HomeMy WebLinkAboutFaculty and Staff Panel 2Interviewees: Cynthia Cooper
Rex Cooper
Mary Lancaster
Woodrow Bailey
Moderator: Samantha Haislip
EARLY FACULTY STAFF AND SUPPORT STAFF
(M) My name is Samantha Haislip and today is July 15, 1998. I am interviewing, the first time:
Mrs. Cynthia Cooper, Mr. Rex Cooper, Mrs. Mary Lancaster, and Mr. Woodrow Bailey. This
interview is taking place in room 104 of the College Station Conference Center At 1300 George
Bush Drive, College Station Texas.
This interview is sponsored by the Historic Preservation Committee and the Conference Center
Advisory Comittee of the city of College Station, Texas; it is part of the memory lane oral history
project. So....let's begin with Mr. Bailey if you'll introduce yourself, and tell us a little bit about
yourself.
(Woodrow W. Bailey)I'm Woodrow W. Bailey and I am the class of'36'. I was a freshman in
1932. One of the things I remember was at where the Jack K. Williams building stands, which is
the old adminnistration building over there. There was a big a red horse barn stood right there
and when I was a freshman, me and Don Payne and some more freshman, helped tear down the
old horse barn, and it sat right where the Jack K. Williams building is now. And I was here during
that first building splearge that they had in 1933 when we finally got some money out of Texas
University around here. And in 1933, they built the animal industry building.
(M) O.K. We'll just um, finish introducing ourselves and then I'll get into the questions. So we
can hear more about what your experience is. O.K., Mrs Lancaster.
(Mary Lancaster) I'm Mary Lancaster and I came to Bryan College Station in 1951. So I am
a little after this period of time. I did marry William Bradford Lancaster, Bill, and we have lived
on Dexter Street all of these years. And his family came here about 1920, so he has a lot to tell.
And his sister and brother -in -law are in this session so ah...I'11 let them tell most of it.
(M) O.K. Mr. Cooper?
(Rex Cooper) I'm Rex Cooper I moved to College Station in 1939. I lived at 206 Pershing. I
Married Cynthia Lancaster Mary's sister in law.
(M) O.K. Mrs. Cooper?
(Cynthia Cooper) My name is Cynthia Lancaster Cooper . My father was Robert R. Lancaster
and he came to Bryan I think in the'20's then he went back to Fort Collins, Colorado and maried
my mother Helen Erma Douglass, they moved to College Station I think in 1921. I was born in
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Bryan Texas in 1924 and then grew up in what we called College Park. It was just off of campus.
My father was one of five people that helped develop that area. So that's my background.
(M) O.K. I'm glad to have all of you here today. What I am going to do is, we have questions.
We do not have to answer 'em all. But there are pleanty of questions to keep us going. Um, so
I'll ask a question and if each of you answer it. So, Mr. Bailey, I guess we will start with you first.
Amm..if you would tell us maybe your job title and maybe your department when you were at
A &M.
(WB) I was an animal husbundry department at that time, they have changed the name now to
animal science. But I came here as an assistant professor in um, 1940. And the interesting thing
about that was I came here because of the penatentury, where I was manager of the meat - packing
plant and the vegetable cannery in Sugarland,Texas. Ah...then I was promoted to the next step up
from assistant professor; associate professer I suppose. And then I stayed there until 1942 and
went into World War II.
(M) O.K. I think we are going to get to some WWII history a little bit, so...keep some
memories there. O.K., Mrs. Lancaster?
(WB) Well I started out in, you want me to tell something a little about WWII.
(M) We'll come back to that.
(WB) I was reserve officer, of course in those days every graduate of the Aggies was reserve
officer. And I went in and I went to Fort Benning, Georgia that's where I was inducted into
WWII. I crawled under every pine tree in Georgia I know, and belive it or not, when I got the
training for the infentry, they transfered me to the quartermaster corps and sent me to Chicago the
rest of the time in charge of all the research for animal products for the armed forces including
and in those days the airforce was part of the army. And I stayed there untill 1946 when I was
discharged.
(M) Thank you. Mrs. Lancaster?
1-)
I'll just go next time.
(M) 0.k. Mr. Cooper?
(RC) Yes, what did you want to know?
(M) O.K. Let me repeat the question. Um, your job title and the department that you worked
in.
(RC) No I wasn't with the College. I was a student here after graduation from A &M
Consolidated High School.
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(M) O.K. And what did you major in?
(RC) Business.
(M) Business?
(RC) Yes, I was in the class of'45 and that's my connection with A &M after high school.
(M) Where you a undergraduate or graduate?
(RC) Well I graduated.
(CC) Under grad.
(M) Undergraduate?
(RC) Oh do you mean did I get a doctorate and all that?
(M) Yes, yes.
(RC) No, just plain BS in business.
(CC) B.S.
(M) O.k. And what did you go into after you got your degree?
(RC) Well I went into the trucking business. I owned Atlas truck line in Houston. Which was
Oilfiield hauling. I spent 30 years at that and sold out and retired in 1974.
(M) O.k. Mrs. Lancaster? Oh, I'm sorry. I mean Mrs. Cooper.
(CC) What can I say? Ah, well of course I went to A &M Consolidated grade school and high
school. Which were on the campus at that time. The grade both of them have since been torn
down. our high school was the old Pfeifer Hall that had been condemed as a dormitory but they
put the high school in there for a number of years untill they built the first high school off campus;
which is in this vacinity. I think even that is gone, isn't it Mary. The original high school that was
built off campus.
(ML) Right. I think this building itself that we are in was the one I remember is the first
permanent building. They built first the little wooden buildings on timber street. And then I think
this building we are in here now used to be the highschool.
(M) Used to be a highschool?
(ML) Was the high school.
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(CC) A...A Rex moved to College Station in '39' then we graduated in of 1941. At that time
there were about a hundred and eighty students in the whole high school. And only 32 in our
graduating class. I know I was the secretary because I had to take orders for the senior rings.
And Um someplace I got a hundred dollar bill that I was real proud to flash around. I was a
member of the orchestra that Major Dunn started. He started that orchestra, I don't know how
much you want to go into that.
(M) Yea, that will be interesting to hear.
(CC) Colonol R.J. Dunn, who was at that time the director of the A&M band and I have some
history , on how that was started, that my mother had written down. But he went to Dr. C.H.
