HomeMy WebLinkAboutEastgate Home Interview Dr. Mark LindsayEastgate Home Interview
Dr. Mark Lindsay
My name is Eileen Sather and I'm interviewing Dr. Mark Lindsay in his office on
29th Street. Dr. Lindsay
Dr. Lindsay - OK I'm Dr Mark Lindsay. I was born in St. Joseph Hospital in
Bryan Texas, and at that time my parents were building or just moving into the
house that I grew up in on 1029 Walton Drive, which we always told people was
the two story red brick house. It was one lot away from the corner of Francis.
Dr. Lindsay- There's a Kittle creek down behind our house that runs parallel with
Walton Drive, and there was a very shallow, slightly sloping hill where Francis
dipped down to the creek and the bridge there. And then Gilchrist the next
street that went down and crossed the creek had a little steeper slope to it. So
when we wanted to use !gravity to have our wagons or our carts that we made go
down the hill, sometimes we went to Gilchrist where the hill was steeper and we
would theoretically go faster.
Dr. Lindsay- I have a vague recollection I think of when I was really, really small,
when Walton Drive might have been gravel. And they paved that and then I
think it was subsequently that they paved Francis. So when I was growing up,
Walton drive and Francis and all those streets were simply paved with kind of a
bar ditch along the side of the street, and then it was only after about when I was
high school age, I guess, that they actually put, a curb there, and it was a really
fancy street, very smooth and it was a vast improvement over the previous
street. I also rememberinot near our house but down in the wooded section of
Ashburn ect. and also towards the south end of Walton Drive there were
frequently large trees th t were left in the street with little red reflectors nailed to
'em to keep people from, running into them, but the reflectors didn't always work
and ultimately those trees were removed.
Eileen- Was there more than you three boys in your family?
Dr. Lindsay- There were four boys.
Eileen- Four boys.
Dr. Lindsay- But basically two families. There was Don, who is the very oldest,
thirteen years older than me, and then Jim, who is twelve years older than me.
And then there was a tee year hiatus, and then there is Hugh who is two years
older than me. And so by the time I was old enough to have much knowledge of
my older brothers they were leaving high school. Don stayed around and went
to A &M. Jim went off tol,University of Michigan where my mother and father went
to school. And and so I',didn't really know them much during my youth.
Eileen- Were your parents born and raised here...
Eileen- ...or were they raised in Michigan?
Dr. Lindsay- My father grew up on Long Island and my mother grew up in Ohio.
My father after he finished high school, or towards the end of high school had a
job just as the lab flunky, kind of cleaning up and washing test tubes and stuff
like that. There was a chemist there who thought he had a little potential and
encouraged him to go to college. And he finally applied to college and I don't
know whether through that man or through his own choice he was accepted at
University of Michigan. And he always related how all the people there in
Jamaica thought it was just incredible that he was going out so far out west to
Michigan to go to college, they just couldn't believe he would go so far away
from home at that time. And then my mother went to nursing school there in
Michigan and that's where and how they met. He was going to school and she
was a nurse. And he ultimately got his degree in chemical engineering, and got
his Ph.D. in chemical engineering, had a variety of jobs, first in Moscow, Idaho.
They had really cold winters there, but he always said it was always relative, that
he was just as miserable with a Texas winter as he was with a Moscow, Idaho
winter. (laughs) In Mussel Shoals, Alabama and when he got the job here at
A &M to go from industry to teaching and as I recall, the interview was purely by
mail. I don't think he actually came down for a person -to- person interview, they
just looked at his application, and decided to hire him. At that time they did not
have a department of chemical engineering...
Eileen- What year are you talking about now would you say?
Dr. Lindsay- This was about 1939.
Eileen- Okay.
Dr. Lindsay- And so they accepted him for the job, and I have... somewhere
amongst, our affects we have some of the letters that were written back to him
negotiating the final details of the salary and how much he would work, how
much that was committing him to work for the summer school, and if that paid
extra or not, and his yearly salary was right around three thousand dollars.
Eileen- That's amazing.
Dr. Lindsay- And so he came down to join the chemistry department with the
understanding that within the next year or two or three they would have funding
to begin a chemical engineering department and he would head that up, which
he did, until he retired. ',My mother as I said, was an RN, and I don't think she
really worked much at that after they came here other than kind of volunteering
for Red Cross Blood Drives and that sort of deal. They moved into our house,
about the time, that I was born and they recall how far it was to the cotton fields
K
and we were one of the earlier houses on Walton Dr. Like I said I think it was
gravel when we moved there.
