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HomeMy WebLinkAboutA&M College Campus Kids 1Group 3 Moderator: Kitty Worley (KW) Interviewees A &M College Campus Kids 18 February 1998 Helen Thomas Perry (HP) Mary Bolton Eckles (ME) Rosalynn Williams (RW) William Lancaster (BL) KW: This is Kitty Worley, today is February 18, 1998. I am interviewing for the third time, but this is the first time I have interviewed Mary Bolton Eckles, Helen Thomas Perry, Rosalynn Reynolds Williams, and Bill Lancaster. This interview is taking place in room 103 of the Conference Center at 1300 George Bush Dr. College Station TX. This interview is sponsored by the Historic Preservation Committee and the Conference Center Advisory Committee of the City of College Station TX. It is part of the Memory Lane Oral History Project. Remember there are certain rules that we can't say anything that is going to hurt anybody and we also have to talk one at a time if that's possible. So well start and go in order, but if you want to say something about the same thing, just wave your hand and indicate it and we'll turn it over to you from time to time. I'll ask this question of all of you first. How old were you when you lived on the A &M campus? ME: I was born on the A &M campus in 1910 and I lived here on the campus until I married. HP: I was born here and lived on campus for 14 years. RW: I was born in Bryan, but lived on the campus from the day I was born in 1926. My folks built a house right off the campus on Suffolk and Pershing around 1940. BL: Well, I never lived on campus, but we built the first house off campus, in College Park residential area. I was born the 4th child of 5. Of course we went to school on Oral History Project —A &M College Campus Kids —Group 3— February 18, 1998 —Page# 1 campus and went to church on campus, and all of the activities were on campus, so we were right there in the middle of it all. KW: Yes, I think you did say something about how many years. Would you like to expand on that? ME: Well, from 19 10 to 1928, and then I moved back here in 1960. KW: I see. And Helen, is that house where you are now, when was that rebuilt? HP: My parents moved off campus in 1939, and they built in College Hills, which was just opened across from the A &M entrance. I lived there until I was married, and then, I built next door to them and I still live in the house next door. KW: Well, tell us about the house where you were born and where it was. HP: I have wonderful pictures of it. The house went with the job on the campus -- you were assigned according to your position in the University and what department you were in. So as children, we grew up knowing everybody on campus and what they did and we were always roller skating in and out of their offices, and we did some really terrible things. Later, that house was moved across from the vet med. Department on what used to be University drive but is now called Raymond Stotzer Parkway. We kept up with who was in it for a while, but after it was moved we of lost track of it. But my parents home in College Hills was declared a Historical Home and its featured in the calendar as are some of the others here. BL: Three of the homes in the calendar here are represented right here ME: I heard your new house was built for you all. Wasn't it? I think you were the only ones that ever lived in it. HP: I have pictures of our campus house it here, which you can see. And behind the houses were the servants quarters. Everybody had their maids' house behind their house. And uh, I sort of half grew up in the maids' quarters up and down the street. KW: Well, Mary, your house was close to Helen's house? ME: Oh yes ... there was one in between. Oral History Project —A &M College Campus Kids —Group 3— February 18, 1998 —Page# 2 HP: One house apart. KW: I see. Do you remember who lived in that house in between? ME: Yes, the Comers. BL: A.B. Conner. KW: Oh, I see. And Rosalynn, what about your house? Where was it? RW: Okay, we lived on the street, I think it was Clark St., I'm not sure. But it was right between the drill field and Kyle field. The Shepardson's lived on the comer nearest Kyle Field, our house was next, Ide Trotter lived on the other side of us. And so, Bill maybe you know, this street, I think its called Clark St. During all football games all the traffic walked right by our house and so we had great fun seeing everybody. And every other Thanksgiving my mother probably fed 40 people. All of the relatives and friends would come and walk in and eat turkey and dressing whenever they happened to get there on their way to the game, you know . ME: And also, they had to use the restroom. RW: Oh that was true. That was probably the most important thing. HP: And they parked in our yards and driveways. We were right behind Kyle Field. And your yard became just their parking area. ME: We wished they had a bathroom. They came over for lunch and then they came back for sandwiches and cake before they got on the bus. RW: And my mother loved it. I mean, we always volunteered because we got to see all of our friends and relatives —it was an open house. RW: My folks built their home a block off of the campus at Suffolk and Pershing. It is designated as a historic house, and my sister's oldest daughter, Tammy Harding, owns it now. And we are thrilled that they kept the character of the house even though they have improved it and modernized it somewhat. KW: The George's lived there when we came. Do you remember Coach George? Oral History Project —A &M College Campus Kids —Group 3— February 18, 1998 —Page# 3 HP: When my parents moved here from Alabama, there were four children, and then they had me, right away. The house was very small, and they had to build on the back of it to try to accommodate a large family. So, they put a sleeping quarters and a big dining room across the back of the house. My mother was a writer and a book reviewer and she would bring all of the campus kids into the home to tell us stories and to provide a lending library. ME: Well, it was an all male school, they didn't have restrooms for women. They didn't need them. They should have had them, but they didn't. But at our home we had an inside bathroom. HP: The wash was done outside in big pots. ME: And the servants quarters were behind all of the houses and the servants lived there. RW: Well, now the home on the campus was a regular frame building, what we called a campus house. And it had an E.B. Reynolds done on the front. Just like a military house. BL: Well, each name was stenciled on a tin strip on the front door. It was black with white lettering on it. Black with white letters. Obviously a stencil. KW: And the students could come and visit their professors? RW: The main thing I can remember about students visiting was when they aired out the freshman. My father was very sympathetic. I mean we had many a freshman sleeping on our living room floor or in our attic overnight. Oh, poor things, they would air them out and they would have to go hide in trees or wherever. KW: Well what does air them out mean? BL: Let Will tell you about airing out. HP: If they caught them they would paddle them and a few other things. RW: Well, about the time I came here in 1939, they cut out air outs. {Editor's note: Students enrolled in 2008 -2009 are still well- acquainted with the practice.