Winkler who was president of the school board and sugested music in the schools, and because he
was active in the state in the youth and music, he started this little orchestra. And I played violin
in it for about four years and then he got the harp. He had a friend in Houston who was a harp
teacher who came up and brought her prized student her to show off to the PTO meeting to try
and get them to buy a harp for the school. And it was said that at the same time, the home ec.
department was wanting to buy a refrigerator. One of the board members said, I believe I will
invest in that harp. I think I would get more benifit out of it. But what I would like to say, was,
this student of Mildred Milligan's gave a concert, a program down in Bryan at the Palace theatre.
And I think the whole town turned out becauese none of us had ever seen a big gold harp before.
And anyway the school did buy a harp and I changed over and played the harp. And eventually
played with the A&M concert band. And for a long time, I thought that was my claim to fame
was being the only girl to play with the A&M band. Not the marching band now...the concert
band. I even got to walk into the band dorm and then it was a no -no for a girl to go into the
dorms. Ah, but my husband has lunch with some Aggies down in Houston, and one of them was
one of those band members, and he got a picture of a young girl playing the harp, and he said "this
must be your wife." It turned oun not to be me, it was the other girl who had come up and so I
lost my claim to fame. She played with the A&M band first.
(M) Well thanks for sharing that, it was interesting, thank you.
(ML) And Cynthia didn't Colonel Dunn play in Sousas band? He was in John Phillips Sousas'
band before he came to A&M.
(CC) Yes. That is in a little bit of this information that I brought if they are interested in it.
(M) O.k. yea. Now, I think towards the end I'll be collecting what ever pictures or articles you
have. Ah, we can hold those up to the camera so I will not take pleanty of time to do that. O.K.,
this one of the questions has to do with transportation. How you got to either your work or if
you were a student, how you got to A &M each day.
(WB) I'm not sure I understood that question.
(M) O.K. did you live on campus?
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(WB) Yes.
(M) or did you have to commute?
(WB) I lived in four different dormatories from the time I was a freshman til the time I
graduated. And then, the last one that we lived in was, was Law and Puryear. And it's just been
torn down last year I believe.
() Is that right?
(WB) So that first one I lived in Moodwin Hall, Goodwin Hall, G- o- o- d -w -i -n and it's
interesting, it had no steel in it. It was the last loadbaring wall building on the campus, when it
was torn down. That was the end of it.
(M) Um, what was it, what was your dorm like? Did you share it with someone else? Or can
you describe what your room looked like.
(WB) The room? Yes, and my roommate is still alive and up in Grandbury Texas, on the lake out
there. The interesting thing about it is it is so crowded around here now, I often think about uh
Goodwin Hall. It had no...It was built just like a horse barn. It was a big hall around and rooms
off to both sides. There was nobody in the top floor and nobody in the bottom floor. The
students were so scarce in those days. I think the total population at that time was four thousand
and something. And I have often thought...man, and as far as getting in, the only thing you had to
do to get into A &M in those days, and stay in, was to keep breathing. They wouldn't kick
anybody out. From 1932 through '36 that was right in the depths of the depression of course.
And for five hundred dollars you could go a whole year. and that's all you needed. If you could
just get a hold of five hundred dollars. Now I understand it is twenty times that much.
(M) Do you remember, or does anybody remember the tuition rate? Back then?
(WB) Do what?
(M) The tuition rate. I mean was there tuition? You said five hundred would get you through
a year.
(WB) Yes.
(RC) She's wanting to know what the tuition was?
(WB) No, I don't remember. But I do remember that five hundred dollars. If you could just get
a hold of it, my older sister was teaching some school up in Desoto, Texas, in Dallas county. And
I..I had to ...the last year ..so that I could be on the livestock judging team, I had to borrow some
money from her. But other than that, I worked at least fourty hours a week. While I was a
student at .25 cents an hour....that was a top salary around here. Of course, the students did all
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the janitor work, they did everything. Anybody who wanted to work, they would give them a job
at .25 cents an hour.
(M) O.k. Mrs. Lancaster? Do you have anything to share? Mr. Cooper? Um, you were a
student? Correct?
(RC) I was born in Waco and we moved here in 1939. I was just starting out in highschool
in Pfiefer Hall. I'd see these Aggies come through with these boots and a slide rule and a
drawing board. I said, boy, that's for me! So when I got to be an Aggie in 1941, I took
engenieering. I was going to be the worlds greatest aronautical engeniere, but I flunked out. So I
went to work for R.B. buttler, a contractor in Bryan. He had me out shoveling concrete in the
winter and I decided I was going back to school. And I took business, and that's where I finally
got my degree, was in business. But, I lived over in Walton Hall, C ramp, second stoop. And I
remember they wouldn't let me go home. Because, you are a freshman. "Cooper you're not going
home for three months." But they found out that I had a twin sister and she was prety. And so,
when they found that out, I got a chance to go home. But, that was my way I got back and forth.
I just walked, I lived across the street from campus. That's the way I got back and forth.
(M) so, when they said you couldn't go home, did they put you somewhere on campus? Is that
where you had to stay?
(RC) No, I lived in Walton Hall. In Walton Hall, as a freshman, but I could have hit my house
with a rifle. But they wouldn't let me go home, just as you know hazing.
(M) So, where people required to stay on campus?
(RC) Yes, pretty well, everyone was confined. The freshman anyway. There weren't many cars
and everybody was right there on campus.
(WB) Everybody who went anywhere in those days, when you were here, and of course I was
here a little earlier. But, the only way we could travel was to get on the highway and just thumb
your way.
(RC) That's right
(WB) To where ever you wanted to go.
(RC) That's right. Or catch the train down here at the little station.
(WB) Yea, but I never had enough money to catch the train.
(M) How much was the train? Do you remember?
(RC) I sure don't.
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(CC) I do. It cost a nickel to go from College to Bryan. we'd....my brothers and I would get on
that train, they had to give up a nickle to get off in Bryan and go to a movie.
(M) Ah..Mrs. Cooper, did you live on campus? Or...
(CC) No. My family lived, actually where Bill and Mary Lancaster live. That location. Uh, it
was, oh what Mary, a half a block off campus? Off the, well at that time, it's the drill field now, at
that time, it was a sheep barn the sheep field ,there was a sheep farm up there and Mr. Todd
would sheer those sheep and we'd we kids would go up and watch him sheer sheep.
