HomeMy WebLinkAboutEastgate Panel 7Eastgate Oral History
Group 7
Hazel Chastain
Robert Smith
Vivian Smith
* *Robert Smith and Vivian Smith have not yet corrected their transcriptions.
The City of College Station, Texas
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The purpose of The Historic Preservation Committee is to gather and
preserve historical documents by means of the tape - recorded interview. Tape
recordings and transcripts resulting from such interviews become part of the
archives of The City of College Station Historic Preservation Committee and
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I have read the above and voluntarily offer my portion of the interviews
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interview No.
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HISTORIC PRESERVATION COMMITTEE
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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
thereof, for any injury to, including the cost of defense thereof for any injury to, including death of,
any person, whether that person be a third person, Interviewee, or an employee of either of the
parties hereto, and any loss of or damage to property, whether the same be that either of the parties
hereto or of third parties, caused by or alleged to be caused by, arising out of, or in connection with
Interviewee provision of historical information, whether or not said claims, demands and causes of
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arising out of or in connection with the use of the items and information referenced aboved by
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indemnity shall apply where the claims, losses damages, causes of action, suits or liability arise in
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Interview No.
Name Viviavi S rni - Interview date 7/27/95
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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
thereof, for any injury to, including the cost of defense thereof for any injury to, including death of,
any person, whether that person be a third person, Interviewee, or an employee of either of the
parties hereto, and any loss of or damage to property, whether the same be that either of the parties
hereto or of third parties, caused by or alleged to be caused by, arising out of, or in connection with
Interviewee provision of historical information, whether or not said claims, demands and causes of
action in whole or in part are covered by insurance.
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Sigg #Vure of Int view
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List of photos. documents, mans. etc.
Addzoss
743 s-y/ L //1 9:re
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Date of Birth • g
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Interviewee agrees to and shall indemnify and hold harmless CITY, its officers, agents and
employees, from and against any and all claims, losses, damages, causes of action, suits and liability
of every kind, attorney's fees, for injury to or death of any person, or for damage to any property,
arising out of or in connection with the use of the items and information referenced aboved by
CITY, its agents, representatives, assigns, invitees, and participants under this grant. Such
indemnity shall apply where the claims, losses damages, causes of action, suits or liability arise in
whole or in part from the negligence of city.
Date
Initial
In progress
Historic Preservation Committee
Oral History - Naomi Shannon, Interviewer
Naomi Shannon: This is group seven, we are Room 105 of the Conference
Center of The Historical Preservation Society and the date is September
27, 1995. We will begin by introducing yourselves and telling how long
you have lived here. Let's start with Mr. Chastain.
Mr. Chastain: I came in 1970, I believe, or 1971.
Mrs. Chastain: Anyway, I've been here since 1937.
Naomi: Say your name please.
Mrs. Chastain: Hazel Prewitt Chastain, my first husband was Mr.
Prewitt.
Mr. Chastain: My mother was a Prewitt, so she got it both ways.
Hazel Chastain: We lived on Ayrshire over in College Park the first two
years we were here, then we built a house up in College Hills on Walton
Drive, a two story mansion for $5,650.00, if you can imagine. We lived
there for about twenty years.
Naomi: Mrs. Smith
Mrs. Smith: I'm Vivian Smith and I live at 703 Francis Drive and I have
lived there for forty -nine years in the same house. When we moved here
we had a four room house on Park Place where Fairview intersects Park
Place. We had four rooms with three boys. When we moved we had to buy
a garage and put it on the property so we would have a place to put all
of our things. Then we bought the place on Francis and we've been there
ever since. We lived two or three other places in College Station. Our
house was one that was moved off of the campus and Byron Winstead bought
the house and built on to it. I think he was the original person of
KBTX. He started KBTX. His parents lived next door, in the little
house next door to ours and it was moved off the campus, also. I
couldn't move, there is no way I could move.
Naomi: Mr. Smith, would you care to --
Mr. Smith: I'm Robert Smith, son of Vivian Smith and Arthur Smith. As
my Mother previously stated, we lived at 703 Francis Drive. I was born
and raised there.
Naomi: Mrs. Smith, you've lived here 49 years. What year did you come
here?
Mrs. Smith: We came in 1946.
Naomi: That's a long time. You had children when you came here, where
did they go to school?
Mr. Smith: We went to A&M Consolidated, where we are right now, the
shop building across the street that Mr. Lancaster referred to is where
I had shop and the Elementary School is up here on the street that runs
east and west and this was the high school. I did not graduate from
high school here, I went into Bryan but I did start school in College
Station at A&M Consolidated.