Eileen- So where was the elementary school then located where you went?
Dr. Lindsay- The elementary school for a number of years in College Station
was a series of white wooden buildings. At that time there was no formal
publicly supported kindergarten. Everybody but my brother and I it seemed went
to Mrs. Lyles kindergarten. And so when I went to first grade there was kind of
those kids who knew each other from Mrs. Lyles kindergarten and I was a little
bit of an outsider on that account. But the community was very geographically
stable, so there was a fairly large core of us that went through first grade to
twelfth grade at Consolidated High School .
Eileen- Is that the old location where it is now?
Dr. Lindsay- Well, I'm not sure where it is now. I think so, but that series of five
or six white wooden buildings have been torn down and of course replaced. The
building that is called the Big K or the Old K or something like that, which was, I
guess used for the Kindergarten at one point was our cafeteria. It's kind of a
white and red brick building. That one may not even be around, I haven't
examined the campus very much recently. In our time, everything was initially
white wooden buildings. And there was the, like I say, five or six buildings that
were sort of in a row where the backside of one building faced the front of the
other building and the playground for that grade was in between the two. So the
grades were fairly separated. You had to walk around the building to be with the
kids from the next grade up or down. And at that point when I was in elementary
school I'm not real sure Where the junior high would have been located, because
initially even the high school was a white wood building which was by the time I
got up there to junior high school that was what we used for. There would be a
building built for the high school and then at one point it would be, let's say the
junior high and then there would be another building built for the high school and
so during my tenure there were about three buildings that were the high school.
One of them was initially the white wood building, like I say, that had a kind of
curved driveway going through it. And then there was a building that is now the
community center or„ what do they call it, the conference center, that was the
high school for awhile. And then by the time that I was actually in high school,
that building was our junior high school. That was where I went to at least the
seventh and eighth grade . Possibly the sixth grade, although the sixth grade
may have been in the previous high school. And then when I was actually in
ninth through twelfth grade our high school, that was the building that kind of
departed from the traditional architecture and has now been torn down. and that
was the building that went up with the, what is now the auditorium, that sort of
flying saucer shape auditorium. And it had one level that stretched out off the
side of a hill in fact, so that one end was on the ground an the other end was
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supported by some pillars. And the administration was down on the lower level
on that outstretched pillar supported end.
Eileen- During this period of time, like where did your mother and Dad do their
grocery shopping?
Dr. Lindsay- Well, there was Mr. Patranella there was a grocery store down at
the east Gate.
Eileen- I know there was one on the corner of University and Texas avenues
where the Shamrock Station is.
Eileen- Someone this morning commented about shopping there.
Dr. Lindsay -Yeah, that was kind of a small store. There was a store actually
there at East Gate. About five years ago there ws an article in the newspapere
about Luke Patranella's grocery store, with an interview of his widow. He and
some other men had gone down to Mexico City maybe on a business or social
trip, I don't know. And he had a heart attack and died. And I'm suspecting he
was fairly young, probably in his forties of fifties. And the story about that , that I
heard, and this is sort of anecdotal you may before you write it up might want to
double check on this. He died in Mexico. And there was a big concern his
companions, that they might not be able to get the body out of the country,
without a major hassle and many weeks of struggling through the red tape. And
so what they did they sat him up in the back of the car and doused him with
whisky and told the customs officials that he was drunk. And got the body back
out that way. I'm not sure how true the story is.
Eileen- Sounds interesting anyway. Did your mom drive to the grocery store?
Send you boys?
Dr. Lindsay -She, well, II remember going down to the Luke's grocery store. It
was at East gate proper, hauling a little red wagon. And she would walk. And
in fact, she didn't learn to drive until we had a'49 Chevrolet that we would have
gotten when it was a year old. So she didn't learn to drive until 1951 or
something like that. T11iat made me eight years old, nine years old.
Dr. Lindsay- I remember walking down to that store, for her to go grocery
shopping and hauling the groceries back in our little red wagon. We didn't shop,
don't think we ever shopped at the other grocery store that you're referring to,
which Luke's was at the corner of University and Texas Ave. At that point,
University on the East side of Texas Ave was either nonexistent or a very small
street. It might have been owned by some people named Mize.
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Eileen -Yeah, that's what they were saying this morning. Well now, as a family
what did you do for your entertainment, on a Sunday afternoon or a weekend?
Dr. Lindsay -Well, let me tell you a little bit about the shopping.
Eileen -Okay, excuse me.