(WB) Yea, I worked for Mr. Todd a year at the sheep farm.
(CC) Did you? Yea, I didn't say that my father was with the extension service. He was not a
professor, he was with the extension service which was part of the USDA- United States
Department of Agriculture. For a while, their job was to go out, Mr. Bailey could tell you, they
would go out to the county agents and district agents you know, teach them how to do various
things that needed to be done on the ranches, and the farms and things. As a mater of fact, my
mother was a home demonstration agent up in Colorado. That's the way they met, in extension
work. And I might say at this point, at one time, I don't know if you remember the little cotty
college....cotty....the little cottage that was at the end of the block where the extension service
was? There were two ladies that live there. Mildred Horton and ah....Carter. What was Mrs.
Carters name? Mamie Lee Carter.
(WB) Was Roy Snyder there the time you were there?
(CC) Oh yes, but what I was going to say about Mildred Horton I had the ocassion to play the
harp at this nursing home, down in Houston, one time and this little old lady was standing there
and I had been introduced as from Bryan and College Station and she finally got around to talking
to me and she said, I'm from College Station and I said, oh....what is your name? And she told
me she was Mildred Horton and I said, oh....Mrs. Horton. I know you, I'm Cynthia Lancaster and
she said, I remember your daddy when he came to Bryan he rode down on a motorcycle, on an
Indian motorcycle before your parents were married. And it just so happened last weekend there
were three of us that performed out there at that same nursing home. It wasn't a nursing home,
but what you call a retirement home. Clarewood house across from Sharpstown in Houston.
And I asked about Mrs. Horton. I had visited her once and she had vast knowledge of
information on the Extension Service. And I have always wanted to go back and get her
information on tape. But unfortuantly they said that she had passed away about six months ago
and she was over a hundred...oh she must have been about a hundred and four...five years old.
But, but she was mentally there. But I did want to bring in that my father was not part of the
faculty, with the Extension Service. He was a district agent down in the valley for a number of
years and he had my brothers and I thinking that everything would grow in the valley. But, he
had a little song about it, In the winter time in the valley green. And my mother being from Fort
Collins Colorado, she said, "I never saw a green valley in the winter time...what are you talking
about ?" And he said, "well you havn't seen my valley." And he loved the valley of Texas.
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(WB) Oh yeah.
(WB) I was 4 -H Club Boy when your father was a district agent.
(CC) Is that right? Yes, well then you remember him.
(WB) Yeah, I remember him very well. He used to come, A.B. Jolley was the county agent in
Dallas county, and Mr. Lancaster used to come up there and hold programs. That's where I first
knew him.
(RC) They called him railroad. RR Lancaster.
(WB) Yeah. Not where he could hear you.
(CC) I want to say one more quick little thing about some of the buildings on campus.
Ah...when we grew up in the park, there was a the lake out there in front of our house. With my
brothers....it was a dirty old lake. And I think that is why we ended up so healthy, is because we
got so many antibiotics after swimming in the lake. But, the first time I ever saw the YMCA
swimming pool, now you would remember that pool. They put a bowling alley over it. Now at
the Y they've got offices over all that. But the first time I ever saw that Y pool, it was just a fairy
land to me. It was at night, and I thought, oh what a wonderful place to go swimming.
(CC) And so my mother then, from then on took us up to the Y pool. But we still swam in the
lake in the summertime a good bit.
(WB) J.F. Casey and Bill Sparks had a little place down in there some place ha.
(M) Um...there is a couple of questions here just about, um benifits. They would like to know
was medical assistance available. Was it....if you got hurt or sick, where did you go?
(WB) Well, I was well aquanted with the medical thing. I've forgotten the main doctors name
now, but he was deaf about like I am right now.
(CC) Dr. Marsh
(WB) Yea Marsh, Dr. Marsh and I was there quite a bit because after I worked at the sheep barn
a year, I was honored by being the first student employee of the new meats laboratory, which was
in the animal industry building. And I can remember, oh I don't know, maybe ten times when I
had to go over to that medical thing and let a nurse sew up one of my fingers or something.
Where I was...would cut it in doing my work with the other students. because the guy that tought
the course didn't know too much about meats, and even though I was just a sophmore, and I was
pretty much the teacher of these other students, because I caught on to it quick. And one time I
was in there when everyone had the flu. They had us stacked in halls and everywhere else. And
the way I finally got out of there was to put some ice in my mouth and took the thermomitor and
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when they took my feaver, it cleared up and I got out. But I was still pretty sick when I got out,
but it was real good facilities.
(ML) Um, there was a nurse there that I heard many stories about, in the college hospital.
(CC) Mom Cleghorn.
(ML) Mom Cleghorn.
(WB) Mom Cleghorn. Yes sir.
(M) Do you have a story to share? Or did you hear somehting that might be of interest?
(ML) Just I've just heard about her, her name and that she was always associated for many,
many years with the hospital.
(WB) All the students just loved her.
(ML) Yeah.
(CC) I have a write up at home a paper write up about her. I'll try to find it.
(M) O.K. Mr. Baily do you remember her? Any stories or memries.
(WB) No. She was pretty formal. You couldn't get too close to her.
(CC) She was pretty tough.
(WB) Yeah, if she had to be. She was.
(M) Mr. Cooper, do you have any medical stories?
(RC) No, no. I went to the dispensery a few times. And, I remember Mom Cleghorn but I don't
have any particular stories about her. Except she was a wonderful person when you were sick.
(WB) I'd forgotten her last name. Cleghorn, that was it, right?
(RC) Yes, yes.
(M) Did thay have insurance at that time or did you have to pay it yourself?
(RC) I think it was included in your tuition. You got whatever you needed at the dispensery.
(M) Mrs. Cooper, do you have anything to add?
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(CC) No, but I remember they set a broken arm up there for me and they put a dislocated elbow
back together, that years later, when my children were ice skating in Houston, they were playing
broom ball and I thought, Oh man I can make that goal and I ended up flat on my face on that ice
and hit this left elbow and I knew it had gone out of socket. And I thought oh my goodness. I
moved it and it went back in but Rex and I ended up being x -rayed at the hospital that evening
while the children waited for us in the car. The doctor said well that's a wild elbow. There's
something in there that doesn't belong there. I'm going to have to go inand find out. I said,
"Doctor, I've lived with it for 30 years. Just let it go." Um, there was something I had thought
about relating and it's slipped my mind now.