} When they aired out, the upper classmen would say "You freshmen air out." This meant that if you Oral History Project —A &M College Campus Kids —Group 3— February 18, 1998 —Page# 4 were a freshman, you had to find a place to live overnight outside of the dormitory and this is why they stayed in our attic. They could not spend the night in the dorm. HP: It was right after yell practice, when they would always yell and carry on. We always went to all of the yell practices, and at the end of the yell practice they would say, "Freshman, air out." And you had better move or you would be run down. These boys just took off as fast as they could go. And they were being chased. KW: Where was yell practice? HP: At the steps of the YMCA. RW: In those days they didn't have microphones and so I didn't know until I was grown the ugly words they were saying. I mean you didn't know and they were using some bad words up there. Now you can hear them for blocks. KW: That's fascinating. And how many rooms were in your house Mary? ME: I don't know, we had an upstairs and a downstairs and we had two sitting rooms. It's now Laura Lane. KW: Yes, it's where the English Professor is living. ME: And I was born in the one two doors down. And we moved up here in 1918. We had upstairs rooms and my mother always kept them rented because we needed extra money. KW: Who did she rent them too? ME: Well, the Doak's lived there for at least thirteen years. But, before that, Bess Gatlin and the girls who worked in the library. There was no place on campus for them to live so they rented the rooms upstairs. KW: When they came to parties or just any time? Were the girls staying there. I don't understand what you mean by the girl's rented rooms. ME: Well, they worked on campus, but they had no place to live unless they lived in Bryan while they worked in the library. Oral History Project —A &M College Campus Kids —Group 3— February 18, 1998 —Page# 5 KW: I see. Now tell me a little bit more about the Doak's. ME: Clifton C. and Henrietta Doak lived there over thirteen years until they moved into a house they constructed on Pershing. They cooked and they had, three rooms with a bath. They moved in about 1939 when everyone moved off campus. HP: It was hot everywhere. It was hot everywhere? Oh yes, oh it was of course. KW: I see. Did we get what street each one of you were located on? I think that would be good. ME: It was Throckrnorton. Called Throckmorton or Quality Row. RW: I think it was Clark Street, but it's where the Student Center is now. Early on, we lived down the first street right across from the railroad tracks. The Baker's were on the corner, the Dunn's, and then the Gabhart's lived there too. We were second or third from the corner. Richard J. Dunn of course was the band master at A &M for many years and he wrote the Spirit of Aggie/and. HP: He also taught the symphony in high school. BL: And the thing about Colonel Dunn, or Major Dunn, was when he first began he taught the children of the public schools which met on campus. He devoted his time to the symphony orchestra, even teaching. He taught us violins, and cellos and everything they had in a symphony orchestra. This was a major part of the school program at the time. ME: Well, they also came to our home. My mother rented one of the sitting rooms to a music teacher from Bryan. That was after Consolidated was there, which was in 1920. But, and, that was in your home. KW: And the music teacher, was her name Conway or something like that? HP: Bill's sister started playing harp for Major Dunn. She was a wonderful harpist and played at my wedding. She is still playing the harp in Houston. RW: We lived next door to the Dunn's and they were my families best friends. What did you play, what did you play in the orchestra? I didn't play anything. HP: I played the violin, but I was not talented. Nancy, my sister, did. She played the drum. Oral History Project —A &M College Campus Kids —Group 3— February 18, 1998 —Page# 6 BL: Mary has a picture, a 1937 picture of people who, who were in the orchestra and I thought you were in the picture. It was recently placed on a T- shirt. KW: Can you explain Quality Row. Who would like to do that? HP: I'm not sure where it got it's name, but that's what it was called many years ago. Nobody knew the name Throckmorton. In fact, we didn't go by streets. I know 516 was the number on our house, but no one ever used it. They just knew where people lived because the names were on the steps. BL: Well, they had names on the doors, they just knew everybody anyway. HP: Right, it shows the name on the steps in this picture. We just went by the names of the people that lived in the homes. BL: Now, there were two houses on that street probably were the oldest homes. Where the Ball's lived and the Winklers lived were stone houses. Those must have been the original houses for the administration or something, but they were big stone houses and I think that is where the Quality Row came from. HP: On Quality Row the Bilsing's sold milk, and my parents had hens and we sold eggs to the neighbors. RW: You sold that on Quality Row? KW: And they rented out the upstairs. Now that's fascinating. I want you to describe the landscaping of your houses. Tell us about trees, shrubs, and lawns. We can see some of those through the pictures. So, if you'd like to start Mary, and who took care of the maintenance? ME: Well, I think my father did, did most of the maintenance. I have two brothers, younger, Preston and Frank Bolton. They were they good at mowing the lawn when they had to. I could say that Preston was spoiled and he didn't have to do anything because he was the baby. Frank played golf as much as he could, so he wasn't around any more than he had to be. HP: To get to use the car, my brother had to mow the lawn. Dad did the edging. And we sat outside all of the time. No television, not much radio ... we had big trees, and all of Oral History Project —A &M College Campus Kids —Group 3— February 18, 1998 —Page# 7 the neighbors would gather until quite a bit after dark and we would visit in lawn chairs and rockers while the children played in the street lights and chased around the houses. KW: What about goat head stickers and those kinds of things? Do you remember those? RW: Goat head stickers, boy do I remember those. I used to walk bare -foot across the drill field and that was full of grass burrs. And we'd go up to Casey's Confectionary, a little pharmacy that was up there in the YMCA building to get a candy bar or something. I can remember being scared as I walked past the bowling alley that was built over the swimming pool. ME: Every afternoon in the summer we took our little brothers and sisters and we all went to the swimming pool, Miss Amy Marstellar was there and she supervised us and taught us to swim. And Marstellar of course is a street here now and Dr. Marstella was Dean of Vet Medicine. KW: Did you have dates for the bowling alley, or was before that time? RW: Oh no. We didn't go to the bowling alley. I very carefully walked past it and into Casey's. I think they had billiard tables too, but it was kind of dark in there, dark and scary. KW: So it was sort of off limits in a way to little children? RW: Well, little children wouldn't have even wanted to be in there. That's the only way I could get to Casey's. You asked about trees. We used to have a huge mulberry tree and we used to have great fun eating the mulberries. And we had a huge back yard where my dad had strung lights out there, so we had great fun playing out there. Games like Red Rover and all of that stuff. HP: The yards were beautiful and many campus girls would marry in the yards —like the Kyle daughter. KW: How about Betty Jo Hale? She had a picture and there's a lady named Adcock here that was in her wedding. HP: That wasn't on campus. No, these were weddings with beautful trellis and all. That was a reception. Oral History Project —A &M College Campus Kids —Group 3— February 18, 1998 —Page# 8 KW: Who all got married in Guion Hall? ME: Lily Bess was the first woman to be married in Guion Hall. I was married in Guion Hall. KW: Lily Bess was? BL: Kyle. KW: From the Kyle Field. BL: Yes. KW: And the Kyle Street. HP: It's not the same Kyle. Kyle Field is named for the Houston Kyle. KW: One of those is Dean Kyle isn't it? ME: Dean Kyle. They claim that they it was really of the Houston doctor that Kyle Field is named, but E. J.'s name is on the plaque. 