Dr. Lindsay -So a lot of time we'd shop in Bryan. If my mother didn't walk down
to the store, the next place to go shopping was in Bryan. And that was sort of
our downtown.
Eileen -And that was downtown Bryan?
Dr. Lindsay -Yeah. I mean there were no other stores, Bryan stores, pretty much
except downtown Bryan. And I can, some of the buildings, I can sort of vaguely
remember that's what they looked like even back then. And actually it wasn't
until, in my mind the term Bryan didn't mean another city, the term Bryan meant
the downtown commercial district. And it wasn't until I was a lot older, you know,
twelve or ten that I finally realized that the word Bryan meant another town. It
was a name of a town rather than the commercial district.
Eileen -Oh, well, was it ih '39 or something that College Station was
incorporated? I mean it was just College first and then it was College Station.
Wasn't it, something like that. So they became two different cities. Where as
before it was kind of one.
Dr. Lindsay -Well,
Eileen- A &M was the whole thing, right?
Dr. Lindsay -Yeah, it would be, I mean even before College Station became
incorporated it would still not be part of Bryan it would just be people living out in
the country.
Eileen- Right, A &M was here
Dr. Lindsay -There was A &M, which was not in any township, I guess. Not within
any city limits. And I think that was the original plan to put this University out in
the country where the boys couldn't be corrupted by the evils of the big city.
Eileen -Now East, beyond your house and south, there weren't any homes back
there at that time. So ypu were one of the first.
Dr. Lindsay -Yeah we wore, but what we then called the wooded section, would
be Munson, and Ashburn, and Marsteller and all those streets. I can remember,
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in my mind, there were houses there pretty much from day one of my
awareness.
Eileen- Right, because you were younger.
Dr. Lindsay -Dee Smith, my best of friends back then, lived on the corner of
Francis and Ashburn. And I would be going down there when I was maybe four
and five years old. Best I can recollect.
Eileen -So I guess it was more or less from Southwest Parkway out that way,
which was all pasture at one time
Dr. Lindsay- Right. Well South of, really the southern limit of town at that time
was Kyle.
Eileen -Oh really. Yeah„ Catherine lived on Kyle didn't she?
Eileen- Right, used to be Jersey St.
Dr. Lindsay -Yeah, Jersey St.
Eileen -But then Dominik, that was part, that goes to East Gate too, isn't it?
Dr. Lindsay -That would be East Gate but Dominik would of been just a little
country lane or something
Eileen- O.K. nothing else, nothing beyond there.
Dr. Lindsay -Yeah, that might of been a road going back to the Dominik's
property which was further East
Eileen- Yeah they owned
Dr. Lindsay -I don't remember that as a public road until that development started
occurring back along there. There was the southern terminus or the edge of
civilization and then as you drove further on there is now a red brick Baptist
church on your left or on the East side of Texas Ave. which as as I recall was a
small, white wooden church before they built it into the red brick church. But,
that was kind of out in the country. You went through sort of uninhabited land
from Kyle to that church, and that was outside the city limits because that was
where they sold firecrackers, across Highway 6 from that church.
Eileen -Well see in 1980 when Bob and I moved here the corner of Texas Ave.
and Southwest Parkway was only Pelican Wharf and then Ft. Shiloh, nothing
else.
Dr. Lindsay- That's right, Ft. Shiloh was the southern terminus at that point.
Eileen -And it all came after that.
Dr. Lindsay -Ft. Shiloh actually was there a long time because that was Shiloh
Hall which was kind of a little social community center or dance hall. So the
name of that restaurant has a historical origin pre- existing the restaurant.
Eileen -And that changing now too, being up for sale and everything. Right?
Dr. Lindsay- Right.
Eileen -Time marches on.
Eileen -About what you did for entertainment.
Dr. Lindsay -OK. Well, there wasn't a lot of entertainment. There was going to
the movies, and at that point there was going to the campus theater which is now
maybe a dance hall, than was at Northgate. That was at the corner of, I guess,
Boyett St. and University.
Eileen -Down from where Skaggs used to be, right, down that way, or is it farther
into Northgate?
Dr. Lindsay - Further, further, further into Northgate.
Eileen -Oh., I know which one your talking about now, I forgot about that one.
Dr. Lindsay -And then, there was the drive in theater, but I guess your thinking of
where Skaggs is now.
Eileen -O.K., yeah their as a theater farther down but I don't know if that was
the Schulman Theater or what.
Dr. Lindsay -Well, there was a drive in theater about where Skaggs is now.
Called the Circle, because of that intersection of what is now University and
College Ave. University I believe was called Sulphur Springs road then.