Naomi: Did you have children, Mrs. Chastain?
Hazel Chastain: I have two children.
Naomi: Where did they go to school?
Hazel: At A&M Consolidated. In this building, this was the High School
but I think they started to school over in the "chicken coops." I had a
daughter, Virginia Prewitt and a son James "Sonny" Prewitt. He played
football for Consolidated four years and he was the only freshman who
lettered in football his freshman year. All the kids would meet in our
front hall to catch the bus, Graham Horsley, the Burns boys and the
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Lindsay boys. They would meet in my hall when it was bad weather. So I
had to clean up the hall every morning.
Naomi: You lived on Walton?
Hazel: Walton, yes.
Naomi: Do you still live on Walton?
Hazel: Oh, no, we sold that place years ago and I lived three or four
places since. Bill and I bought a place over on Holleman. Course it
wasn't a freeway like it is now. It's a race track.
Naomi: Who were your neighbors on either side of you when you lived on
Francis?
Vivian Smith: I don't have any neighbors.
Robert Smith: The closest neighbors would have been Manning Smith on
the east. The home place we had was situated on a pretty good sized
acreage. About the largest acreage in the city of College Station, six
acres. The folks were neighbors to
and - it
was outside the city limits, when I was growing up, we were not inside
the city limits of College Station, Walton Drive was sort of the edge of
civilization. You turned on a graveled road to go down to our house.
That road was paved in about 1951 or 52. We were living outside the
city limits.
Naomi: Mrs. Chastain, who were your neighbors over there?
Hazel Chastain: Oh, I had so many neighbors.
Robert Smith: They were neighbors of ours.
Hazel Chastain: Let's see the Draper's lived on the right hand side and
the Lindsay's lived on the left hand side, Julia Burns lived just beyond
the Draper's, then the Horsley's and the Folweiler's and all
lived in front of me. We just visited back and forth, all the time,
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drinking coffee. My husband was in the Agricultural Extension Service
and he traveled a lot and we only had one car and when he traveled we
were afoot, as they said. The neighbors walked all time, places and if
you saw somebody walking, well "come in and have a cup of coffee" and
they did, so you had a lot of interesting people around.
Mr. Chastain: No one locked their doors, did they?
Hazel Chastain: No, we didn't lock the doors.
Vivian Smith: We didn't even have a key.
Hazel Chastain: Cause I'd come home sometimes from the store and the
Lindsay boys would be lying on my floor reading my sons "funny books."
Naomi: Mr. Smith, when you were growing up here, what did you do for
recreation? What did kids do then?
Robert Smith: Well, there wasn't an awful lot to do. We lived on the
campus every day. Literally, all the kids were on the campus, that was
the only place to entertain yourself. We spent a lot of time in the Old
Guion Hall on Campus, which was the campus theater and the bowling
alley. Lots of us worked in the bowling alley and the swimming pool.
The remembrances are very fond. This was a delightful community to be
raised in back in those days. When Mr. Tom Putty was the manager of
Guion Hall, he had two daughters who were about our age, he used to give
us free passes to Guion Hall if we would distribute the "Coming
Attractions" in the dormitories. So that was quite a treat.
Naomi: Now, where was the bowling alley? And the swimming pool?
Mr. Smith: It was in the YMCA.
Naomi: They built a floor over the swimming pool?
Robert Smith: There was Casey's Confectionary on the front of it and
the bowling alley on the back. If you walk across the floor, in the
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basement of the YMCA, now, you can tell because of the hollow sound
where the swimming pool was. Then they moved the bowling alley over to
the MSC in about 1951. The they introduced pin setters and put us all
out of work.
Hazel Chastain: The pins were set by hand, because my son did it during
the summers sometimes.
Vivian Smith: The most things my sons had to do was work. They mowed
lawns, and at one time we had twenty cows on our four acres. We bought
one cow because we couldn't afford to buy milk for three boys. They
wanted to learn how to milk and my husband would say "you aren't strong
enough yet, your hands aren't strong enough. So they all got things
like this so they could strengthen their hands so they could milk. And
they would try and he would say "no, you are not strong enough" and when
they got strong enough, they did all the milking and we had a chart on
the back porch, who was to milk on Sunday, and who was to milk on Monday
and that's the way we ran things.
Robert Smith: And the cows were always getting out. We'd get calls
from our neighbors saying your cows are in our flower beds. It was
awfully embarrassing to be running up and down the street hunting for
the cows.
Vivian Smith: You see, my husband was a Bible teacher, he taught at the
Baptist Student Center for 16 years. And he would have his classes, and
I would call and say "the cows are out" in somebody's yard, and that was
the happiest day for those students! They got to get out and come and
put the cows back in the pen and they loved to do that. There's been a
change here, I have a bill here from the city, in my Bible, that I keep.
