Willie Cornelius Harrison

Willie. Li’l Willie. Bubby. Uncle Bubby. Daddy. Gramps… Willie Cornelius Harrison born July 18, 1919 answered to all of them. To say that he was loved would be an understatement. To say that the family was blessed would be common knowledge.

He was born the oldest child of Willie Cleophus and Clara Estelle Harrison. He said he was not a “junior” because his middle name, Cornelius, was different from his father’s.

Willie grew up on the streets he called “the ghetto” of New Orleans Louisiana. He said it was the best place for him to grow up. He would say that he got his degree in “Corner-ology”(Street Corner Education). He was out on those street corners all hours of the night and spent little time at home. As you hear him tell it, some friends of his mother didn’t know she had an older child. His friends knew he had a mother though. Willie would be out on the street at 12 years old playing a card game called pity-pat for money. His friends (some adult men) tried to protect him when they could. Even when he was 17, his mother would pull him off the street with some old school discipline.

Willie also had an old school sense of entreprenuership.  Most young people his age were making up to $5 a week. Five dollars a week went a long way back in his day. Willie found a way to make $15.

Click on the video below to hear more from Willie himself:

Willie could have ended up on the streets were it not for three women who changed the course of his life. The first was his mother, who he thought at times was going to kill him. The second was his grandmother Mary who believed in him and helped him believe in himself. And the third was his wife-to-be Ellen Frank.  She took over where his grandmother left off.

According the 1940 Census, Willie was 20 years old, lived at home and worked shining shoes. This same year, on the 5^th of May, he married Ellen Frank.

If Willie had his way, his family would have been New Yorkers. That’s where he always wanted to go but he could never afford it. By a stroke of fate while working as a foreman on the railroad, a friend told him there was work in California. So he went to California. That changed his life’s course and never thought about New York again. His wife Ellen would follow him out three years later with two children and another on the way.

It was in Vallejo Ca that they raised their 6 Children – Mary Ann, Gwen, Joan, Willie, Gilda and Joe. Many of their child rearing years were realized in the 1000-unit government housing project called Floyd Terrace. This was one of 10 housing projects built to support the demand of workers coming in from all over the country to work at Mare Island Naval Shipyard during WWII. It is said that Vallejo grew from a population of 30,000 in 1939 to 90,000 in 1945. Vallejo was also less than an hour away from a city he grew to love – San Francisco. He used to tell people that his heart would beat with excitement every time he crossed the Golden Gate Bridge.

According to the U.S. Department of Veterans affairs he enlisted in the Navy on his wedding anniversary, May 5, 1944. He served our country until October of 1945. Willie told stories about his time in the Navy– how the Black Naval units he was a part of moved and marched with a sharpness and rhythm unique to the Black experience. Willie enjoyed boxing and said that he was one of the best in his unit. After joining the military, he said that he would do everything in his power to keep military men away from his daughters. Ironically, each of his daughters married military men.

Soon after the Navy, Willie found employment with the postal service and worked there as a carrier for 26 years. He also worked side jobs as a painter and owned his own janitorial business. Willie also had an affinity for numbers. He used that to his advantage and earned a reputation as a licensed tax consultant. His clientele included Lewis Brown who became the first Black attorney in the San Francisco bay area to integrate a law firm.

Outside of his professional life, he was also a member of one of the world’s oldest fraternities – the Masons (Freemasons).

Willie lived a life connected with family who still speak fondly of him decades after his passing in March of 1995.

If you knew Willie Harrison, you can add to his memory on his Recognition and Honor page. Do you have a funny story or fond memory? What was your relationship to him? This collaborative feature is designed to give a bigger more comprehensive picture of the man we knew as Willie Cornelius Harrison.