a well-known physician and surgeon, Dr. George H. Wilkerson.
Dr. Wilkerson's connection with the business caused it rapidly to
increase in volume. When more help was required, as soon it was, we
secured the services of Mr. Jimmie James, a young pharmacist who is with
me until now. After a period of pleasant business association, Dr.
Wilkerson's interests in Mobile, his former home, demanded his presence
there. I purchased his interest in the Union Drug Company, and the name
was changed to the Union Drug Store. We had but recently located in our
own neat little quarters at No. 101 South Twentieth Street, a one-story
brick structure, at which place I continued to do business, supported by
Drs. W. L. Council and J. B. Goin, who sent their prescriptions to my
store, until February 8, 1904. In January, 1904, I secured a lot at No.
601 South Eighteenth Street, Birmingham, and personally erected there a
two-story frame building, which I now occupy.

During my short business career since graduation from the medical
school, I sought out a partner for life, and was fortunate to win the
hand of Miss Pearl L. Strawbridge, of Selma, Ala., who had come to
Birmingham to make her home with her brother, Mr. H. Strawbridge, who
now holds the honored position of secretary and general manager of one
of the largest fraternal insurance concerns in the country owned and
controlled by Negroes. Two children, a girl and a boy, have been added
to our family since the marriage.

Whatever I have done, or whatever I may do, that will deserve favorable
comment, I largely attribute to the fact that I was a student at
Tuskegee, and came under the personal care and instruction and guidance
of its distinguished Founder and Principal, Dr. Booker T. Washington,
and that I have striven, from the first day until now, to put into
practise the lessons taught me by him and his excellent body of
teachers. At Tuskegee we were taught the truism, "If you can not find a
way, make one." I hope I am not immodest in saying that I think I have,
in some degree, done this.

[1] Said to be one of the most eloquent speakers of the Negro people. He
died in the prime of life. He was President of Livingston College, which
is mainly supported by the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, and
has a large membership among the colored people.

XV

THE STORY OF A SUPERVISOR OF MECHANICAL INDUSTRIES

BY JAMES M. CANTY

I was born December 23, 1863, in Marietta,