For our monthly payment it was $6.75 for everything, lights, water and
gas, for everything.
Naomi: How many houses were down here when you all built on Walton and
Francis? Was there anything down there much?
Vivian Smith: The Culpepper house was down there on the end and the
house where Buddy Denton lives. Elvin Street lived down at the end and
Manning Smith's house was there. So that's it. We moved out there
because, all their lives somebody was saying "get out of my yard" or
"don't throw a ball in my yard: so my husband found this place that had
four acres and with three boys, they had a place to play ball.
Naomi: You didn't know what a paved street was, then, either, did you?
Hazel Chastain: No, they finally hard topped them and we put curbs and
gutter. We were one of the few that had curbs and gutter.
Vivian Smith: When the city paved Francis, it cost us $2,000 to pave
just in front of our property.
Robert Smith: Our house, just for the record, was moved off the campus
and was the home of the Director of Information for the University,
Byron Winstead and we have searched and searched to try and find out
where that house was located on campus and we have not been able to. We
know it was moved off the campus, we just don't know where it was.
Hazel Chastain: I remember when they moved it. They moved Nita's house
after she and Nita bought it and put it in their house. They didn't
have the house finished and Manning had to be gone a lot and she was
expecting and she used to come over and stay with me. In fact, she met
Manning at my house when we still lived on Ayrshire. She came down for
a big dance and she came home telling me what a cute man she had met.
Anyway, we were good friends all those years and she would come stay
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with me when Manning was gone because she didn't have running water or
anything. It took three or four years for them to get that house where
they could really live in it. But it is a beautiful place now.
Naomi: Where did you all do your weekly or monthly shopping?
Hazel Chastain: Now that is something. I'll have to tell you about
that. I'll have to show you something, too. This is not a local but we
did have an A &P store in Bryan, a Safeway, Piggley Wiggley and all those
stores. The ladies used to get together and go into Bryan to do their
shopping, most of the time. But we did have two grocery stores up there
at North Gate, Charlies and Lukes. Later, about 1939 or 1940, Luke
moved over to College Hills into that little area that we called our
first shopping center. That's where you walked to when you didn't have
a car and he delivered, that was the nice thing. He would deliver and
get them there in time for lunch if you called early enough. I didn't
have a car much of the time and he would call you up sometime and tell
you what he had fresh. I cooked a lot of red beans. Sonny would say my
beans had meat in them. They had worms in them! Here's something else,
I walked down to the store and Luke was putting the money into a money
bag. He said "I'm going into town to the bank, do you want me to get
you anything, I'm going to get Mrs. Summey some face powder and Mrs.
Thomas some thread and if you need something, I'll pick it up for you.
Imagine doing that in those days. That was the kind of groceryman we
had.
Mr. Chastain: We had more time than we do now.
Vivian Smith: Manning Smith had a grocery store where Culpeppers is and
then there was a grocery store on George Bush Drive (Jersey St) the
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Odoms. That's where I bought my things. I didn't have a car and I
could walk there and but my groceries.
Hazel Chastain: That is what most of us did. I want to show you this
list. You won't believe, two pounds of coffee for 21 cents, that's
1940.
Naomi: Asparagus 21 cents, you can't touch it for that now.
Bill Chastain: I bought a new Plymouth about that time and I went to
pick it up and it cost me $765.00, four doors and it had all the
trimmings.
Naomi: Now, what was here at East Gate, you said there was a grocery
store there.
Vivian Smith: Culpeppers and a beauty shop.
Hazel Chastain: Luke's grocery, Edna Pruitts Beauty Shop and there was
a Barber shop but I don't remember who, then there was a dentist, and my
sister in law opened a little dress shop and it stayed there about three
years, but everyone was still used to going to Houston on the train to
shop and they weren't used to a shop at the college, then Mr. Culpepper
and Mr. Boughton's Real Estate office.
Robert Smith: Then there was Black's pharmacy where all the kids in the
neighborhood spent all their time reading funny books and sitting at the
soda fountain. Then there was John Bravanec's Mobil Station. The
station is still there in the same location. Then there was a doctor's
office next door, Dr. Andre I think.
Hazel Smith: I thought that was Dr. Walton.
Naomi: When did Dr. Andre and Dr. Walton come here? Were there doctors
here before that, or did you have to go out of town?
Vivian Smith: We didn't have to go out of town. Dr. Holt and Dr. Andre
had an office out on George Bush Drive.
Hazel Chastain: Up over the Drug Store.