1 know they finally got it put on, but it took a long time. BL: It was 1955 he got the board to do that. HP: The street that I live on is Kyle Avenue. KW: And that's which Kyle then? HP: That's Dean Kyle. KW: Dean Kyle? I see. About how many houses were located on the central campus? BL: Knox Walker has a, a count or a list of all of those. Fifty to sixty 50 to 60 I guess is a good number. KW: Yes, well we talked about the numbering and the naming of the houses. Would anyone want to explain it? Was it pretty reasonable did it make it easy to find a, your way around? Oral History Project —A &M College Campus Kids —Group 3— February 18, 1998 —Page# 9 ME: Everybody just knew everybody. When you went away in the summertime on your vacation you din't lock up your houses, you just left your door open. If anybody needed candles or something, from next door, they went in and got it. It was, just open. The good old days. KW: How did they assign where you lived? Do you know? ME: I think it went probably by your jobs. Yes. Deans and Directors had bigger and better houses and... HP: When my parents came from Alabama all their belongings were in one box car. And it was put on a spur here. And Will, the black man that helped my dad in his work, took a wagon over to the railroad spur and unloaded that box car and then took the belongings to our house. I think it was about two blocks. KW: I see. Now was he part of the family that lived in your back yard so to speak? HP: No. The cooks and maids did. Not couples. KW: Do you remember the people that lived your servant quarters? RW: We didn't have servant's quarters. KW: You didn't have servants? Well then how did you get your laundry done? RW: Oh we had two people that came by the day... ME: They came on Mondays... HP: Came on Monday and washed. Came on Tuesday and ironed. RW: We had a cook and a maid that cleaned the house. And then we had a wash girl. KW: Say that again. RW: We had a wash woman. Separate from the maid that did the housework and the ironing and always cooked supper for us. KW: And you had that everyday, that help. Oral History Project —A &M College Campus Kids —Group 3— February 18, 1998 —Page# 10 RW: Well, the wash woman didn't come everyday. But the others did. ME: We always had a cook that lived in and she fixed three meals a day. Saturday was her only night off and that's when we had chili and went to the Assembly Hall for the movies. HP: Every Saturday night the Assembly Hall showed movies... KW: Where was the Assembly Hall? HP: It was probably between the All Faith's Chapel and the dorms. BL: Pretty much where the All Faith's Chapel is now. HP: And that's where all of the Aggies went to the movies and threw peanuts. That was just a routine. Every campus kid went to the movies every single Saturday night. KW: Were the Aggies noisy or obscene? RW: Oh my! BL: Oh, perish the thought! No, no. RW: It was wonderful. BL: Well behaved, well behaved! HP: It had a balcony with wooden floors and when a good line came on they'd stomp the floor, so you'd miss the next two or three lines. RW: Oh, it was a wonderful experience. ME: I read, it to my little brothers. I read, the subtitles. KW: Silents, before talkies. Silent films. HP: I don't remember silent films. RW: There were talkies by the time we got there. I'm just younger than I thought. Oral History Project —A &M College Campus Kids —Group 3— February 18, 1998 —Page# 11 ME: I have a story I want to tell, but not now. KW: Not now? All right, but everyone who listens to this tape will want to know. KW: A resolution adopted in 1939 stated that on or before September 1, 1941, all campus residences must be vacated and not be rented again. We'd like to know if you remember. HP: Army personnel moved into our homes on campus. And they stayed there, and then Breezy Brazil lived there for a while. ME: Well, we never moved off. My father moved from this house to the President's house then, then retired all together. KW: That's right. Because he became President Frank C. Bolton from 1948 to 1950. KW: And this is what I understand. Then some of the military lived in those houses... {editor's note: End of side A of tape 1} KW: Explain that again. We might have missed a little bit about the military. ME: Well, whoever was colonel or head of the military and had a house on Throckmorton (Quality Road), right, right across from Guion Hall. HP: One of the homes became the USO, the Silvey Home. KW: Now, is that the Silvey Home still standing behind the Episcopal Church. HP: Yes. KW: Let's talk about roads. The central campus area was bounded by Sulfur Springs Road... BL: Which is now University Dr. KW: Which is now University Dr., Texas Ave on the east, Jersey St. on the south, and the Welborn road (old Highway 6). Oral History Project —A &M College Campus Kids —Group 3— February 18, 1998 —Page# 12 BL: The university used to face west. The Academic building, where the bell tower is now, that was the direction the university faced. In the early '30s they turned it around so that it faced east and then the Systems Administration building with all the columns on it now, was the main building that first faced east in the entrance that came to there. That's when Highway 6 was built. You see, Wellborn Road used to be the main highway to Houston and Navasota. KW: And it was Highway 6 at that time. BL: But anyhow, the university turned. The university of course knew that the highway was going to be built. I believe those buildings were built in '32 and '33; the Scoates building, what used to be the animal science building, I don't know what it's called now. And the Systems Administration Building. KW: Well, tell us a little bit about the road, like the main roads. We haven't talked about the railroad yet, let's just talk about the roads. I think there are pictures you're passing around of cars that traveled on those roads. HP: This is my parents first car in 1925 and the baby is me. ME: We all called her little Helen. She was never Helen, she was little Helen HP: That's right. Talking about the roads this picture shows the university when it faced Wellborn Road. Well, my brother used to play down here, this area was the campus dump and we played at the campus dump collecting test tubes and everything else we could find and that was great fun. That was before the university faced what is now Texas Avenue. KW: These roads were not high quality - what