I'll never forget when Mr. Beatty came to my house, the children were all in school and he talked to me about coming to work at school, cafeteria and office work. I didn’t know what to do but I hesitated, talked it over with Hylton, then in a few weeks I got back with him and I told him I would try it. So I knew he was a stern man, just my impression having children in school. But I would stay in the cafeteria and do the reports and ordering etc. half-day and then go to office for the other half day. I loved it. I really did.
So one day I went to the office, one of my duties was count the money, make a deposit slip, put it in the little red bag to go to the bank. If Mr. Beatty was not busy, he would take it. If he was busy, I would take it down to the Haynes bank. So I carried my money up to the office, he met me pretty close to the door, back of the desk I’ll say, and I guess it is arranged like it was then, I don’t know.
I handed the money bag to him, and you know back then, ten or fifteen or twenty five cents paid for a meal. Somewhere or another he didn’t catch it good and we spilled it. I had not drawn the strings together. Money went everywhere, out in hall, all over everywhere, Mr. Beatty immediately dropped to his knees and started gathering it up. And I couldn’t decide to get down there and go with him or not. But ladies wore slacks and I fell to my knees and we started picking it up and all at once he looked up and just laughed. I have never heard him laugh, before or since like he did then. I guess he thought that if teachers saw us crawling around on the floor, picking up money. But I loved my work at school and I loved what I did and just look who I worked for next. It has all been great.