Vivian Smith: Dr. Cathcart had a dentist office there.
Robert Smith: That was over Madeley's Pharmacy.
Naomi: Was he in business then, Mr. Madeley?
Vivian Smith: Oh, yes, he had a drug store for years and years.
Naomi: Then you had two drug stores, Madeley's and Black's.
Hazel Chastain: What was this gate called over here, South Gate?
Robert Smith: Yes, there was a drug store at North Gate, too, where
Loupot's bookstore is now.
Hazel Chasain: There were two over there, Lipscombs and-- -
Vivian Smith: Sparks, Bill Sparks.
Hazel Chastain: That used to be where the ladies would dress up in the
afternoon and go sit and have a coke.
Naomi: Where did you and your friends meet back then, when you went to
visit? I guess the drugstore.
Hazel Chastain: Yes, the drugstore and most of the entertaining from the
college was done in the wives club, they met in the "Y ". In fact,
that's where my daughter's wedding reception was held. We didn't have a
student center, and Maggie Parker's, over in Bryan, was too far away to
be married in the Baptist Church and drive in for all that. Guion Hall
was where they used to have church,you know, they marched the boys down
Military Walk to church in Guion Hall. About the time we were here,
Guion Hall had all the town hall, that Opus replaced and everybody in
the community went to all those things. That's where General Eisenhower
came, it was quite the social place.
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Vivian Smith: The boys would throw flyers from the grocery stores, then
they got free passes to Guion Hall so they didn't have to pay to go to
the movies.
Hazel Chastain: My daughter was dating a boy that ran the machine, so
Mr. Puddy and Billy let us all go in.
Robert Smith: I just remembered another commercial establishment
on Highway 6, between University and George Bush avenues, the Blue Top
Courts. The Grahams, Cal and Edith Graham owned them. They were in
there about where Red Lobster is now. They were a large, large complex
and covered a tremendous amount of ground. My wife went to school with
the Graham's daughter, and I went to school with Gordon Graham, their
son. So I remember the Blue Tops Courts well. At the corner of
University and Texas Avenue was May's grocery. that was the end of
civilization. There was nothing, absolutely nothing past May's grocery.
there were no roads. It didn't go any further than that.
Hazel Chastain: Jersey Street and all those streets ended around
Ayrshire and all those cow names. Then when they built our section,
where we live now, they extended all those streets. Our street
(Holleman) used to be called "Old Country Road ".
Robert Smith: I think what was unique about the community in those days
was that everybody in town was associated with the University. That's
all there was here, then. There were no enterprises, no businesses
except filling stations, drug stores. A&M employed everybody and
everybody knew everybody.
Hazel Chastain: They always had a big Christmas tree for the kids in
Sbisa Hall, for those who stayed here and they always had a big dance
11
and it was almost a command performance in those days cause everybody
dressed up and went, the Professors, the President, everybody.
Robert Smith: My memory fails me, but I believe there was a White Way
Cafe but I do not remember where that was, do you remember?
Vivian Smith: There was one across the street from the Aggie Cleaners,
his Wife's father owned the Aggie Cleaners at North Gate. And the White
Way Cafe was across the street. My husband did a lot of weddings and we
had a wedding supper there, it was run by the Wilson's.
Hazel Chastain: I can't remember that. One thing I do remember in the
way of entertainment speaking was the University. You know where the
outdoor theatre is on campus, the Grove. In the summertime, about once
a month, they would publish a notice that they were going to have a
picnic on the campus, you know. Everybody would bring their chairs and
they would have watermelon and everybody would take their covered dishes
and that was one of the big events in the summer particularly, and
they'd have free shows. Free entertainment.
Naomi: What effect did World War II have on the community and on East
Gate?
Robert Smith: We weren't here then. We came in 1949.
Hazel Chastain: I'll never forget, we were listening to the radio at
home when we heard about it and it was on that Sunday, you know. We
were going to take the children in to see John Kimbrough, he was our big
football player on our undefeated team in 1939, they won the
championship. He had made a movie. We were going to see the movie to
let the kids see this western that he was in and it came over the radio
that if people wanted to go to the movie they would keep them in touch
with what was happening, the events of Pearl Harbor. That first
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Thanksgiving after Pearl Harbor, we had about 50 people. There were no
restaurants, no hotels, nothing for people to stay. Almost everybody we
knew were coming, the ones we invited almost always brought somebody
with them. I ended up having 50 people for lunch on Thanksgiving.
Everybody that day had on uniforms except my husband and one of his good
friends. I had seventeen people sleep at my house that night and five
or six of those boys had been Aggies and had gone to the Army. Byron
Winstead, A&M Communication Officer, called me the morning of D -Day,
said "get up and listen to the radio, they are starting the invasion ".