Eileen -O.K., but also was College now and would of been in that area. O.K.
Dr. Lindsay - College Av , College Ave and now University that intersection was a
circle intersection where they had a traffic circle and where you sort of came
along and you entered into the circular traffic going around the circle and then
you exited whenever you came to your street that you were going to. And in
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high school there was always somebody who would see how many times they
could drive around the circle before they got to bored to continue going around.
You know you'd drive around like a hundred times.
Eileen- Right, well with your dad being on campus, did you go to football games
and things?
Dr. Lindsay -I did not go much to football games, except when I got into boy
scouts and then as a money raising thing for the boy scouts we would serve
drinks, and that was when, well, at one point the cokes were actually still in the
bottle, you'd serve them' in the bottles. and we used to carry a coke case around
with a strap over your neck to help you hold it and sell the bottles of coke. And
then later on, you'd get a lighter aluminum containers with a wax paper drinking
cups. And so I didn't really go much as a spectator per se. I guess before that
you could also go as a boy scout, and you could usher which meant at the
beginning of the game you would stand at the entrances and you would ask to
see their tickets, and then you would sort of show them where their seat was.
And so you'd do that maybe through about the first quarter and then you could
get to stick around if there was an empty seat so you could watch the game.
There was the Grove Theater during the summer, which I guess they still do.
guess the Grove still exists.
Eileen -I'm not familiar with it.
Dr. Lindsay -That was, an outdoor movie theater.
Eileen -Oh, really.
Dr. Lindsay -And, eve" I ody would go their and slap the mosquitoes, and watch
the movie in the outdoors. And you'd get a sort of a season pass during the
summer and I don't know if they...
Eileen- They're on campus are your talking about? Is that near the Natatorium
back behind there?
Dr. Lindsay -Yeah, it's kind of, if you start out at the old Natatorium, which I guess
is not used as a Natatorium anymore.
Eileen- Right, uh huh.
Dr. Lindsay -And you dro a ve North, which then you'd basically be going across
drill fields or something, Iand you'd pass the West end of the MSC and you'd
keep going. Well actually, it's real close to where they have that carilon tower.
Eileen- Right, before Wellborn.
Dr. Lindsay -Yeah, any rate, so that was sort of a big social event, you know all
the kids would run around. We'd watch the movie or we'd run around behind the
theater, or whatever, sometimes watch the movie. And they also had musicals
there, I remember they had Oklahoma.
Eileen -Well this morning someone was commenting how they'd bring the girls in
for the weekend, you know for the dates for all the corp. boys and everything.
And they said they'd use to stand and watch the buses as the girls got off and
danced up, and hoping they would get to meet some too, that weren't affiliated
with the college, and I always thought that was kind of interesting, so. Maybe
some of them met that way, who knows huh?
Dr. Lindsay -OK., entertainment, and what else did you ask me?
Eileen -Well I, nothing specific, but here I was just going to, some of the things
that they suggested is like, did you have a vegetable garden and things like that,
or do you remember how much you paid for an ice cream cone? How much you
got for your first job that'lyou ever did, those type of things.
Dr. Lindsay -Oh, I can't remember much of the economics. One of the things we
used to do, as we got into early adolescence, there was a drug store there at
the East Gate that was originally owned by a man named Black who ran a foul
with the law for selling some drugs to a narcotic's agent, I guess. And I've been
told subsequently that npwadays that the tactics used on him would be, what's
the term, coercion or entrapment that, you know would be totally thrown out of
court immediately now. I But any rate, so for many many years we still called it
Black's drug store, even though it had other owners. An alternate was called
Jones's drug store, but We still called it Black's drug store, That was sort of a
hang out where a lot of people would sit and have coffee and the kids would
have cokes, and they had a standard...
Eileen -Soda fountain?
Dr. Lindsay -They had kind of a standard soda fountain bar, where they make
banana splits and that sort of thing, and there was McCall's filling station right
next door to that, and that was another kind of, as we got into high school age I
guess that was kind of a hangout, to hangout and visit with the current employee
of Mr. McCall. And them was another filling station on the other drive. Oh, let's
see what's the name of that street? It's off of Texas Ave...., it parallels the lower
part of Walton Drive.
Eileen -Not Lincoln?
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Dr. Lindsay- Lincoln, it's on the other south of Lincoln, there's another filling
station, but I can't recall the name of that. We didn't trade there for some reason
or another, and just south of him was a little medical clinic where I used to get
medical care, and initially, and then...
Eileen -Do you remember you doctor's name?
