In the midst of this service I received a telegram announcing the death of my mother. I was too far from home to return in time to see the last of her, even if I had had the means to do so. I was in grief; I had sustained a great loss; she was my all, my mother.
I returned to Tuskegee and graduated with the Class of '98.
I am grateful to Tuskegee Institute, to the genius of Mr. Washington, for the opportunities I had to acquire an education; to the members of the Faculty for their assistance, and to my father, who gave me much of material aid and encouragement.
After graduating, I spent two months at special work in the school dairy; then, with the assistance of my father, I secured a position with the Forest City Creamery Company of Rockford, Ill. Entering this company's employ about the 15th of August, 1898, I have been employed ever since at the same place.
The Forest City Creamery is one of the largest butter-making concerns in the United States, averaging twenty thousand pounds of butter per day. We make two grades of butter, known as process, or renovated, and creamery butter. There are employed at this plant about seventy-five persons.
My work consists in what is known to the trade as "starter-making" and preparing the flavor for the butter. The work is bacteriological, propagating a species of bacteria which produces the pleasant aroma and flavor of good butter. It requires not only an understanding of bacteriology, but skilled workmanship and earnest attention to details. The secret processes of this company are known to a close group only, of which I am one. My work here has been entirely successful and satisfactory to my employers, if I may judge from a highly complimentary interview with one of the officers of the company regarding my work, published in one of the leading daily newspapers of Rockford, and the fact that I am now receiving double my initial wages.
I have a record not surpassed by any other employee of this company. Between June 24, 1901, following a wedding-trip to Tuskegee, and August 15, 1904, when we visited the St. Louis Exposition, I have worked each day at the Creamery, including Sundays and holidays, my work requiring that I do so. These 1,155 consecutive days of labor were made possible by a total abstinence from all intoxicating liquors and tobacco. My success here can be credited to the efficient training I received at Tuskegee.
"It is not well for man to live alone." Following this injunction I have taken unto myself a helpmeet, who is all that the word implies, loving, economical, and well trained in domestic arts. Shortly after our marriage we began paying for a home of eleven rooms located in a good residence portion of the city. The lower part of the house, containing six rooms, we occupy, and have comfortably furnished; the up-stairs portion, containing five rooms, we rent to a family of white people; the rent we receive equals the interest on the investment.
We have one child, a little girl two years old, who furnishes sunshine to an already happy home.
Our house is surrounded by a lawn with shade- and fruit-trees, and many flower-beds. The back yard contains a garden with berry plants, a well-built and well-arranged poultry-house, a yard containing a flock of pure-bred fowls, the nucleus of a future enterprise, and a barn with a good horse, a buggy, etc., for our pleasure and convenience.