I stayed up, it was about 3 o'clock in the morning. He had gotten the
information through the radio station some way and he was calling and
waking people up.
Vivian Smith: I used to keep girls in my home when they came down for
week -ends. Everybody rented rooms because there were no places to stay.
I charged $10.00 a night for two people. I was always full, and the
minute I got the $10.00, I went down to the hardware store in Bryan and
bought my china. That's how I got al of the china that I have and it's
beautiful! I didn't let that $10.00 get into the general fund.
Robert Smith: I believe there was a place to spend the night on the
campus, the old Aggieland Inn, right across from Sbisa Hall, but it
burned down at some point in time.
Vivian Smith: That's where we stayed when we came down here to check on
the job that my husband was going to have. And I had a little baby, he
was probably six months old and they got up in the night and warmed his
bottle and brought it to my room for me. I remember something about
you. (Hazel Chastain)
Hazel Chastain: You do?
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Vivian Smith: Who would James go with, a friend, across, behind me?
Hazel Chastain: My Sonny, oh the Parks Marks Parker.
Vivian Smith: Every night, she would get out on the porch " Come on
James, It's supportive."
Hazel Chastain: My first husband would say, " Don't get out there and
yell for them kids ", the Parker's had no telephone, he'd say " quit that
yelling, use that whistle." I had a coache's whistle, and I'd blow that
whistle and they would all yell "I'm a comin" and it wouldn't be my
Sonny. Anyway, I'd blow that whistle and you could hear sonny coming
across the ditch over there. There was nothing behind us. We had three
acres and they had four acres. There was nothing back in there.
Anyway, he'd yell "I'm a comin"
Vivian Smith: I can still hear him!
Will Worley: (opening video camera) I'd like to add something. I came
here in 1939 as a Freshman and moved into Dorm I. The twelve dorms and
Duncan Hall were brand new when at that time. I lived there until the
fall of 1942 when I went into service in World War II. The Blue Top
Courts, the building is still there that is a restaurant and the
offices for the Blue Top Court, right next to Black's Pharmacy. The
White Way Cafe was up where 707 is now. They sold beer, my first beer
drink was there. But on Saturday night that was the main thing to do,
go to the White Way Cafe and drink beer. A story about the Blue Top
Courts is that when we had a Corps Dance we vacated a men's dormitory
for the girls to stay in. Well, the fall of 1942, I had a car. Nobody
much had a car but I had a family car. I drove to Dallas and brought
back my date, two more dates and my date's mother. We had to put them
in the Blue Top courts. So, anyway I talked to this date and shortly
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after she married a classmate of mine and we were up in Sommerfeild,
New Jersey and she said it was so wonderful that Jack, her husband to be
had enough money to put us up in the Blue Top Courts, along with my
date's mother -in -law. That is the last date I ever had with her.
Anyway, that's the story of the Blue Top Courts and the White Way Cafe.
May's Super Market was up on the corner. After World War I, I came back
and lived in College View Apartments. I was a Veteran and we had one
child and another was born while we lived there. Anyway, May's Super
Market was the place to go shop. I had a bicycle with a basket in the
front. I would ride that bicycle to the A &P store which is on North
Bran Street and that's where we bought our groceries. So we had
transportation. $90.00 a month is what is what got paid and got all our
tuition costs and that sort of thing. Right now, this is where
"Imagination Station" has there theatre.
Hazel Chastain: Do you remember we used to try to keep our grocery bill
around $30.00 a month? A dollar a day feeds your family. I had a
wonderful colored maid for three dollars a week. Imagine that, they did
everything, washing and ironing, cleaning, baby sitting, cooking.
Naomi: You said they had church in Guion Hall?
Hazel Chastain: Oh, yes, in Guion Hall, that was a non - denominational
church, then the Y first had a non - denominational church. That's
where my children went to Sunday School because always get them to
Bryan. Then we belonged to the Baptist Church in College Station.
Something that I thought was, since we were speaking of the Aggies and
this is an Aggie community, there were four of my first husband's
classmates living, three on Walton Drive and one just the man behind the
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dairy. Four of the class of 1923 lived right there is interesting, I
thought.
Naomi: What did you all do in your leisure time?
Hazel Chastain: Read, I did. A lot of people played bridge, but I
gave that up. We belonged to a book club out in College Hills and all
the neighbors up and down the street, Horsley's, Parnel's, Mrs. F.L.
Thomas, Mrs. Culpepper, we exchanged books and I read to the detriment
of everything else, I think.
