HomeMy WebLinkAboutSouth Side Ed MadeleyBill Lancaster: Interviewer
ED MADELEY INTERVIEW
SEPTEMBER, 1997
Bill: We are interviewing Ed Madely on the occasion of his and his wife Billie's gift of five acres to
the City of College Station for a park. This day is the 9th of September, 1997. With me here
also is Sharon Covey Menn, whose father was a long -time associate of Ed Madely's. So, here
we go! Off and running
You came here in 1940 -- June of 1940, and you came here at the urgings of Claude Edge?
Ed: That's right.
Bill: Okay, now what uh.... I'm curious to know how much convincing -- now here you'd been in
Chappel Hill, how many years, running a pharmacy?
Ed: Eight years.
Bill: Eight years, running a pharmacy. That was all during the depression years, was it not? About
1932, 1933?
Ed: 1940, we were just coming out of....
Bill: Coming out of the Depression. How much convincing did Claude have to do to get you to leave
Chappel Hill and come to the big metropolis of College Station?
Ed: Well, I was in the process of trying to get out of Chappel Hill anyhow,
Bill Oh, you were? Okay.
Ed: So, I had reached my maximum of $7,000 sales a year.
Bill: Oh boy!
Ed: And that's sales -- not cleared.
Bill: Not all profit.
Ed: And it wasn't getting any better. It wasn't getting any worse, but then, at the time, a young man
-- which I was at that time -- you got to go look for something else. So I had been to
Brookshire and all these southern towns and in east Texas -- I tried there. Finally, I had just
about given up and decided to just go ahead and live in Chappel Hill when I saw Claude Edge
on one of his jaunts, and he said "Well, why don't you go to College Station ? ". And I said,
"Well, they've got a drugstore there." He says "No, that guy didn't take that drugstore." And I
said, "But I don't like the highway -- I don't like being on the highway." And he said, " Well, let
me think. He says I think I've got a friend, or two friends that are building a building on the
south side -- brand new, and you might like that. One of those is going to be a drugstore." Well
that was Casey's building and Burgess's grocery store site. Well, Ray took the grocery
store and they got off to a jump because I was trying to deal with the ? to put in a drug store
here and found out that -- what do you call it, I can't think of the -- it was a drug chain, and uh, I
did not get together with them, because they would not give me an assurance that I could get
out anytime I wanted to get out. So I left them, and went to buy fixtures. It was recommended
that I see the Waco House for fixtures, because they had a fixture factory there and it was very
good. Beautiful fixtures -- red mahogany and whatever ? Anyhow, they said they would
install my fixtures for 50% of the cost, and I would take up the rest in my notes. Well, I didn't
have 50% of cost and I'd already contacted a fixture company in Houston -- a Houston fixture
company and they were wanting to put the fixtures in and they were wanting business so I
talked to them and they said well, that they would do it for 50% and I said I can't do that and I
said I have another company that I'm dealing with and I'll see what they're gonna do. And they
said well unless they beat 20 %, we're going to go on with you.
Peggy Calliham
Public Relations & Marketing Manager 764 -3768
September 24, 1997
end
For Immediate Release
Madeley's Leave a Legacy for College Station
On Thursday at 3 p.m. in the City Council Workshop session, the College Station City Council will honor
Ed and Billie Madeley with a plaque honoring them for giving a tract of land to the city to be called Billie
Madeley Park. This tract lies on the border between Bryan and College Station and will eventually be
developed to serve as a neighborhood park for the Chimney Hill Subdivision.
Ed and Billie Madeley came to College Station and opened Madeley's Pharmacy in the Southside
Shopping Center in June of 1940. They moved here from Chappel Hill and had to live at first in Bryan
because there was nothing to rent in College Station. After four months they found a house on Grove
Street in College Station. Later they moved back to Bryan into a home in Beverly Estates.
In 1950 they bought a five acre tract of land that backed up to their home. Edward and Billie promised
one another that they would never sell this land for development, so it was decided in 1997 that the land
should be given as parkland to the City of College Station for the Chimney Hill subdivision.
The Madeley's have been long time friends of most early College Station and Bryan residents. Ed as
pharmacist gave his advice on medication for all sorts of ills and his soda fountain provided a gathering
place for all the teenagers and coffee shop gossipers of the young city from 1940 to 1979. Madeley's, in
the Southside Shopping Center next to Texas A &M, was the Mall of yesteryear. The place you went to
see friends, get medicine, buy a paper, see what was happening, or just order a cherry phosphate and chat
with buddy's.
They also served their community in other voluntary efforts. They have been members of A &M United
Methodist Church since 1940. Ed was a member of Sul Ross Lodge, President of the Brazos Valley
Shrine Club, served on the Sterling Evans and Bryan Library Boards and an organizational member of the
Better Business Bureau. Billie served as secretary of the OPAS Board, member of the Campus Study Club,
Garden Club and the Women's Club of Bryan, and a secretary to Crestview home for the aged.
The Madeleys have been dedicated members of the Bryan - College Station community for over 50 years. It
is appropriate that they should be remembered for years to come through the dedication of this parkland.
For many youth who grew up in College Station, it could be said that the Madeley's, who had no children
of their own, practically raised an entire generation of College Station youth who spent most of their free
time at Madeley's Pharmacy. In those days, there were no latch key kids in College Station the.
Madeley's watched after them all.
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