(ML) Did Dr. Marsh deliver any of you as babies?
(CC) I think he delivered Johnny, maybe Bill because they were born at home. Doug and I were
born in the Wright (Bryan) hospital and I think the other three boys were born at home.
(RC) Yes, I remember seeing the bill for your birth in the hospital. Do you remember what it
was?
(CC) $5.00.
(M) $5.00?
(CC) No, I was spending the night next door in the Down's house. There was an army officer
who lived there named, Sloan. Major Sloan. And I was spending the night with his daughter on
the south side of that house the night my youngest brother was born and I can remember hearing
my mother and I looked over and I knew she was having a baby and I was six years old. This was
the doctor I'm sure, walked up the front porch with his bag and go in. So I ran over the next day
and mother said I looked at her and opened up the blanket and said, "Oh, it's just another boy,"
and went back downstairs and didn't bother to come see her anymore.
(WB) Was A &M Consolidated school down there close to the Extension Service building in
those days? It just looked terrible. It was just barely. I just looked at it.
(CC) That was a great school. What are you talking about?
(WB) I thought that thing was going to fall in.
(RC) Why, you brought a picture of it. She's got a picture she brought.
(CC) It was my first grade class. No, I went throught seven years there. First grade through the
seventh grade. See we had eleven grades at the time I went through school. And we had a
graduation ceremony out of grade school into high school. We had a baccalaureate service over in
Guion Hall and we had a program. And had long dresses and graduated from grade school into
high school.
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(WB) How many were in a graduating class you reckon?
(CC) Uh, of the seventh grade, well I guess about the same as for high school. Around 30. Oh,
and I might say this. Our teacher at that time was Paul Edge, and he eventually became
superintendant of consolidaed schools but he was also a bus driver for the bus that went back and
forth between Bryan and College Station. He and his father and his brother were the bus drivers.
I knew Mr. Edge as a bus driver long before he was a school teacher.
(RC) I'll say this about the high school when I came from Waco. I came from Waco High. We
had a great big high school. This high school in College Station when I saw the building it was
Pfeifer Hall and it was pretty sad. I remember the first time I went to class, I was against a wall
and there was a brick there and I kinda put my foot against it and it pushed out and fell to the
ground below. And I said, "how old is this place ?" And they didn't know but they said we
remember during the war, WWI they had a flu epidimic and they had to stack all the sick and
dying downstairs here. Well, that's what put the creeps in me about Pfeifer Hall. There was so
many people sick during WWI with the flu that that's where they had to put them.
(CC) I want you all to notice something. This is a picture of the little symphony orchestra. I've
got a better picture in my bag but I'm harpest there.
(RC) This is the YMCA.
(CC) Yes, and this was taken in the Y back in what they called the chapel. It just so happened
that there was a girl wearing this shirt in one of the local restaurants and Mary's husband, Bill
happened to see it and he looked at it and he recognized the picture and he began to point out
everybody that's in the picture and they couldn't believe it. They had it, it was taken about 1941
maybe but they thought it was in the 20's but I do have a write up on this symphony.
(WB) How old is that dress?
(CC) The picture's pretty old, but I think...
(RC) This is about six months old, but the picture they put on this t -shirt is from the 30s.
(WB) How in the world do they do that? Isn't that nice.
(ML) About two years ago, the high school orchestra was planning a trip to New York City, and
they used this as a fund raiser. They found this old picture and had the t -shirts made. They went
quite well. They sold a lot.
(M) I have a couple of questions. Mr. Bailey, were you maned when you were at A &M, or
were you single?
(WB) Oh I was, man I was single.
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(M) Can you talk a little bit about what it was like to be single?
(WB) I married in 1940 and I came back here as assistant professor then in 1940. I did have a
wife then but I
didn't have one when I was a student. I didn't hardly have enough to keep my soul and body
together.
(M) What was, were the regulations about dating? Were there any rules about dating while
you're in school?
(WB) No. Because there were practically no girls here. But when we had a dance the girls that
came to go to those dances were put in one of the dormitories and anybody that was in that
dormitory just had to go. You just moved out and would go someplace else to sleep until those
girls went back home. They'd just take that whole dormitory over.
(M) How did they, I guess, recruit the girls to come in?
(RC) TSCW
(WB) They were special.
(M) What was TSCW?
(ML) Its now TWU.
(RC) It started out as what, Cynthia?
(CC) CIA
(RC) CIA what is was up in Denton, Texas.
(RC) It was A&M's sister school and it started out as CIA.
(CC) College of Industrial Arts.
(RC) And it became TSCW
(CC) Texas State College for Women.
(RC) Now its...
(CC) Texas Women's University. TWU
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(RC) But my wife was up there before she went to Texas and but those girls were called our
sister college and they'd bring those girls down here. I guess on buses and date the Aggies.
Thats where most of our dates came from.
(WB) I still call it CIA
(CC) Date you. I'm dated too, to TSCW.
(M) I guess Mrs. Cooper, do you have any experience to share as a single woman on campus?
Were you single that time?
(CC) Oh yes. As a high school girl, well as a matter of fact you see I grew up just off campus
and we'd take our roller skates up to this elementary school and they'd put in a nice sidewalk
from the school out to Throckmorton. That street that goes up there by the Extension Service.
And then we'd play hare and hound all over campus. I don't know if you know. There was a
couple that were the hares and a couple that were the hounds. The hares would take off and
they'd start skating and they would mark arrows every once in a while where they were and pretty
soon the hounds had to come along and have to follow these arrows and we'd skate down old
Main and boy, it sounded good going down those wood floors in old Main. I know the profs
probably hated us. But the best sidewalks were around the Y because they were smooth. A lot of
them were kind of rough sidewalk. But growing up on the campus why we kids just used all the
facilities, Red's problem was he wasn't connected.
(RC) It was my problem when I moved to college I couldn't swim in the pool and everywhere
I'd go they would say "you're not connected with the college."
(CC) If you had a connection with the college why, you got a season ticket to the swimming
pool and you got a season ticket to this and a season ticket to that and he wasn'e connected and
we had to sneak him in to everything.
(RC) But at night, we would sneak in the big P.L. DOWNS, swimming pool. Art Adamson was
the coach and sometimes he would catch us at night and we'd be in there and all of a sudden
those lights would go on and there we were in the pool. A window was open from where we
climbed up on the highdiving board and stepped over to a window to go out and those were
interesting days too.
