harvard or Yale or a University of Chicago. Why was there such an un- level playing field?

We had no choice except to gain admittance to the University of Illinois at the Navy Pier. It had a two-year program and then students had to go to Urbana, Illinois for the remaining two years of their 4-year education. So, Cleophas began his Chicago college career in Chemical Engineering, and we went quietly to our fire escape room at night to allow him study time.

We loved to hunt! We, meaning Freeman, Joe, and Cleophas. I believe Charles was away in the Air Force. What a time we all had down in Momence, Illinois, or at the Des Plaines River, or in South Chicago! Hunting squirrels and rabbits, fishing during the summer and winter, sitting in a cornfield at daybreak, waiting for a few rabbits to emerge so that we could test out our shotguns. I gave up my hunting habits later in life but never gave up the desire to fish.

Ellen and I had difficulties, but that is not the reason why Cleophas moved out to stay with Freeman after two years of going to college. One of the reasons might have been the accident. Ellen was sitting in my new car reading a magazine when I plowed into a stopped vehicle. My speed was only 25 miles per hour, but the impact was enough to send Ellen flying into the windshield. Nobody had heard of seat belts in those days. She received cuts to her pretty, smooth face. She never got over the fact that I was smoking and driving and reached to grab a lighted cigarette that fell from my mouth.

Ellen would spend hours applying cocoa butter to the stubborn scars, but to no avail. The scars would not go away. Another reason might have been the realization that I was never going to get married to her because I loved my freedom so. Then too, Ellen would lose the allotment given to Barbara if she got married. I did not want her to get married to me and then lose the extra money. Nevertheless, I did get married and soon afterwards broke up with Ellen.

I continued working at the warehouse and continued working on the love of my life, my cars. By now Cleophas had moved to Los Angeles and I wrote him to let him know of my intentions to come and live in California. I lived with Cleophas and Gayle for several weeks.  Luckily, I got a place on 77th and Broadway, right across the street from Cleophas and Gayle’s house. It was a "back house", but it was very nice. I really enjoyed living in California. The weather was exceptionally great and provided me more time to work on vehicles. I got a job working over on Rodeo Road at a Thrifty’s warehouse.

For some reason Cleophas bought an old Cadillac with a motor in it that could only go "clunk, clunk". I figured it to have a cracked piston and I was right. Cleophas and I proceeded to take that Cadillac engine apart and overhaul it. We pulled the engine out of the car and sat it on the garage floor. Then we had an auto shop come out and re-bore the cylinder wall where the broken piston had caused damage. Then we put the engine back together, gave it a tune-up and took off like a "bat out of hell". The Cadillac was not only the fastest car that I had ever seen, it was the quietest.

Down the freeways we sped, with that 1950 Cadillac peeling rubber.

It didn’t have a hood and the white front fender did not match its orange color, but man could it go! We took that old Cadillac to the Yamashiro's Resturant in the Hollywood Hills. We were very careful to park it down the hill from the exclusive resturant because of its missing hood and unmatched fender. We couldn't tell any of the well-dressed movie stars who were dining there that the Cadillac was the fastest car in all of Southern California! 

The first time I came to California was to bring Duane back from mother’s home. Mother had kept Duane for 4 months while Cleophas and Gayle worked to get on their feet. I was still living in Chicago when I decided to take a vacation down South. I brought Duane back to Los Angeles at the request of Cleophas and Gayle. I really loved the trip to California, especially with the 6-month-old Duane. He had the longest and prettiest of black hair. Patricia had done an excellent job of conditioning it, I guess. Anyway, I loved California, so much that I moved to California in approximately two months. I lived with Cleophas and Gayle for a few weeks until the place across the street became available.

Like I said, I lived on 77^th street. I met the cutest girl while she sat and waited at a bus stop. Her name was Ann and it was not long before she was over to my house on 77^th street. I really fell in love with Ann. I had a very happy life on 77^th street! I remember riding a motorcycle up and down 77^th street. Somebody took a picture of me on that motorcycle and boy! Did I have a grin on my face. An old motorcycle that Cleophas had bought. I also remember going out to dances and parties. Gayle worked at the Post Office and had a very active social life with the postal employees. You might see a photo of Gayle and me, happily dancing at one of the social functions. Yes, I did wear a tuxedo! I was able to interact with all of my brothers, even my youngest brother, Aubry. Previously he had been busily attending college, on his way to becoming a Colonel in the Air Force and the Vice President of a leading Aerospace firm.

I thought I needed a pet, so I went out and got myself a nice German shepherd. No one dared to invade my privacy because that brown shepherd would rip him to shreds.

One day I discovered a small lump on my chest. After it failed to go down, I went to the Doctor. He gave me very bad news. It was a malignant cancer (perhaps caused by my smoking or from breathing those deadly fumes at the steel mill or did it have anything to do with my Navy career? Atomic bombs were being tested during those times, you see.  My buddy Joe suffered the same fate). I was admitted to Kaiser hospital in January of 1965 and left this life in May of 1965. I was 38-years of age! I asked Cleophas the make sure that my insurance papers had family members as beneficiaries, but he was too devastated and depressed by my illness to even look at the papers that I gave to him. My ex-wife, Ellen, would probably get the one or two thousand dollars, because I never changed my policy. An oversight on my part.

I have a better life now because I prayed and I repeated the Lord’s Prayer many times before I expired. Cleophas can attest to some of those times. He sat at my bedside for the last time…. as I repeated the Lord’s Prayer with him.

FIRST SON BORN TO:

WEBSTER AND LILLIE MAE MC ALPIN

WRITTEN IN REMEMBRANCE OF A SPECIAL HUMAN BEING…So generations that follow will know….JUST WHO HE WAS.

BY…CLEOPHAS (MIKE) MCALPIN Jan. 28, 1999