Dr. Lindsay -No I don't. don't know if Dr. Andre started out there or not.
Ultimately, Dr. Hooper, dentist, was there and that's where I got all my dental
care from Dr. Hooper, who was in that little building just south of Lincoln. Two
buildings over. Then ultimately, Dr. Andre moved, either was not there at all,
and maybe his first setup was over at Southgate. And that's where I got most of,
younger life medical care, and then he moved ultimately to another building on
Texas Ave. They lived on Munson Drive, I knew his son, he had a daughter
also. He was the doctor of our community. What else?
Eileen -Well I was just you know wondering like, if you all had a vegetable
garden some of the things?
Dr. Lindsay - Vegetable garden. I don't remember having one. I know that when
was about the fifth grade or so, I wanted to join some of my friends in 4 -H and
plowed up a little section of our backyard and grew some vegetables, grew some
corn... Supposed to be some sort of exercise in economics also, because I sold
the corn to my mother. I have no idea for how much, you know, a nickel here
or ... I don't think I made a lot of money or anything...
Eileen -There again with you being younger that they said, do you remember like
what was the most modlern appliance that you had at home? Or did you
have ... You know I can remember when we got our first refrigerator, you know
and stuff like that.
Dr. Lindsay -Well, we had a refrigerator from the start. It was a refrigerator that
lasted us for many, many years ... like I say, it was in existence when I was born
and it lasted into my adolescence. I think it was old when I was born.
Eileen -What did your mother cook on?
Dr. Lindsay -It was a gas stove.
Eileen -OK, you had that. See we lived out in the country and we didn't. You
know, we just had a wooden stove ... My sister and I would cook on that heated
little thing on the end for heating water ... But then again the age difference here
too. Did your dad, you know nowadays, all of us are banking and we have our
credit cards, checkbooks and stuff, do you remember, did he do that with checks
and stuff or did he go cash?
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Dr. Lindsay -He mostly functioned on a cash basis. I know that when we went on
trips, we had a '38 black four -door Chevrolet sedan, and I remember his
standard routine, every filling station was $10.00 worth of regular. I think it was
$10.00, maybe it was $5.00. At one time, he used to keep a lot of records and
one time I came across one of his record books. My mother being from Toledo,
we went to Toledo, seems like every summer when I was young. And he would
write down where we stayed at night, how much it costs, where we ate, and how
much that costs, and how many miles we got each day. Eileen -And you kept
some of those things?
Dr. Lindsay -Yea, I have them around somewhere.
Eileen -Oh, I think that's interesting.
Dr. Lindsay -And talking about credit, among some of these effects, I came
across a letter from one 'of the bankers, I think Travis Bryan, senior, or one of
those, a name that we'dlrecognize. When my father was going on a trip, and
don't know what kind of business he was going to have to transact but Mr. Bryan
wrote a letter, basically a letter attesting to his credit worthiness. And saying this
man is of good credit and he could have banking privileges at your bank or
something like that. Something that I don't think would be done now.
Eileen- Right.
Dr. Lindsay -And I know that even back when gasoline credit cards first came out
he was kind of resistant to that idea. He generally did not embrace new
concepts readily. He continued to operate on the cash basis.
Eileen -Til later in life when you found out you can't operate that way cause you
can't get any credit on anything if you want to ever buy anything.
Dr. Lindsay- Right, right. I He did have a gasoline credit cards, later on.
Eileen -As a family, I know there weren't very many eating establishments around
way back, did you as a family ever go out, like we do now as a family to eat?
Dr. Lindsay -Did not do that very much. I think my father put four boys through
college, two of them through medical school and he had a program that enabled
himself to do that but didn't allow many luxuries.
Eileen -Yea, we can all remember that.
Dr. Lindsay -So we didn't go out. I can remember Youngblood's, Youngblood's
Restaurant and I can't necessarily remember going inside it. My father had
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another fellow in his de artment, his name Mr. Bishop. And Mr. Bishop's wife's
family owned some farm land somewhere close by here. You know I say close
by, I guess it was within ' 1 40 miles. And occasionally we would go out with them
to the Bishop's. The Bishop's had no children, and we would go out with them to
this farm, where her other family members lived. I remember coming back from
one of those trips and Mr. Bishop pulled up to Young Blood's and got a six -pack
of beer and I remember at that point College Avenue was a two -lane road and
you just simply pulled up into the grass between the edge of the road and the
front of the building. that grassy parking area is now taken up by extra lanes of
the street. I guess Martin's was in existence back then , Martin's, just about the
oldest barbecue joint in town, which was right across the street from
Youngblood's. I remember Hotard's cafeteria. I know that we didn't go there
very much. ...I went to $kippy Cade's birthday party and they had part of the
party at Hotard's cafeteria. ...I may not have been in a cafeteria before then or if
I had I would have been moderated by my parents. I went through there and I
thought this was the greatest thing in the world. You could just have... there's all
this food lined up and you can have any of it. And I over ordered, You know, I
got about three desserts multiple helpings of bigger things, and absolutely more
than I could eat and I'm Sure Mrs. Cadethought I was the biggest pig in town.