(WB) Jim Cashion, that was was one of the people here today, his father was head of the YMCA
in those days and I don't know how long he was head but he was head a long time. He was
wonderful and theres another interesting thing that keeps coming up to me I don't dare go
oncampus anymore because I can't ever find a place to park and when I was a senior there was
only seven cars owned by students and they were locked up in somewhere in Bryan from Monday
through Friday. They couldn't use them but on Friday they let them take their car out and use
them. And man now there's thousands of them here and you can't find a place to park.
13
(ML) I went to Baylor and came here after I graduated, so I had one incident because Baylor
girls liked Aggies. I had several, through my years I knew several Aggies who came and one
weekend I had a friend of mine who brought another friend, two boys came up for the weekend
and they had ridden the bus, Greyhound or Bowin? Or some kind of bus up to Waco and we
went out for the weekend and then on Sunday afternoon they of course were in uniform and
everything stood out on the Baylor campus and late in the afternoon they were going to go back
downtown to the bus station to catch the bus back to College Station but on Sunday afternoons
well on Sunday mornings and Sunday nights, the churches in Waco would provide buses, city
busses, to take students to church in the morning and at night. So as they left our dorm to go
back downtown these buses were sittting in front of the girls dorms and thought they were going
back downtown to the bus station. So they got on the bus and everybody thought it was so funny
that the dumb Aggies didn't know where they were going and nobody would tell them so they sat
there and I guess they went to some church and I guess finally got back. Somebody told me
about it later. I felt real bad about it. (laughs)
(M) So what did the girls like about the Aggies, was it the uniforms?
ML)
The uniforms, and they were macho. Very macho.
(M) OK. Thank You.
(CC) I might say this in that regard, you know in the spring, starting in February, when I was in
high school, which I think was around '37, I was going to say what kind of people the Aggies
were. Starting in spring first on Friday nights were the organizational balls and usually there was
a big band dinner and then the ball and then on Saturday nights there were corps dances, you
know us local girls, we just got to go to them all we'd collect the emblemes that they'd give out
at the organizational balls, the engineers, and the cross cannons for the coast, and the cross rifles
for the blue artillery, and the cross sabres for the calvary and things like that. But my father was
kind of old fashioned, now he was an old military man that missed out of the military because he
lied about his age. When he was a young man, he ran away from home at 17 and lied to join the
army. When WWI broke out, he could of gotten a commission but according to army records, he
was too old, but he actually wasnot, but he could not admit it because he had already lied about
his age. But anyway he thought that the girls should be properly chaparoned and have a dance
card filled out, he just didn't like the business of going up there to the corps dance, dancing and
then anybody could just cut in on you and dance with you, whether you knew him or not. So
you met a lot of Aggies that way somebody would cut in on us while we were dancing all the
time. We had name bands back then that would come and what he didn't understand was that if
some Aggie was not being courteous to you another Aggie would cut in and take care of it, so
you were never left in an unpleasent situation very long. Someone would come cut in and dance
you out of it.
(M) What was the procedure for a dance card?
(CC) Well we did have that not at the corps dances, of course, it was at our own private parties.
But what you did at the beginning of a dance, you had a card and it had the number of dances.
14
The guys would come around and want certain dance, 1,2,3,4 and you would put his name down
and so when that dance came around why, you knew who your partner was.
(CC) No I don't but that's where they all were, in SIBSA hall.
(WB) I guess that was before you. But I have an interesting thing about this ring that I have. It
cost $25 and how they tell me those rings, the A&M rings are between $300 and $400, but I
didn't have $25 when I graduated, as I said before I owed my older sister a lot of money and she
was dunning me for it all the time and it was a year before I could get a hold of $25 to buy myself
a ring. But now they are $300 or $400.
(ML) Do you remember what senior boots cost? Did you have to pay for the senior boots?
(WB) Yes, there were made by Lou Casey, at that time they were in San Antonio, if I remember
they cost somewhere, less that $50.
(ML) Well, I think they are about $900 now.
(WB) Well yes and they were really good, of course I wore my too long after I graduated, I did
something and my legs cramped and I had to cut them off or I guess I would have lost my legs.
(CC) I didn't know anybody but the Holick's made those boots?
(WB) Well, um, uh.
(CC) I didn't know anybody but the Homick's made those boots?
(WB) Lou Casey, they used to come every year from San Antonio, they'd stay about a couple of
days and they'd measure anybody that wanted to buy boots. I don't remember Mr. Holick, but I
know the stores still down there. I used to have some repairs done but I didn't remember them
making any of those boots.
(CC) I know my mother used to try at some journalism and she wrote an artice on the Holick
Family. First of all, they were musicians. The father Joseph Holick was from Vienna. He had 4
sons and they were all musicians, fine musicians. He put together the first A&M band. He
learned this boot making and shoe repair and this article talks about that and they made some of
the senior boots, but apparently not all of them.
(WB) The old Holick's store is still down there at the North Gate.
(CC) Well, I guess Gilbert is still there, he was the youngest boy. I don't know whether Johnny
or Joe or...
(ML) I think Johnny is still living, I think he's been to some of these sessions.
15
(CC) Is that right, well Johnny Holick, I saw his name too. Thats who that is. That must be
him.
(ML) Yes.
(WB) You know, we didn't have any of these fancy little caps that they have now. We wore
what was called a campaign hat. They had high a top and stiff brim. And they were calles
campaign hats. I lost mine somewhere, but in our reunion we and one guy that kept his for 40
years, I guess and he used to wear it everytime we had a reunion.
(CC) May, I ask him a question? Do you remember those little houses that were along that
boulevard from the railway station to old main, they would have been next door to either Law or
Puryear Hall, that's where the students lived, right?
(WB) They had a name shacks and they had to cut their own wood to warm those cabins.
(ML) Are you talking about the project houses?
(CC) No, no this was on campus.
(WB) It was before the project houses and it was actually before I was a student, but I remember
when I was in 4 -H Club, we would come to the farmers short course every year. What in the
world were they called? They got a name. But, yeah, and alot of students lived in them. And
they had to cut their own wood and carry their own water in.
(CC) Is that right?
(M) Where did they get the water from?
(WB) I don't know why I can't think of the name of it.
(MI-)
I don't remember where.
(WB) Then the project houses came and that was one of the things I did down at the meats
laboratory and they would come from say Edee and some of those Central Texas towns up there.
