| a
magical fruit
By
Mike Touzeau
Though she grew up around some famous people, her dreams were never about fame. And though she may one day become a wealthy woman, her dreams were never about money either. Natalie McGee was born in Tucson as the granddaughter of James Riley McGee, the man who homesteaded the area west of Green Valley in the 1800's, and moved to Hollywood when her father took a job with Technicolor Corp., the famous company that provided color for the movies. Her father's name, if you can believe it, was Socrates Plato, bu he started going by Frank after applying for a job. The employer asked him flippantly if his name was Joe or Frank, so he decided right then to adopt an easier name for the rest of his life. Attending Hollywood High in the early '50's around people like Rich and David Nelson, and Mitzi Gaynor, McGee took a sign language class there and used to practice in secret with deaf kids behind the bleachers on the football field. By the time she graduated she was fluent in sigh language, and though many of her classmates dreamed of movie careers, she knew when that she wanted to someday become an agent for the eventual empowerment of the deaf. "I didn't know I couldn't," she remembers, "so I did it."
She worked for Pacific Bell for awhile and transferred to Mountain Bell
in Tucson as on of the old-time operators who used to ask, "Number please,"
returning to her Southern Arizona roots to earn a bachelor's in socila
work from UofA.
|
||||
|
|