had never been exposed to that concept before, you know. And Hotard's was
initially downtown and then they subsequently moved to what is now townshire.
Eileen- Townshire?
Dr. Lindsay - Townshire. Townshire Shopping Center. They moved to what is
now a pawn shop. 1 think they went through the change that you see a lot of
businesses that were dolwntown businesses go through. They realized that
things were moving out. So finally they'd bite the bullet and move and about two
or three years later they'd go out of business.
Eileen- It started way back then, huh
Dr. Lindsay- That's right, You know actually looking at it, there's a lot of
businesses that did that.) Established long time, downtown Bryan businesses,
Central Texas Hardware, went that way.
Eileen- I remember that.
Dr. Lindsay- And let me see what else, I don't think there was very much other
places to eat out.
Eileen- The Texan, was that there for ever and ever?
Dr. Lindsay- Depends on what ever and ever.
Eileen- I know it was a drive in at one time.
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Dr. Lindsay- I can remember when it was built as a drive in. Just as the Triangle
Drive In which is now where the Chicken Oil Company is.
Eileen- Are your folks deceased or are they still living?
Dr. Lindsay- Yes, yes. [deceased
Eileen- What made you decide to stay in the area, not to venture off?
TAPE STOPPED
Dr. Lindsay- At that time there were two Opthalmologists in town and they had
been here for a long time. And the town had grown quite a bit since the last one
came and so there was certainly room for one more at that time. It was certainly
logistically easier for me to locate office space to rent and get it furnished and
have the interior built. It was easier for me to do that here because I had people
who could sort of negotiate for me part of the business transactions of that
process as opposed to moving to Kansas. Or I had given some consideration to
moving to Washington State and I guess I figured I could'n pull that off a
thousand miles away.
Eileen- Well, I think it's Wonderful that you're here with some of your family. But
I'm sure you like the College Station area as we did. And I stayed here after my
husband died because I liked the growing community type thing. And all the
friends we've made like (Hugh and Catherine from church and everything. You're
married. i
Dr. Lindsay- Yes
Eileen- And your family, lwhat age are your children?
Dr. Lindsay- They're fift en and twelve.
Eileen- Oh, now do you live in College Station?
Dr. Lindsay- I live in Steep Hollow, which is East. It's a Bryan address but it's
really outside the city linhits east of Bryan.
Eileen- I know the Chauffhaus that we live on the way out there Patsy and Carla
good friends of mine.
Dr. Lindsay- Right, we live as you go out highway 1179, after you pass the
Chauffhaus there's Merlla road which turns off to the left. There's a little
subdivision there and it'$ the Rauenwood subdivision. Steeplollon Community
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Center has a community, dinner every month. All the old people that grew up in
Steep Hollow and they have a history of their own, it's kind of interesting.
Eileen- And Hugh and Katherine are all the way out the other direction.
Dr. Lindsay- They're on the other side of the country just about.
Eileen- Do you huh you were talking about some of the things that your dad had.
Do you have any memorabilia or anything they can photo or huh any particular
letters or anything they can run off, to use as a historical thing.
Dr. Lindsay- sure .
Eileen- Because they'll definitely give it back to in perfect shape.
Dr. Lindsay- Yea I've got some things. I have a box of things here at the office,
sort of came across just recently. And 1 also have some things at home, those
are fairly well located, I can probably bring them.
Eileen- That would be great and even your home on Walton, you know, if you
have an outside picture of that or even some of the inside.
Dr. Lindsay- I have some photographs. I know there was a motor vehicle
accident on what's now Texas Avenue where an 18 wheeler kind of just tipped
over on to a Hudson or something like that. And I took a bunch of pictures of
that which the motor vehicle accidents themselves would not necessarily be so
much of interest but the background of what the area looked like back then.
Eileen- And you see that's what they're trying to get into huh when we do this for
the City of College Station. We've done North Gate, South Gate now East Gate
and were going to do something on University on churches on the community
around. I don't even know is there a West Gate? Per se?