were they like? BL: I can remember when a bunch of them were gravel. KW: I can remember when they went around trees. Well, is there anybody else that would like to say anything else about roads? Well, how about visitors? Think about visitors for dances, graduation, and where they stayed. RW: They stayed right in our house. My mother was very careful about what kinds of girls she took in. We had all kinds of rules, and it was kind of like it a duty of the college Oral History Project —A &M College Campus Kids —Group 3— February 18, 1998 —Page# 13 professors to open their homes to these girls when they would come for the dances. Even after 1955 we kept them in our house and it was usually for two nights. BL: Well, the only accommodation on campus of course was the Shirley House and the Aggieland Inn. KW: When was the Aggieland Inn built? BL: In the 1920s. KW: And of course the girls liked that. The boys would put them up there. ME: If their parents let them, but there were a lot of parents that didn't want their daughters staying there - -you know you just didn't do that kind of thing. The dances were chaperoned in the mess hall, and at midnight you were shut down. We all came out and we walked down to the houses where our parents had cake and sandwiches and things for us and then we went back to the dance. Students were not allowed to have cars, although some of them, but they weren't allowed on campus. KW: So they could take their date off campus if they did have a car somewhere, I guess. HP: There was no place to go. KW: Well, how about Bryan - places like that? Tell me a little bit about what Bryan was at that time. RW: I don't know. The rivalry between Bryan and College Station was terrible. KW: When did the trolley come in? 1910? ME: I went to school on the trolley until 1920. We all walked down to one of the mess halls to get on the car and sometimes we would get there on time and sometimes we didn't. When we got into Bryan we'd walk for three blocks to get to the school. KW: Now, I thought you went to school on the campus. BL: This was before the school was built on campus. Oral History Project —A &M College Campus Kids —Group 3— February 18, 1998 —Page# 14 ME: Well, I didn't start in 1910. Uh, my mother taught me the first two years. I didn't go to school until the 3rd grade when I went to school on the trolley. My brothers weren't ready for school. KW: What about going to Bryan for shopping or whatever? HP: We went in to get our school supplies and our clothes just before school started, and that was fun. We did swim in the pool at the country club in the summers. That was an outdoor pool located where the golf links are now. And that was a lovely pool where we swam. KW: That was the pool that has been here all the time? BL: No No. There used to be a club house there that is not there anymore. There is a pool there now, but it was built much later. HP: It was a country club and we would go out there and swim during the summer and attend dances at the clubhouse. We would go to the movies at the Palace when we were lucky enough to know someone going that direction. The Aggies hitchhiked and always got to ride in back. You never went to Bryan without a carload of Aggies. That was just part of the trip to Bryan - -you'd take the Aggies in and you brought other Aggies back if you had room in your car. KW: Oh, I see. Anything else you'd like to say about that? RW: Well, as for swimming, we lived close to the A &M pool. The in -door pool next door to Kyle- -they just tore it down. (PL Downs Natatorium). BL: It was built in '32 and before that if you were swimming on campus it was over in the YMCA building. That pool is still there by the way. They paved over it. But when they built the new pool in 1932 that is when they put the bowling alley in that she I was afraid to go by. RW: That was a wonderful pool. It was huge and we used to swim every day. HP: Every day all the campus kids RW: Twice a day. Oral History Project —A &M College Campus Kids —Group 3— February 18, 1998 —Page# 15 BL: You'd get a family ticket for $3 HP: And we go back at night and swim from 7 to 9. BL: 3to5,7to9 HP: We were there every minute, and we had a film over our eyes all summer long from the chlorine. RW: We had 2 family tickets. One for the assembly hall for the movies and one for the pool so we could swim. We spent lots of time in that pool. ME: I did my swimming in the YMCA and Mrs. Marsteller taught us all to all swim. My mother stayed home and slept —the mothers had their nap in the afternoon and we took all the kids swimming. One time my brother Frank misbehaved and I corrected him. Before I could get home Mrs. Marsteller called my mom just to let her know he needed it. HP: She mentioned Mrs. Marsteller. I'd like to say, these neighbors gave so much to the campus children. Mrs. Marsteller and Maj. Irwin, who was in the cavalry, got together and taught us horseback riding on the cavalry horses. Every Saturday morning we learned to ride English saddles, we learned to jump and we had horse shows. Cynthia and I rode every Saturday morning and Mrs. Marsteller and Maj. Irwin taught us to ride. We had the only mounted girl scout troop in the United States. KW: The only mounted girl scout troop in the United States? HP: Bill Lancaster's sister and I were in it. We would ride to the Brazos river and back. These were regular Army horses, cavalry and artillery horses. RW: The enlisted men would saddle them, and feed them, but all we did was go around and jump on them and ride. HP: And I won a silver cup at the A &M Horse Show. RW: I'm proud of you, I'm learning things about you that I never knew. I ride these days, I have my own horse. BL: Well, braver than I am. Oral History Project —A &M College Campus Kids —Group 3— February 18, 1998 —Page# 16 KW: Tell us some of the things that your parents did like bridge parties or card parties, who would like to start? ME: Every year they always held some big party and have everybody in the whole community over. They had bridge parties and social parties of various kinds, but they would usually have one big party and repay everybody and start all over. You borrowed silver and china and everything from the neighbors because you did not have enough to have everybody -- that's the way we did it. HP: And they dressed formally. KW: There is something written about the Gilcrest parties. Do you remember anything about the Gilcrest having parties regularly? ME: No, I was gone by the time the Gilcrests had parties, though I lived at home two years during the war and Mrs. Gilcrest and I were very close friends. HP: Every Halloween the faculty had a costume party at Sbisa Hall where they gave prizes and we children didn't get to go. We would run all over the campus and do things with yard furniture and all that on Halloween while our parents were dancing in Sbisa at the Halloween party. KW: Would you like to talk about a social event that you remember? RW: As far as my mother? Or are you thinking right here or those older people who liked to have parties? She wasn't a bridge player, but she would have luncheons and dinners and one of her favorite things was Mexican food. She was a very good cook. KW: Describe how they dressed. RW: Well, what I can remember is that when you went to college, you better be dressed right. KW: Where did you go? HP: I went to TSCW (Texas State College for Women, located in