They would come and to begin with Dan Russell, he was head of the sociology department, they
called him "Dan Dan, the gradepoint man ", because if you got in one of his classes you would't
make less than a B. But anyway, I'd cut up all , they would bring a cow down and want it cut up
into meat for the housekeeper and a couple that came and lived in the project house with them
and old Dan Russell would come over there and he would say, "Bailey, how is that old cow gonna
be ?" I said, "its going to be pretty tough Dr. Russell." He said, "ha ha ha ha ", he said "that
boy's got good teeth ". But then they built these fancy project houses down there on the North
side of the campus, I mean the South side of the campus, but they are all gone now I think. They
was sold and turned into apartments.
16
(RC) No, you were talking about where the married students after the war lived, he's talking
about the project houses on the south side.
(WB) The USDA, Department of Agriculture had some building that were close to those.
(RC) By the South end of the stadium.
(WB) Yeah, thats right. Thats exactly where those were. They are all gone now.
(RC) You ever go down there on the road to Hrdlicke?
(WB) Oh man yes. I have looked back on that and I say why in the heck did they let that guy
keep operating down there making that home brew. You could't make beer legally in Texas until
1933. When I was a freshman all they had down there at Hard Lickers was home brew down
there. He made it down there.
(RC) I never did get down there. I was a Baptist.
(WB) I didn't go very many times neither. I belonged to the Church of Christ Campbellites they
called them and we had church in Guin Hall and then we had awhile in the YMCA building.
(M) Excuse me, Ms. Lancaster you wanted to say something?
(MI.,) He reminded me of the nicknames that the students called across. I had never heard of
Dan, Dan, the gradepoint man, but there were several others. Who was the math teacher?
(CC) Square Root Jackson.
(ML) Square Root Jackson and there was Screamin Al Nelson, was he history? But do you
remember any other nicknames that they called them.
(RC) Yeah there was statistics under Hamilton. What did they call old Hamilton? I'm sorry, I
can't remember.
(RC) He used to teach statistics. I know they told, he had an old automobile and he was so
precise that when he pulled into a gas staion he got out his book and he measured the gallons he'd
put in the oil and how many pints of water and if they put air in the tires he'd put down the
pounds and all that. Everytime he pulled in everybody would run when he would come. That is
the attendant at the station.
(WB) It was an old English teacher he tought letter writing, business letters and his nickname
was "bloody Morgan ". When you'd read your letter he'd "Oh no, you can't do that." After that
everybody called him Bloody Morgan. Oh they all had names. Some were not very respectable
neither.
17
(RC) Well there was one Math professor, was my next door neighbor, named Dr. Benny. In
fact, my parents bought his home there when we moved to College Station, but I'd be very
grateful to him because I flunked out of engineering he came and talked to me and said are you
considering any other profession but engineering. He said, "I don't think that you are cut out to
be an engineer," and he encouraged me to go to the school of Business. I will never forget Dr.
Benny, my neighbor.
(WB) Who was the old teacher that lived on the Northside of campus and he had some roses and
some of them grew up 20 feet high.
(CC) Doctor....
(RC) Doc Asbury
(WB) Yes, that's right. They finally made him tear the things down. They came in and tore it
down I think. I don't know.
Climbing roses completely covered his house.
(WB) Asbury was that his name? Yep, that's right.
(RC) Yes.
(ML) And he had seven pianos in his home. Steinway
(CC) And then I understand he had pictures on the ceiling. Pictures all over the walls.
(WB) You missed some exciting days. We didn't think they were very exciting, but when you
look back on them they were exciting.
(ML) There's one story and I don't know it its ever been in any of these sessions. It may have
been. Could I tell the story about Ms. Clarke?
(CC) Yeah....
(WB) About the dam?
(ML) We lived next door to Dr. Floyd B. Clarke.
(RC) Why don't you give your address?
(MI.,) We lived at 303 Dexter, and the Clarke's lived at 305 Dexter and he was head of the
economics department at one time.
(WB) Yeah, I remember him.
18
(ML) You remember Dr. Clarke? He was eccentric too, back when Gib Gilchrist was president
of A&M. He ran a very tight ship and if anybody spoke out against the administration very
strongly they were tereminated. So Dr.Clarke was one of those that spoke out too much and was
terminated. They lived there at the time whre the childres swam and played and after a while the
city or the university, one decided it was before the city, I guess, was incorporated, someone
decided that it was a health problem or mosquitoes or that it was not a good idea so they were
gjoing to break through the dam. That is the beginning of Bee Creek, which comes off of campus
and flows on through. And Mrs. Clarke did not want them to break the dam soshe went down
and sat onit with a butcher knife and when they came with the equipment to break through, they
had to get, there was no police department, they had to get the county sherriff to talk her off the
dam. So she, she was quite a character.
(RC) I remember my statistics professor. His name was Mouse Hamilton.
(Mod) Mouse?
(RC) Mouse Hamilton.
(CC) Well they had other lakes, there was Scoates Lake up on the hill, and Zoo Lake out there
behind the dairy, they had some animals and things. Do you remember those? There was some
kind of animals. That was where the Chestnut's lived, I think. They drained the water basin. We
killed the mosquitos.
(RC) Did anybody ever tell you about the steam tunnels underneath this place? Well they've
got steam tunnels that run all underneath this campus, they're about 6 feet high or 5 feet, and
they've got big pipes along the ceiling runs all over the campus. They're steam pipes.
(WB) Yeah it was built in 1933.
(RC) Were they? but when it gets cold its warm down in there, but you've got to remove one
of those manhole covers and crawl down in there. Well there used to be a policeman on this
campus they drove a 3 wheeled motorcycle, we called him "Tricycle Willie." And he would chase
us kids and we'd go down one of those man holes but he'd kow where we'd come up. And they
did have lights in those tunnels about every 20 feet in the ceiling and we'd scamper allover this
campus in those steam tunnels and come up Ike a gopher and he'd just about get us and we'd go
back.
(WB) I guess they're still here.
(RC) Oh, they're still here. But the steam tunnels they were a big part of our, as kids, a big part
of our fun. Steam tunnels.
(M) No, I didn't know that. That's interesting.
19
(CC) Have they said anything about the Assembly Hall where we went to movies?
(Mod) No but if you'd share.