Vivian Smith: We had a garden club, too. College Station had a garden
club and Campus Study Club.
Hazel Chastain: We had the Extension Service Club and I was a member.
The Campus Study Club, you dressed up with your hats, gloves and high
heels and went once a month to that. All the wives were members of
that.
Robert Smith: The youngsters, back in those days, would congregate on
the campus and there's one thing that I remember and that is the
swimming pool. The P.L. Downs natatorium because Art Adamson was the
swimming coach. He was probably one of the better swimming coaches
around anywhere and at that time College Station was a nationally known
power in swimming, I mean we went to Oklahoma, we went all over the
country, swimming, and A&M, it wasn't A&M Consolidated, it was a
community swim team and it was a very, very widely known, it competed
all over the state and outside of the state. That's where everybody
stayed, there wasn't else to do, they stayed in the swimming pool or go
to the campus theatre.
Naomi: Mr. Adamson was there then.
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Robert Smith: Yes, Art Adamson was the swimming coach, in fact he was
the coach at A&M until he retired. We sure hope our Board of Regents
will name that new natatorium after art Adamson. And if any you are
interested in seeing that happen, please make it a point to, because it
is not always appropriate to name it after someone who gave a million
dollars. He gave his time. He gave his entire life to young people.
He was a pretty stern taskmaster. I don't think I ever saw him smile
in my life. He sure knew how to get results out of these kids that he
was teaching how to swim. But that knew recreational sports facility
that we have on campus now, we are hoping the pool will be named after
coach Adamson.
Hazel Chastain: What about the open air swimming pool?
Robert Smith: That was named after Woffard Cain. He gave the money to
build that pool and it is appropriate that we recognize him. Here we
have an opportunity to recognize a man whose been in the community and
has given a lot during his life for the kids. For A&M too.
Hazel Chastain: Do you know anything about Van ?(Van Adamson, Art
Adamson's son).
Robert Smith: Oh, yes, he lives in Dallas, I believe. Van was his son
and was a very distinguished swimmer not only on the College Station
swim team but for A&M. Gayle Klipple a college professor's son and
Dick Weick. Everybody's fathers were on the campus professors. So we
were a very close, tight knit group, I think. There were not that many
of us.
Hazel Chastain: That's where my Sonny learned to swim at five years old.
Robert Smith: Bill Lancaster said he was the first paper boy in College
Hills and we must have been the second because my brother Richard and
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I, for years, delivered papers in College Hills. We split College
Hills in half but it wasn't the Bryan Eagle. Mrs. Roundtree owned the
Eagle. Walter Doney had a paper that competed with the Eagle called the
Bryan Press -- Mrs. Cleghorn, that's who I kept thinking. Mrs. Cleghorn,
but she was the nurse at the college and always drove around in that
Kaiser automobile with that red dog, that big chow dog hanging out the
window. There are some things that you just never forget.
Hazel Chastain: Jim Lindsay was my paper boy.
Vivian Smith: He was my paper boy, too, now he's my doctor!
Hazel Chastain: He's mine, too. I feel like I'm going to my own child.
I go in there and see those gray hairs, and I think this can't be Jim,
I'm not that old! Something funny about Jim's daughters when they were
living in Hawaii. I got an announcement of the baby's birth, a little
girl, and it said she would be eligible for marriage in a certain year.
I still have that thing.
Naomi: Did they have a theater in Bryan, then?
Robert Smith: They had three. It cost $.09 to go to the Campus Theater,
I know that. That was a lot of money. You had to set a game of
bowling, work about two hours in the bowling alley to get enough money.
They had the Queen, the Dixie, and the Palace Theaters in Bryan. Bryan
was so far down the road from the intersection where the old Ramada Inn
is (corner of Texas and University) there wasn't anything. It was just
like riding through the country, there was nothing between there and
Bryan. There was no habitation at all, no businesses, it was just like
riding to Hearne.
Naomi: Did they run a trolley or anything to Bryan?
Robert Smith: That was way before my time.
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Hazel Chastain: They had a bus, the trolley was before my time.
Naomi: How did the big events of A&M affect your daily life? Did you go
to football games?
Hazel Chastain: Oh, yeah.
Naomi: Mrs. Smith has already told us about how she rented out her boy's
rooms and they had to sleep on pallets.
Robert Smith: The thing that I remember is that we never won! Other than
in '39 and '40, A&M didn't have much to speak of.
Hazel Chastain: Like Sonny said, he'd never seen them win. He played on
the freshman team and they beat Austin that year. He was real elated!
Vivian Smith: My boys would lay on the floor when the Aggies lost and
just cry and cry and cry!