Denton, Texas). Texas Women's University now. Oral History Project —A &M College Campus Kids —Group 3— February 18, 1998 —Page# 17 RW: It was A &M's sister school. I went up there in '43 and I was already engaged to Steve Williams when I went up there. That was during the war and we would ride the train to Dallas and then take a bus to Denton, and I had to have on hose and heels and gloves and a hat. I will never forget the day when I started seeing people at like an airport dressed in all different ways. I was horrified. BL: This was true even during football games. People dressed up. You really wore hats and heels to football games. Anybody who showed up in shorts was ... Oh it was terrible. ME: You wore your new long dress and you ruined it at the first ball game because it was in September, it was hot, and you had your new winter dress on. BL: That's right. RW: And as far as dances are concerned, there were all the regimental balls and everything. I think I had a bigger wardrobe of evening dresses than I had daytime dresses. ME: Well, you got three new ones for the RV {Ross Volunteers} dances because it was Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. RW: We couldn't be seen in the same dress. Oh no. Oh heavens. KW: Did you borrow each other's dresses? ME: Oh no. RW: I never did. No. My mother was a great seamstress, too. She made some of them and we bought some of them. HP: Oh it was wonderful. ME: We had a good seamstress in Bryan and she made them all. I see. KW: Helen, you were an artist? HP: I never really started taking art until I was in college, but let me go back a little bit and talk more about the women, like Mrs. Marstellar. They all, we were such a family. Oral History Project —A &M College Campus Kids —Group 3— February 18, 1998 —Page# 18 We kids were given so much, we were tutored in French, art, cooking, etiquette, music. I can remember different women that lived on campus would have the children into their homes and teach us these things. French, I remember, especially. ME: I want to say something about the parties. They would have tea parties in the aflernoon and big, big teas. As soon as we were eleven to thirteen, or fourteen, we served at those parties so we learned how to conduct ourselves properly. We served at the tea parties, and we had little evening dresses to wear to dress up for the tea parties. HP: There was a lot of entertaining and we were brought up watching our parents and our neighbors entertain. That's how we learned, by taking part in everything. KW: So, none of your parents worked outside except to help other children out of friendship. BL: There wasn't anything to do - -no place they could work. RW: They not only didn't work, they had servants. They didn't have washing machines, but you know, when I look back, my mother didn't have it bad. I mean, you know. KW: Where did you buy groceries and things like that? You called into Bryan, in the morning. ME: You called your grocery list into Bryan in the morning and it was delivered in the afternoon. If you ran out of something, you borrowed it from the neighbor. HP: We didn't do that. We shopped at Luke's at Northgate (Luke Patranella). Every morning, the women would go to Luke's and buy their groceries. And Luke's had a delivery boy also who drove a little motorcycle. His name was Sam, I think. Ice was delivered by Mr. White in a wagon. And we kids would run after the wagon, climb on it and chip off the ice and steal it. RW: That's the way my folks did it. Luke would deliver the groceries. HP: Once a year, at Easter, Luke furnished all the eggs and the ladies on campus would dye them, and the children would have an Easter Egg hunt. BL: They were held behind what's now the President's home. Oral History Project —A &M College Campus Kids —Group 3— February 18, 1998 —Page# 19 HP: Between the flower gardens and what I guess now is the MSC Center garage. Well, south of the parking garage. There was a beautiful park area, and it was behind our house. They would go down there and hide the eggs and then they would turn the kids loose. It was a wonderful sight. KW: Do you remember anything like that, Mary? ME: No, that was after my time. But we had our own. Daddy made the mistake of putting one up the drain of the house and I never could figure that out, so I learned that there was no Easter Bunny. HP: At Christmas we had pageants and they were always held at the YMCA. We all had a part and I remember Preston Bolton was my husband in one of the pageants. He was quite impressive. We also went caroling from house to house. HP: Everyone went to the YMCA to church except for the Methodists. They had their own church. Everybody else went to the YMCA where Norman Anderson led the services. We just had the 75th anniversary. RW: The YMCA is very special to me because I was married in the YMCA chapel. ME: The Christmas party that they had was a big party. It was originally given for the students that couldn't afford to go home and were left there on campus. When we went there was always a present for every child - -an orange, or apple or something. And then we had our pageant and celebration on the top floor of the YMCA. BL: The Y was built originally in 1917 with two floors, the third floor was added on in the early twenties. In the 1917 annual it's two floors so they added this bachelor's quarters thing later. ME: The social club met there and they had to go up all of those little winding stairs to that the third floor, I guess it was. And they had to take all their food and their dishes and everything up to that. I don't know how my mother did it. She always went, but she was very crippled and I don't know how she ever got up and down those stairs, but she did. BL: It sounded like a herd of horses going up those iron stairs. I don't know why they didn't put the regular set of stairs there. Oral History Project —A &M College Campus Kids —Group 3— February 18, 1998 —Page# 20 ME: They couldn't wash the dishes or anything up there. I think there was one little sink, but you took your dirty dishes home. BL: The MSC supplanted all of that when it was built in 1950. It was a sign of moving to civilization. HP: We had the equivalent of OPAS {Opera and Performing Arts} there in Guion Hall. There were famous poets, singers, musicians, and orchestras. They would appear in Guion Hall and we children were all made to attend. Our parents saw to it that we went. RW: At the dances, you had big bands, but I guess that came later. ME: Real bands. Real good bands. Back in my day we had the main top bands. HP: We had all the top bands at Sbisa. That's where I met my husband. KW: Does anyone remember the summer picnics at the fish tank? ME: Yes, I remember those. We didn't have a horse and buggy, but we were always invited to ride with somebody else. And that again was where I swam. One of the coaches taught me how to swim out at the fish tank. KW: And where was that fish tank? BL: It's still out there on the property right across from the fireman's training fields. KW: And does anybody else want to comment on going out there? Now you said a horse and buggy, when did you get your first car, do you remember? ME: It was a Saxon and nobody ever heard of a Saxon and that was our first car. Now what model it was, I don't know, but it had a habit of the rear axle breaking. KW: Now, does anybody want to comment on the college zoo? BL: I don't remember it. It