(CC) Well across from the Y. Up there on the, what is it, Law or Puryear, which is the dorm, I
guess it was on the other side of Puryear, it was just a wooden building but it didn't have a
balcony and I can remember whenthey had silent movies. And the first movie that came out was
Ben Hur in sound and oh that was such a wonderful thing if you could hear what people were
saying you didn't have to be underneath. And one of the things, the movies that I saw that I
remember, I was scared todeath every time I saw it was Trader Horn, that movie was in Africa
where those you know catch those white people we know they're no good. But what would
happen was we kids would go into the Assembly Hall and there was a guy named Nehigh that
would take our money. I don't kow what his real name was, but he was the one that took our
money and we kids would go sit on the front 2 or 3 rows and all the Aggies were back in I think
the was it the freshman that had to sit in the balcony but they had peanuts and they would all
come in there with their sack of peanuts and they would throw peanuts at the people down below,
but my daddy had a bald spot so they would always aim at his bald spot, but that when the movie
was over that place was full of peanut hulls.
(WB) When I was a student it was a movie down at Bryan, close to where the old motel is. The
La Salle Hotel and all the students called it the Bloody Bucket.
(CC) They had these Saturday afternoon serials every Saturday.
(ML) They had three movies in Bryan; The Palace, which was the biggest one, and the Queen,
and the Dixie, and then they had the campus theater out here, and in the balcony of the campus
theater they had seats wher two could sit do you remember?
(WB) There was none on the campus when I was a student.
(CC) It was at the Assembly Hall and I might say about that they had free movies on Sunday
afternoon and I can remember that Ms. Cashion said the reason Mr. Cashion started those was to
entertain the boys on Sunday afternoon, and my mother was a northern Baptist and she didn't
want us going to the movies on Sunday afternoon, we kids would slip off and go to them anyway,
but we always said well if we missed the movie in the main theater we'd wait till ti came to the
Assembly Hall as a free movie and catch it then.
(Mod) How much did they charge for the movie?
(CC) I think it was a quarter oh and the Queen was 10 cents and the Dixie was a nickel.
(RC) Yeah but how about at the drug stores on North Gate we used to get these nickel
chocolates olive Sunday.
(CC) Nickel chocolate on a Sunday.
20
(RC) Nickel chocolate olive Sunday. Dr. Lipcon had a pharmacy up there at the Northgate.
(WB) Do you remember Roy not Roy but what was Rogers name that worked for Mr. Cashion.
He was Class of `36. He rode a bicycle all the time on campus and he recently moved to Dallas to
live with one of his grandchildren.
(ML) Raymond Rogers
(WB) Oh, Raymond.
(CC) Raymond Rogers.
(CC) Oh, he passed away.
(WB) Has he?
(ML) Yes, yes they've both passed away.
(CC) His wife was my 6th grade teacher. Mrs. Rogers
(WB) I guess she taught everybody. Lois and Mrs. Dahlberg and she taught music and I think
she taught everybody that grew up here.
(CC) And I might say this when you were asking about entertainment one of the things I
brought that...had writtenup on how the Christmas party started at the Y and that was on
Christmas Eve and it started for the boys who couldn't go home for Christmas and like she said
they might live just a 100 miles away but still 100 miles was a long way for them to go if they
didn't have any way to get there and so they started that Christmas party on Christmas Eve and I
remember it as Mr. Luke Pattranella was Santa Claus. She says in her writings that it was Captain
Watkins who the Santa Claus, but what they do in the old Y before they had those extensions on
either side they'd put up this big tree with a fire by the fireplace and then the local churches and
the women's organizations would have a little program and then the programs moved into the Y
chapel, but then when it came time for the Santa Claus it'd play Jingle Bells and in would come
Santa Claus. But, I mean that was just a community.
(WB) I don't remember where the foreign students....
(CC) It got to be where more foreign students came and they came just for the novelty of a
Christian celebration. They could have been Buddhists, and Muslims and all sorts of things but
they came for the novelty and they enjoyed it, but it started for the students.
(RC) I'll tell you something else we did as kids. We would climb up the water tower over there
and we'd get up on the rail that went around it and climb up and go all the way to the very top.
Any you were up there. I remember also something else we did. I had a friend on the campus
21
named Ike Ashburn and his father had a Lincoln Continential. This was about 19, 1940, 1939,
and as fast as I ever went in a car. Ike Ashburn had a grandmother in Navasota.
CC: Navasota
RC: Navasota, He said come on let's go see my grandmother. And I got on that car with him and
he went 100 miles an hour in that thing and that's the fastest I had ever been while driving his
daddy's Lincoln Zephyr they called it.
WB: His daddy weighed what? About 300 pounds?
RC: His daddy must have weighed 300 pounds. Yes. Colonel Ike, Colonel Ike Ashburn.
WB: ...they lived over there on College Hills.
RC: Did they?
WB: Yeah
RC: I'1l tell you what his father was famous for this reason. In World War I they had what they
called a lost Battallion.
WB: Yeah
RC: Over in France, and his father, I think was commander of that Battalion or had it, but
anyway that was Ike's father, but we had good times.
MC: The road to Navasota was not wide and straight as it is today.
RC: No it wasn't.
MC: To go on a 2 lane curvy highway.
CC: Now it wasn't there in Wellborn road.
CC: No it was, it was.
MC: Highway 6
CC: Yes, what we called New road
MC: Yeah, but its still just not good.
RC: It wasn't wide and smooth
22
MC: NO
WB: No you reekon that Young Ike is still alive?
RC: No! They burried Ike 15 years ago. He was a customer of mine when I was in the trucking
business. He was working for this Aggie contractor down in Corpus. Who is that big contractor
down there in Corpus? Anyway, Ike was working for them.
WB: But yeah he used to ride the bicycle up and down Walton Drive over there and when I lived
up there on College Hll.
Moderator: I've got a question here about the Depression. We want to know if there was a salary
change around 1933 due to the Depression?
WB: ...This is not exactly what you want to hear but, when the Depressin hit along about 1930
somewhere along in there. Fred Hale was head of the Swine teaching here and I used to go to
coffer with him after I came back up here in 1940.
WB: In 1980. But he used to tell me some interesting things and he told me that when the
Depression came they cut everybody's salary 25% and Fred used to tell me and used to laugh
about it and he said not a one resigned
RC: Yeah, I bet that's true
WB: But I think when I was assistant Professor, my total salary was somewhere between 1700
and 1900 dollars a year.