Dr. Lindsay- Not really, I mean the West side of the campus was a train station
and farm land, there's no community there.
Eileen- So that's probably going to come under the country type that we are
going to do. And then they want, they are going to try to document some of
these things and then make a big historical thing so that the City of College
Station can have it.
Dr. Lindsay- Let me mention one other thing. A number of years ago there was
a little article or maybe it, was letters to the editor of the the paper about the
Dominiks and the old Carter Family homestead. And that use to be a standard
walk for us kids. When 'we were young we used to go to Carter Homestead
14
which is now a Park, I guess. Let's see, where Frances met Munson Drive was
the end of Frances. If you kept going there was a little dirt track pond at the end
of that dirt road. If you then went a little further there was a little fence. And then
you went through some woods. Standard Post Oak woods and then there was a
little trail through thewoods. And you had to know the right trail and hopefully
you'd come out onto a large field. And if you knew the right place to go you
could find the old Carterlfamily homestead. And there's a well there and you
could take some rocks and you could drop them down the well and count how
long it took to hit the water down there. At that time it was just a hole in the
ground about 10 inches in diameter. And there's the Carter Family Grave Site
which had a metal fence around the grave site and there were a number of head
stones of the Carter family. Some of them having died of yellow fever. And at
some point huh the grave site people came and just took those stones. Some
time after I'd gone off to (college, my father said that he had heard that. And so
led him back there on one of my vacations from college, and sure enough there
was still a little bit of fence left but the headstones were gone.
Eileen -Just stolen?
Dr. Lindsay- Right.
Eileen -There was no family left of that particular family around?
Dr. Lindsay -No, Carter Creek goes near the old gravesite. The home site was
maybe within a hundred yards or so of Carter Creek. There was a cable bridge
across Carter Creek. There were two massive pecan trees or oak trees and
there were two cables, 31/4 inch metal cables stretching across the creek. One of
them about three or four',feet above the other one, so you could walk across on
one and the other one was a hand rail. And that was a bridge. And so we'd
walk across that bridge on these cables.
Eileen -Now that's all built up, right?
Dr. Lindsay -Well, you know, I keep intending on going there. There's a park.
Eileen -So the gravesite do you think is in that park?
Dr. Lindsay- That's the way I understand it.
Eileen -Yeah, otherwise they would of had to excavate that and move it, or
maybe not?
Dr. Lindsay -You see by the time that area got built up there was no longer any
visible gravesite.
15
Eileen -Oh yeah because of all the...
Dr. Lindsay - Gravestone$ were gone, the fence was gone.
Eileen- Except when they started digging?
Dr. Lindsay -But I think in that area, there is the Carter Park or something like
that.
Eileen -OK, see I've been down on that just a little bit, but I'm not familiar with
that area.
Dr. Lindsay -Many, man times I've been intending to take the kids there but it's
either too hot or too cold.
Eileen -Well. talking about some of these things maybe that will prompt you to go
back, to go back there and say I wonder if maybe there has been anything built
right where you think that was.
Dr. Lindsay -I know that over the years, its twenty years that I've been here this
time there have been an! occasional article in the paper about that area and
they've carried out a little volunteer archeologic excavation on that site or
something. And so I think that some people at that point made an effort to have
it converted into a public park. At any rate, when we'd go down there, the
Dominik's I think owned that land by that time and there was this child's tale of
how terrible Mr. Dominik was, you'd better not be caught trespassing on his land.
It was sort of like Boo Radley in the book and the movie To Kill a Mockingbird
Eileen- That's how they thought about Mr. Dominik?
Dr. Lindsay -In fact, he had this terrible reputation that he beat little kids.
Dr. Lindsay -We need Katherine here, she knows every movie there is. But at
any rate in the movie, you know you had to run past his house. You couldn't
stop in front of the house or he would come out and pull you inside the house
and eat you alive and stuff like that. And in the end Boo Radley turned out to be
a kind gentle person. And I suspect Mr. Dominik was the same way, a kind
gentle person that all the kids had built horrible stories about him. That he
would put you in jail if he caught you trespassing on his land. He had shot his
brother for trespassing an his land. Horrible stories like that.
Eileen -You didn't go to his house on Halloween.
16
Dr. Lindsay -No, that was way back then. You had to go over land to get there.
Although, I guess what is now Dominik Street probably was the little road that
went through their land back to their house.