was out across the tracks. It was over on the west side where you went to get your milk. KW: Let's talk about elementary school. Each one of you tell me where you attended elementary school and high school, and we'll go from there. Oral History Project —A &M College Campus Kids —Group 3— February 18, 1998 —Page# 21 ME: I think I told you mine. I went to the Bryan school until 1920, but I graduated from Consolidated. School was on the campus - -it was across the street from our house. That's why the music teacher could be there because it was just across the street. KW: They could leave the school building actually and go into your home. ME: And next door, one of the original old houses was the teacher's. And that's where the teachers lived. HP: I went to this school which was right off Throckmorton. It had seven grades and all the campus kids went there. High school was a condemned dormitory and it was Pfiffer Hall. They knocked out every other wall to make classrooms. Now Aggies, acting crazy, painted a few of their rooms pink, so they painted entire school pink. Our entire high school was pink inside. It was a condemned dorm but a wonderful building. We would sit in class and pull the bricks out of the wall. And wave and flirt out the window with the Aggies when they went to class out the window. KW: Did you each marry an Aggie? HP: No, but I made my husband into an Aggie. He got his last two degrees here. RW: My husband was a senior at A &M when I was a junior in high school. We met at the Presbyterian young people's group, which he was president of at that time. He and his boots and everything. ME: I met mine when he was a freshman and I was fourteen. We married four years later during senior week when he graduated. KW: Of course in those days Texas only had eleven grades so he wasn't much older than you were. He might have been sixteen. ME: No, no. He was five years older than me. KW: When you went to school, was there any kindergarten, Helen? HP: Yes, my sister had one in our attic. My oldest sister taught kindergarten. BL: We didn't even know how to spell kindergarten. Oral History Project —A &M College Campus Kids —Group 3— February 18, 1998 —Page# 22 HP: But most kids started in the first grade in this school here. KW: You moved out of Pfiffer Hall in 193 8 or 39? HP: Yes, we moved out. I went to my last two years of high school in this building (College Station Conference Center). The night I graduated, we drank champagne on the roof and then climbed the water tower and danced. KW: Which water tower? The one on the campus? HP: Yes. Sgt. Mac, who had a bad leg, was the night watchman on campus who was so good to all of us kids, we were his kids. He stood down there and yelled at us "Get off that water tower," and threatened to tell our families. There must have been eight or ten of us up there dancing that night on graduation, but it was quite a sight. BL: That was a tall tower. HP: It was the one that was straight on the side. It shows in this picture. KW: I don't see how you climbed it. HP: I don't either. ME: You wouldn't do it now. HP: Oh no, of course not. KW: Maybe if I poured some champagne. Well, did your parents find out? HP: I'm not sure. This was interesting. This was in '36 when Franklin Roosevelt visited here. This was a picture of him at Kyle Field. All the kids and the parents turned out for this parade for Franklin D. Roosevelt. I've got pictures somewhere that I can see myself in the crowd. And here he is in this open car - a convertible, you know. That was an exciting time. RW: I remember one time when we were in the old high school in Pfiffer Hall, it snowed and they turned out school, because it snowed. So we walked up to the school grounds and threw snowballs at each other and had a real hullaballoo. It was quite an occasion. Oral History Project —A &M College Campus Kids —Group 3— February 18, 1998 —Page# 23 RW: We always walked to school and walked home at lunch. Home at lunch and back. Most of them now are closed campuses. KW: Where were the school buildings when you went in Bryan? ME: Well, one of them is still a school. It's had several names but I think it was Bonham Elementary between 29 and 30 streets. It was a big brick building, even then. After that, I went to Consolidated. But when I went to school in Bryan, there was a lady who lived on the edge of the school grounds and she made us hot lunches. You couldn't come home, of course, so my parents paid for them. KW: And then, you came home by trolley again. ME: I'd go to school feeling fine, but if you got desperately ill in the middle of school, they didn't send you home, they didn't have a school nurse or anything, they sent you out and you sat in the little arbor outside and waited for the trolley to go home. KW: So you could get sicker. You didn't get sick very often then. BL: You didn't let anybody know if you did. ME: If bad weather came, one of the mothers would drive in and bring in the coats. KW: How many people were in your class, Helen? HP: My graduating class in high school was 25. There were about a hundred in the whole high school. I graduated in 1941 when I was sixteen. I graduated and went to college at TWU {Texas Women's University }. I graduated from there in 1945? ME: I graduated from high school in 1926. I went to Baylor Belton, which was Baylor College for Women. KW: What's the difference between that and Mary Hardin Baylor? BL /ME: It's the same thing. RW: My mother went there. KW: How did you get up there? Oral History Project —A &M College Campus Kids —Group 3— February 18, 1998 —Page# 24 ME: Well, you went on a train, And then your parents came to see you and brought your boyfriend for the weekend. My father had taught at Mississippi A &M before he came to Texas A &M and had worked under Dr. Hardy, who was head of the college of Baylor Belton. He had been President at Mississippi A &M and so I went there for that reason. KW: Well, do you want to say anything more about college life? We haven't said much about the train. BL: That orange train came through here. It was the Sunbeam. HP: If we had the money, we would ride it to Bryan to the movies. It did stop at Bryan at that time. Later it was nonstop to Dallas. BL: I tried to find picture of the Sunbeam - of that orange train. It is hard to really visualize how fancy that thing was. It was nice. HP: We took it to college back and forth all the time. BL: That train went from Houston to College Station in an hour. ME: In the afternoon, your entertainment was to ride down and watch the train come in. BL: That's right. KW: You went to TWU on that train and then to Dallas and then to Denton by bus. BL: Four trains a day. The daytime stop we'd call at different places between Dallas and Houston. The night trains were going north, got in at 6:15; going south it didn't stop anywhere but College Station, Dallas, or Houston. When you get to Dallas at 6:15, they had to go over a hundred miles an hour to do that. They had to slow down because they weren't allowed to go over 70 mph. KW: Did you go to Bryan to the movies? ME: Yes, we went on Saturday afternoons. We went to Bryan on the streetcar and we spent our money on a nice drink afterwards at the confectioners. Then we called one of Oral History Project —A &M College Campus Kids —Group 3— February 18, 1998 —Page# 25 the parents who came and picked us up. You went on Saturday nights to the assembly hall, where