Robert Smith: We cried a lot! But A&M was the focal point of everything.
There was nothing else here.
Hazel Chastain: Well, you should have seen the way the ladies dressed.
They came to the game, in those days, they wore their fur coats when it
was cold, their high heeled shoes, their hats, all that stuff. They
didn't do like they do now, cut off jeans, shirts and barefooted,
probably.
Vivian Smith: They didn't go anywhere like that!
Robert Smith: A&M Consolidated was first on the campus, if I'm not
mistaken, in the old band hall. I never went there, but I remember the
building.
Vivian Smith: My boys were in the A&M Consolidated band under Colonel
Dunn.
Robert Smith: Colonel Dunn wrote "The Spirit of Aggieland" and "The
Aggie War Hymn ".
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Hazel Chastain: What year did you graduate?
Robert Smith: I graduated from A&M in 1958. Colonel Dunn lived over
here on the south side of the campus in an old house. We used to go
over and take French horn lessons from him. If we had the cameras off,
I'd say something, but I can't say it right now. Colonel Dunn was a
real character.
Vivian Smith: He was a sight! He'd always pick them up and take them to
the band hall and it was the worst band you ever heard in your whole
life. they never played a note that was right. 'Cause he was maybe, a
little two sheets in the wind while he was teaching them.
Robert Smith: That was the part we didn't want to talk about.
Vivian Smith: But he was a nice, kind man and he loved the boys, and
they loved him.. They would get into the car and I'd hope they got
back! But it was a horrible band.
Robert Smith: It was.
Vivian Smith: That was the first band. He was in the first bad.
Hazel Chastain: We used to go out to all the Consolidated games, the
Aggie games, go out of town, went to Louisiana.
Naomi: back in '49, and when did you say you moved here?
Hazel Chastain: In 1937.
Naomi: What appliances did you have in your houses? You didn't have
dryers, then?
Hazel Chastain: No, we had an old washing machine with a wringer. My
maid did the washing out in the garage, in a little storeroom place.
did have an iron and a mix master. I bought my first Electrolux over on
Ayrshire. It cost a fortune.
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Vivian Smith: When we lived in Illinois, we lived in a town where they
had no gas so we had an electric stove. I was the pride of the
neighborhood with an electric stove.
Naomi: How did you all come here, your husband teaching Bible at the
University?
Hazel Chastain: My husband came here as a District Agricultural Agent
for the Agricultural Extension Service. His district went from Junction
to El Paso down to Del Rio. He couldn't visit all his counties because
some of those counties are huge. It would take him a month to see every
county agent in the district. Sometimes, he would be gone two or three
weeks. Then he made Associate Director several years later and had that
job until he retired. Everything was connected with the University.
Vivian Smith: We had a washing machine with a wringer on it and I kept
it out in the back. I heard screaming one day, and I ran out there. I
have a son that is seven years younger than these two, and he had
plugged in the washing machine and had run a sock through the wringer
and his arm right on up in the wringer. He still has scars on his arm
from that deal, but that's the last time he ever did any washing. The
sock wasn't wet, it was dry. We had to hang our clothes out on the
line. You would just get them out, the sun would be shining bright, and
all at once it would start raining. You had to go out and take all the
clothes down and put them down until you could hang them out again.
Hazel Chastain: It would start raining in September when school would
start. They would issue the boys raincoats. They would get so mad
because they would get so muddy and dirty. Some would leave the campus
because they were not used to it.
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Robert Smith: It seems interesting to me to try to relate to current
generations from older generations. All of the kids in College Hills
went to school right where we are sitting now and we rode bicycles in
those days. I don't know if it has occurred to anybody to ride a
bicycle that far to school. We rode a bicycle all the way over here, it
must be two or three miles. I hate to say this, but it was a graveled
road and it was difficult situation.
Vivian Smith: They saved enough money that they both bought scooters and
the day we bought them, they parked them in their bedrooms and washed
them and wiped them. One night we had the windows up, we didn't have
air conditioning, I smelled this horrible smell coming down the kill and
it was him. He had been on the campus running this skunk around. He
picked up the skunk, and I never in my life - -- I had to bury the shirt.
He still tells his little Grandson about it and he wants to come over
and dig and find the shirt Grand -daddy had on when the skunk got him.
Hazel Chastain: Sonny used to ride his bicycle, too. He played
basketball on the high school team. He came from school and was getting
ready, and we didn't have a car and he said, "Mother, I just can't ride
my bicycle up there" and I said "why" and he said "please call me a
taxi, I've got to save myself." so I called a taxi and about the time
the taxi drove up his friend drove up in the driveway and said "who's in
the taxi ?" I said "that was Sonny" and he said "where was he going" and
I said "oh, he's saving himself for the basketball game!" He teased
Sonny about that for years!
