Aubrey Cooper Aldridge was born in Prairie View, Texas, on 20 January 1902, to H. C. Aldridge and Ida Cooper Aldridge. During his time at ISC, he lived for a number of semesters in what residents called “The Interstate Club,” an apartment at 226 ½ Main Street in the Elliott Building. Other residents of the apartment in the early 1920s included J. Herman Banning, Frederick Patterson, Rufus Atwood, Cornelius Bibb, Compton Chapman, James Fraser, John Lockett, Jesse Otis, Lawrence Potts, Clarence Smith, Malcolm Stubblefield, and John Sweatt. While living there, Aldridge lent his baritone voice to a musical group of Interstate Club residents that sang at local events in the early 1920s (“Ames Items”). During his time at ISC, he was also recorder for the Alpha-Nu Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha in 1923, belonging alongside Iowa State brothers John “Jack” Trice, Jesse Otis, Frederick Patterson, Lawrence Potts, John Lockett, James Fraser, and Rufus Atwood (Aldridge, 1923).
After graduation, Aldridge went on to get his teaching certificate at the University of Southern California and Master’s of Science at Arizona State College. Aldridge married Robinez Erma Robinson in Los Angeles, California, in 1927 and they had a daughter, Betty Jean, in 1928. In 1943 he married Winstona Hackett, daughter of prominent Phoenix parents (her father was the first African American doctor in Arizona), in Phoenix, Arizona. They had one son, Aubrey Cooper Aldridge, Jr.
Aldridge, Sr., taught at Dunbar Elementary and then became Principal there. Later in his career, he became Principal at Mary McLeod Bethune Elementary, working there until his retirement in 1967. He passed away in Phoenix, Arizona, 23 June 1995.
Sources
Photo credit: Aubrey Aldridge [Photo]. (n.d.) Ancestry. Retrieved from https://www.ancestry.com/mediaui-viewer/tree/10312558/person/-653532351/media/5d900701-5bcf-4e2e-adec-c6aef308f761
Aldridge, A. C. (1923, June). “Alpha Nu Chapter State College of Iowa, Des Moines, Iowa.” The Sphinx, 9.3, p. 17. https://issuu.com/apa1906network/docs/192300903
Ames items. (1920, January 30). The Iowa state bystander. Library of Congress, Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers Site. Retrieved from https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85049804/1920-01-30/ed-1/seq-4/