they would show movies. KW: Does anybody remember the Queen? ME: Oh, yes. I remember you weren't really supposed to go there at one time. KW: To the Dixie? BL: No, the Dixie was something different. The Queen's was built in the mid '30's. KW: And you're saying that you weren't supposed to go there? ME: No, they didn't really like us to go to the Dixie. They let us go to the Palace. BL: There was still a lesser cloud over the Palace. KW: Do you remember stage shows along with the movies? HP: We took dancing -- ballet and tap - -and had our reviews, our dance recitals, on the stage of the Palace. ME: We had the Chautauqua. Do you remember where they had that? Once, I was in one of the plays that they did. HP: I remember the circuses, the gypsies, and the hobos and tramps. They would get off the train and try to get a meal. They always made a bee line for our back door. My mother fed them and I'd get to talk to them and learn all these wonderful stories, sitting on the back steps. But the gypsies would camp, as did the hobos, in the north end of the college park lake. The Lancaster house faced the lake and it was overgrown in the north end. That's where these tramps and hobos and gypsies would camp. We were never allowed to go near there, although, we rafted on the lake a lot. KW: Do you remember ice skating? I understand they ice skated one year. BL: Just that one year. It never got that cold. It froze enough in '28 or '29 that M. C. Hughes and Norman Rode took pictures of them ice skating —and ice skates they were unheard of. Oral History Project —A &M College Campus Kids —Group 3— February 18, 1998 —Page# 26 KW: We discussed typhoid early on, do any of you remember any special diseases or diphtheria or any problems like that? HP: Just measles and mumps and that kind of stuff. BL: Wasn't there a typhoid thing on campus in 1918, I think that's what it was? Was it the flu where so many died? ME: That was when we had soldiers on the campus. They camped and they lived in tents. HP: This is a very personal story. Aggies and the kids on the campus were close friends. We would roller skate and they were always there. One campus small girl got lost and the entire cadet corps turned out to look for her. I thought that was so splendid that Aggies turned out and spread out all around looking for this little girl. They found her later- -she fell asleep on her roof. BL: I had forgotten about that. HP: Do you remember that at all? Oh, we were all terribly upset. KW: We've talked a little bit about roller skating, riding horses, theatrical productions, swimming, water fights between the southside kids and the northside kids. Do you remember that? HP: We had nothing to entertain with, so we had our own circuses and we'd all take part, and we would have our puppet shows, where we made our own puppets. {Sudden shift to discussing a man named Puryear} HP: I think that's the first time I've ever heard that he was crippled. ME: Yes, he was always crippled, because when I was there, he had to walk with a cane and he'd weigh you; he'd smoke and he'd hold his cane up and tell you how much you weighed And his house on Texas was an old one. He owned it. He built it himself and he lived in it, and of course when he died, it went to the state, but it was a good house. No one's lived in it since. It is a green colored house and no other house was painted green. He could paint it any color he wanted. Oral History Project —A &M College Campus Kids —Group 3— February 18, 1998 —Page# 27 KW: I think we've talked a little bit about corps parades and military reviews, do you want to say anything about the Bonfire, what do you remember about the Bonfire. HP: This was when we kids used to take part in building it and it was more trash than anything else, but we helped out. ME: It had an outhouse. They grabbed somebody's outhouse and put it on top and that was real funny. BL: I'm afraid they wouldn't be impressed with that one now. HP: There's two outhouses now. This Bonfire in 1935. It's about the same as when you came in '39. ME: In 1945 I remember my father went to the phone and he came back and he was dying laughing and I said, "What is it ?," and he said, "There's a man crying on the telephone 'cause his truck is on top of the Bonfire." HP: Well this is really the way a Bonfire should look. Not huge. KW: We've already talked about renting rooms at the YMCA - -was that only the third floor or did they rent rooms out on every floor? ME: I don't think there was more than one, maybe two, there couldn't be many rooms. The bachelors lived there. BL: I think on a regular nightly basis, I don't think this was the quarters where they stayed. KW: Well, what about hospitals and doctors? BL: Old Dr. Marsh didn't care at all. ME: Dr. Ellinger was the first one. Dr. Marsh lived on campus next to the hospital, over there on Third. Where is he now? I don't know if he's even here anymore. KW: Well, some people went to Bryan to be born. Where were you born? ME: I was born on the A &M campus, Dr. Raysor came out in his buggy. And that was in 1910. Oral History Project —A &M College Campus Kids —Group 3— February 18, 1998 —Page# 28 KW: What about you Helen, where were you born? HP: I was the only one of my family born in a hospital. I was born in St. Joe's (St. Joseph Catholic Hospital) on the west side of town. My father rode the trolley in when I was born. BL: Was he late getting there? HP: Yes, he was late getting there. But Dr. Marsh treated all of us kids on campus. And I remember him giving me 21 Rabies shots when 1 was 14. ME: And Dr. Marsh made house calls of course. HP: I don't remember Dr. Marsh making house calls, because it was so easy to get to the college hospital. BL: I was born at home, attended by Dr. Marsh who lives in College Station. KW: We heard that some people went to Houston to be born. How did they get there? ME: You went to Houston on the train early in the morning, shopped and came back on the train in the afternoon. The whole family went and ate at the Forum, an uptown cafeteria. KW: Do you remember trips to Houston? ME: Oh, yes, but we used to go in the car, drive there and back. KW: Well, why don't you tell about what chores you did? Bill, you can start first since you're the one that probably cut the grass. BL: I mowed the yard and took care of the lawn. Yards weren't what they are now. Grass died in the summer time and you didn't fool with it until it came back in the fall. RW: Once my parents built the home, then I don't remember it being very hard. It was my job to help vacuum the house on Saturday mornings. Then I got to ride my bicycle with the rest of my friends who were already out riding. And here's something I found Oral History Project —A &M College Campus Kids —Group 3— February 18, 1998 —Page# 29 interesting to me, I knew my parents had been planning to build a home, but I didn't know that the campus had to be vacated. I didn't find that out until later. KW: Now, Bill, you didn't live on the campus as I recall. BL: I never lived on the campus. My father was involved with the development of College Park, which was the first residential area off campus. You either lived on campus or in Bryan before that. But in 1921, he and four other men developed what's now College Park. And what, uh, that house across the street from that house that you moved to, was that one of the early houses? No, the house that we lived in, the