Vivian Smith: Richard had a pet skunk that he took up on the campus and
they operated on the skunk so he didn't have any problems, and he used
to brush that skunk, and put ribbons in his ears. They had a pet show
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at Consolidated and he would take his skunk on a leash to the pet show.
People would say "Oooh, I don't want to get near him" and Richard would
say "he smells better than you do." But they loved that skunk. Our
house on the backside set up from the ground and that's where they
played, under there, because it was cool, and they played digging in the
dirt. That's where they played with the skunk, under there. It has
been a long time, but we were happy then.
Hazel Chastain: You didn't have the problems that we have now.
Vivian Smith: I never worried about my boys, going out on their scooters
at night, that they'd have drugs or drink. That never entered my mind.
Hazel Chastain: No, Sonny used to ask me, particularly in the winter
time, "Mother, can I bring my date home" and they'd love to sit by the
fireplace and toast marshmallows. Well, sure, you know, they don't do
that anymore.
Naomi: Did your children all go to A&M? I know you went to A&M (to
Robert Smith).
Vivian Smith: All three of mine.
Hazel Chastain: Mine, too.
Vivian Smith: Richard has the Real Estate Business and the youngest son
is a Judge in Richmond. Robert was vice - president for Finance and
Administration at A&M 'til politics got in the deal.
Hazel Chastain: There are a lot of these boys who have done real well
and they all like to come back, the Doctors and the Dentists. You can
name them on both hands who have come back here to set up practice.
Vivian Smith: When Robert graduated, he went to Houston and had a job
with Houston Light and Power Company. I woke up one night and saw this
trailer coming in the driveway and he had loaded up his two children and
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all of his furniture in a trailer behind his car and he was moving back
to College Station.
Robert Smith: It is hard to beat this, you can leave here, but if your
raised here, this is home. There is no place like it! I is a wonderful
place to grow up and raise a family. Things are different now, but it's
still a great place.
Hazel Chastain: I've been here so long, it is home to me. I was born
and reared in Louisiana, I lived in west Texas for about ten years and
then came down here.
Naomi: If you ate at a restaurant back in '39 and '40, how much did it
cost you?
Bill Chastain: It doesn't seem very long ago to me, what you all have
been talking about. When you get to be 88, it's all just recent.
Vivian Smith: Does anybody know a salesman that worked for Culpepper?
He was the father of Mrs. Dan Davis. Do you know who Mrs. Dan Davis
was? It was her father that sold us this place. I've just loved him
ever since then. This is our deed.
Naomi: Well, who developed College Hills, Culpepper?
Robert Smith: That land at one time belonged to the Dansby family. My
brother is married to a Dansby. They owned all the way from Highway 6
to Steep Hollow. They sold off some of it. Bert Wheeler bought a lot
of it and Culpepper bought a lot of it.
Vivian Smith: It used to be cotton fields.
Hazel Chastain: Did you say Dobrorvolny owned it?
Naomi: Dobrorvolny owned this over here around Redmond Terrace.
Robert Smith: All this where we're sitting right now. Just west of
here, if you go up that hill, that was just a cow pasture back there.
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Naomi: The part of College Hills that developed like where you are on
Francis...
Vivian Smith: That was first.
Naomi: None of that behind you was there.
Vivian Smith: Nothing, there were two houses, our house and Manning
Smiths and that was it.
Hazel Chastain: I walked right through there to go to your house or
Nita's. Mr. Culpepper, you know, almost lost all that at one time. He
came to my husband and asked if he could sell him all that for $300.00
and it went all the way back to the next street. We didn't have the
$300.00.
Robert Smith: That area behind your house and behind our house has been
vacant and it will stay vacant because the deed restrictions don't
permit sub - division of that. So those big estates out there will be
there until the earth ends because the deed restrictions don't permit
subdivision of that.
Vivian Smith: We have four acres and we only have one house on it.
Hazel Chastain: Well, yes, we had three acres and we set the house back
with all that behind us was vacant. There was one tree. The Prescotts
had gone out in the woods and dug up Redbud trees and they came by
selling Redbud trees and they would plant it for you. Jerry Bonnen, a
family that had been here for years and years, he dug the hole and
planted that Redbud tree, and now it's a great big tree. It's a
beautiful tree.
Vivian Smith: Who was the boy that had the first hamburger place here?
His father was on the faculty. A little bitty place on College Avenue.
Made hamburgers and sold them for $.10