Eileen -So if you get a chance, if you'd be willing to look into some of those
things. And I thought you might be interested in some of the people that had
RSVP'd and had come down today. We sent out about 67 and of course we
miss a lot of people because like Bill Lancaster will say I know so and so, and so
and so. Of course I knew right away that you all had lived and Katherine had
lived in this particular area.
Dr. Lindsay -Oh yeah, Mr. Montemayor, you know originally Zarapes' Restaurant
was the little wooden building back up the little gravel road where the
continuation of University Drive passed Mize's Grocery Store. Like I say the
road that is now University Drive east of Texas Avenue was very small, semi -
nonexistent or something. You would go up that road and then you would turn
to the left and there would be this big gravel parking lot which would be Zarapes'
Spanish Restaurant. Actually it did exist when I first came here in '74. But it
existed when I was in high school. There is a landmark that has now
disappeared. I think, well now, let's see, there's a shopping center to the north
side of University Drive and there's a building kind of up on stilts at the east end
of that shopping center. I know that Bruce Davey and some other people use to
talk about driving their Model A's up and down that gulley and having to put it in
reverse to power up that hill.
Eileen -is your wife a local girl?
Dr. Lindsay -No, she grew up in Dallas.
Eileen -She left the big city. Well, unless you have something else that you can
think of that you can ado to what we have talked about, I will be happy to listen
to it. If not fine. Some names that are on, there is Putz, he and his dad came,
wasn't the one who was linterviewing but they came in they came in, they didn't
RSVP, so.
Dr. Lindsay -And Mrs. Chastain is the former Mrs. Pruitt correct?
Eileen -I think so.
Dr. Lindsay -They lived two blocks down from us. I can remember, we had kind
of a laundry room. In the laundry room were two big tubs, concrete I believe.
And we use to take baths there when we were 2, 3, 4, or 5 years old and there a
window in that room and I remember my brother and I used to always worry that
Mrs. Chastain would see our bare bottoms. There was a direct line of sight from
their house to our house'.
17
Eileen -We had some one named Duggers that came today that hadn't been
there before and Robert Smith showed up today with his mother and he hadn't
notified anybody.
Dr. Lindsay -The Putz's lived up on Ashburn and probably near the corner of
what is now Ashburn and Lincoln. And there was a windmill up there. at that
time Ashburn north of Francis was a dirt road until my high school days.
Eileen -Did you know Ray Grorzski?
Dr. Lindsay -No.
Eileen -He use to live in this area, and he came today.
Dr. Lindsay -No, the people that I know, OK, Mrs. Graham, did they live on
James Parkway?
Eileen -Yeah, see and I won't know a lot of these names because I don't know
the people if they weren't in my group, then I won't know who they are.
Dr. Lindsay -They owned the Blue Top Motel on Texas Avenue about where...
Eileen- What's her first name on there?
Dr. Lindsay- Edith.
Eileen -There was a lady in my group named Cleo something or other. They had
came here in late '67 and they some sort of hotel restaurant on Texas Avenue.
Dr. Lindsay -At any rate, 11 think it was a Mrs. Graham. I think they had something
to do with the Blue Top Courts Motel down there where Red, what's that seafood
place?
Eileen -Red Lobster.
Dr. Lindsay -red Lobster, about in there. Graham Horsely of course lived across
the street. I remember them they lived somewhere on Walton Drive. Mrs.
Leighton lived across the street from us. She was my third grade teacher.
think Jean Rospirin went to school with my brothers, I see her as a patient
occasionally and she asked me to remember her to my brother Donald. She and
Don were about the same age in school. Mrs. Smith of course, her son Dee
Smith was my best friend that I use to run down to see. The Blue Top counts
must have been torn down by 1950 or so.
18
Eileen -Well I would like to thank you for doing this taking up a lot of your time.
I've got choir practice at 7:30. I'll see Katherine there tonight.
v
N]
19
City of College Station
Memozy Lanes Oral History Project
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HISTORIC PRESERVATION COMMITTEE
City of College Station, Texas 77840
ORAL HISTORY DATA SHEET
I hereby give and grant to the HISTORIC PRESERVATION COMMITTEE, City of College
Station, Texas, for whatever purposes may be determined, the tape recordings, transcriptions, and
contents of this oral history interview. Also, permission is hereby given for any duplications of
original photos, documents, maps, etc. useful to the history project to be returned unharmed.
Interviewee releases, relinquishes and discharges CITY, its officers, agents and employees, from all
claims, demands, and causes of action of every kind and character, including the cost of defense
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hereto or of third parties, caused by or alleged to be caused by, arising out of, or in connection with
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employees, from and against any and all claims, losses, damages, causes of action, suits and liability
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