house next door, north of us were the first two houses built on campus. They were built at the same time, in 1922 by the same contractor. ARer that, through the 20's, the houses were built around the park with the lakes there. - his house was built in 1929 which faces, is one of the houses that faces the park there. The others were all built in the late 20's and early 30's, but that was the southern extremity of the community. Was Pinkie Down's house built for fiRy years? Oh, no. No? That was before that? No, the Dohertyls(?), several people lived in that house aRer the Doherty's- Wilcox's, the Harvey family, Jake Sloan. Do you remember the Sloan's? I thought the Wilcox's lived on Lee. Bid they? Well, they went to Lee Yeah, tell us about the marlin cause she wrote in the Twelfth Man and then we always said Colonel Munnerlyn was the Spirit of Aggieland. M- U- N- N- E- R- L -Y -N, Munnerlyn. HP: I just remembered something about the Orths. He was an architect and his daughter, Sara, was very lovely and when they were building the Systems Building, the decorators and designers used a plastic mold of her face all around the top of the Systems Building. BL: The house that they lived in is the one that's now being sold at the end of Glade Street by Bill Fitch's family. That's the Orth house. KW: They built a house in that lot, so then it's the next house where Fitch lived before he moved across the street? (Several): Yes, but I remember when it was on campus. Orth lived there first, then Sieke and then Shuffler. And there was a play house in the backyard. No, no. Sutherland lives in the house that was built , but Gilchrist... When was it built, that house? '37. '37- That's the house that Sutherland lives in now and Koldus lived before. On Quality Row. Oral History Project —A &M College Campus Kids —Group 3— February 18, 1998 —Page# 30 And Koldus lived there before that. And Gilchrist.. . Gilchrist began ... His son is here today in one of the sessions. I saw his son -in -law, I mean daughter -in -law. KW: Bill, were any female members of your family allowed to attend classes at A & M in the 20's and 30's? BL: I went to classes. You went to classes, Mary? ME: In fact, I was supposed to go to A &M. They let professors' daughters go, and when I graduated from high school, I was going to go there, but the board decided that year that I couldn't go and that's why I went to Baylor in Belton. KW: But women had gone there before? ME: Yes, they had gone there. I think Caroline Mitchell went to classes, and I went in the summertime. You could go in the summertime, but not to regular classes. KW: What about you, Helen? HP: We all went there in the summer, but we weren't allowed to go in the winter. That's why I went to our sister school TSCW (Texas State College for Women —a name change in 1934; later, Texas Women's University, 1957). And you couldn't pursue a degree; you just could take courses, but they could count on your TWU transcript. KW: Did they transfer? Your summer courses transferred? HP: We transferred A &M courses to TWU. KW: Do you remember anything about that idea that they could write letters to the boys who had the same mailboxes? You didn't try that? Any activities? BL: My sister played in the Aggie Band. The concert band. She played the harp KW:. I've been thinking about Boy Scouts and wrestling class. Anybody want to comment on that? BL: Just that troop we had, and the Brownie troop, that was very unusual, I think. Well, the Boy Scouts all made Cashion Cabin which was across there from the area where the zoo was. That's appropriate for the Boy Scouts. Oral History Project —A &M College Campus Kids —Group 3— February 18, 1998 —Page# 31 KW: Way out there by the fish tank? BL: No, no. Not that far out. It would be where Agronomy Road crosses University Drive and goes south of University Drive or Raymond Stolzer or whatever you want to call it. Cashion Cabin sat there on the west side of the road. The building now is out at Hensel Park, the same one. It may be gone now. Cashion was secretary of the YMCA. KW: Well, anything else you all would like to add. RW: Oh, I would just like to tell a personal story. It was something exciting that happened. It wasn't too long after the folks built this house that we had our friends- our families were friends- and Pete Adams who lived in Bryan and was an Aggie and a member of the Singing Cadets. And I was having a slumber party, and so I'm sure my mother arranged for Pete to bring some of his friends from the Singing Cadets. And I'll never forget, we girls, we rushed out onto the balcony, practically hung out over the balcony as these boys were serenading us. And then, of course, they were invited in for hot chocolate and cookies and we pushed back the furniture and we all danced in the living room. You know, I mean, that was (sigh) so exciting. That was exciting. It really was. KW: What year did your folks move out there. RW: Well, I think the house must have been built in '39 or'40. 1'11 never forget when my parents bought the lot. I used to ride my bicycle and sit on the stone and think, "This is ours." It was a wonderful house. We're thrilled it's still in the family. ME: Well, I have a little story to tell. This last winter, I got a letter from a woman in New York City and she said that her father- he was a chef on the railroad- and she wondered what I could tell her about her father -that he said in his book that he had learned to cook from my mother, in her kitchen, that that was how he learned to cook and that's why he was a chef and he left home very early. And there is a book and he's written up in the book of all the railroad chefs. I wrote her and told her his mother was the caterer - she catered all the parties on campus. And my mother wasn't a cook. He didn't learn from her, but he learned from his mother, probably in my mother's kitchen. In 1923, Fannie went with us. We drove in our old car to Mississippi. We went every summer and Preston was two or three and she went with us to look after Preston and his mother. And I was able to write and tell her about that and we do even have a picture of Fannie taken with us in the . And this woman is an opera singer in New York City and I think she teaches in at one of the big schools. She teaches there and tried to find Oral History Project —A &M College Campus Kids —Group 3— February 18, 1998 —Page# 32 something out about her father, her family. The family was black, but she catered for everybody. She was a wonderful cook, but that summer she went with us to Mississippi to look after Preston because my mother couldn't. KW: Well, that's a good story. And they've been pursuing? ME: I learned that Brooks Cofer told her to get a hold of me. Anyway, they own property here and she was going to sell it. She got a hold of Brooks Cofer and he told her, so she wrote me and that's how she contacted me. I don't remember her name, but I have all of her letters from her. She wrote and I wrote her. She sent me pictures of her and who was her manager and everything. BL: Bing Crosby's wife stayed at our house long before she was Mrs. Bing Crosby. She always bought such beautiful clothes. She actually double dated with my little brother- - She dated a friend of my brother's. Quite a few famous people came through here, so we've all had that experience. Oral History Project —A &M College Campus Kids —Group 3— February 18, 1998 —Page# 33