CC: My daddy during the Depression.. He was making something like 90 dollars a month and the
only time that we knew that anything was wrong we couldn't buy all the firecrackers we wanted
on the 4th of July on the account of the Depression. Other than that we had food and had
mended clothes and of course the boys and I went barefooted in the summer. I didn't go bare
footed. I've never...
RC: You didn't know you were a girl until you were half grown with 4 brothers. She used to
swing on the grapevines out there in the edition Bill and Mary live in now. Now Mary lives in
your old home.
MC: Now and back then didn't you all have chickens and acow and a goat? I know your daddy
brought a goat home
CC: yes.
MC: Johnny had to milk it.
CC: Oh, that goat was economical... it would nurse itself.
23
WB: Old John Hutchison when he finally became head of the Extension Service, I had a class
with him in 1936. He lived on the dairy farm down there all the time that he was a student, and all
of them that lived dwn there were used to tease him all the time. They were getting mighty white
because they drank so much milk, when they were working down there to keep from having to
buy groceries. Those were the good old days I guess.
RC: I got a job at the Triple A. That was the Agricultureal Adjustment Administration. Well I
worked down there. Well I was making the highest paying job on campus because everybody else
was making 2 bits and 35 cents an hour. And this was for the government and they used to pay
87.5 cents an hour. Well you had to get on the list and I had to wait a year and get on the list as a
janitor, but we'd go to that Triple A building after I'd get out of class and we had a big barrel of
this red sawdust looking stuff with disinfectant in it and we'd run it down all the halls and all the
offices and then we'd put the chairs up on the tables and then we'd go through with our brooms
and I found that my future wife worked there in one of those offices.
CC: He'd leave me little notes on my typewriter.
RC: Yeah, that was the old Triple A building, it was a nice building -they must have built that.
WB: Yeah, my wife worked there.
CC: Did she?
WB: Her name was Jean. She worked there for a while, I'd forgotten now.
CC: Well I worked for Ceaser Hohn.
RC: Ceasar Hohn.
(CC) You talk about a character.
WB: I mean he would throw a stunt right out on the street or anywhere. He was something.
ML: He was the one who wrote the book. Bill said that he used to live on the South end of
town. Now we live on the North end because the city has grown South and we haven't moved.
We're now considered the historical area and when you think of the homes in that area. Some of
them I think that the house we were in was built for $9000 or $11,000.
CC: I had $10,000 in mine.
WB: All of the houses owned by the state and were on the campus at that time,most of them
were moved to that area. The Williams lived in one - he told ? ?? "I couldn't get ready to buy a
new house when they moved me off the campus, so I just bought one of the houses that was on
campus and moved it down there."
24
ML: And they're considered historical houses and the city does have a historical marker that you
can apply for, but some of the houses in our neighborhood were built for about $3000 or $4000
and one came back to visit us a while ago and said that they think their's cost $2900. And it has
just been on the market for $260,000. They couldn't believe it. Now it didn't sell for a while, but
it has I don't know. Not everybody now would want to live in this area. So close to the campus
and a lot of people like to move out, but we like it real well because we can hear the Aggie Band
practicing early in the morning and late in the afternoon, we can hear midnight yell practice or
football game. I can hear the train whistle, so we enjoy where we live and the Lord willing we
will die there.
WB: When I went into WWII, I lived in a house owned by a college professor. I've forgotten his
name now -over on college hill. They offered to sell that house to me when we left for $2400. It
was a two bedroom house and it was practically new. It was ony about 3 or 4 years old. We
didn't want to buy it cause we was going into the war. But I could have bought it, rented it and it
would have been paid for by the time I got out of the war. But you're right, that's about what it
cost. I believe it was Dr. Fudge that owned that building. I'm not positive that it was, course it
was a wood frame building but its still over there. Somebody lives in it. I don't know what kind
of condition it is in, but
CC: I want to make a correction to a previous statement that was made at one of these deals
made by a friend of mine, Helen Thomas Perry. She lived on campus and I grew up with Helen.
She said that her mother..and now this dirty, old lake, you see, we park kids, every afternoon at
three o'closk we'd gather down at the Dam. There was a diving board down there. And that was
just a community thing. Everybody came around and went swimming down there, but all the park
kids you see didn't get sick. But you catch a campus kid down there in that lake and they'd get
sick. And their mothers, they weren't suppose to come down there and swim in that lake. And
theri mothers would always find out they'd been swimming with us because they got sick. And I
understand at one of these meetings Helen said she wasn't allowed to play in the "hollow" that
was at the north part of the lake It was big willow trees and little inlets where the water was.
And mossy and just an ideal place for kids to do all sorts of things. She said that her mother told
her that there were gypsies down there. And what else? There were gypsises and hoboes in that
hollow. And she wasn't allowed to play in the hollow. You know who those gypsies were? They
were the Lancaster kids! That was our playground.
ML: And this is now Brison Park?
WB: But isn't the house still down there where you grew up in?
CC: Yeah, they moved it on down the street.
WB: Huh?
CC: They moved the house that my father built. I've got a picture. They moved it down the
street and my parents built that house Bill and Mary live in now. Of course Bill and Mary had
25
remodled it from the time my parents built it. But that location is the same lot and so on. And
you see, these five men who started a development company. Bill probably mentioned that in a
previous historical meeting. But there were five men including my father, who developed college
Park.
WB: What was the little guy's name?
CC: Burchard?
WB: Huh?
CC: Burchard.
WB: No...he taught in the Agronomy Department. He went into the development business when
he retired.
CC: One of them was Mr. Scoates.
CC: Well, there was uh Mr. Scoates and he died, and Dr. Clark, my father, Lancaster, and then
next door to us was uh...
ML: Doherty.
CC: Doherty. Doherty, and then there was Burchard. And Burchard was a little man. But he
was a chemist, wasn't he?
ML: Chemistry. They kidscalled him, "Wee Willy Burchard."
RC: yeah! "Wee Willy Burchard!" I'd forgotten about "Wee Willy"
ML: And they called Dr. Clark, "Wheezy"
RC: "Wheezy!" Wheezy Clark! I had him for Economics.
ML: Cause he had a lot of allergies and sneezed a lot. It was something.
RC: Oh man!
CC: Oh, you could hear him sneeze.
RC: Cynthia's next door neighbor, first, was Mr. and Mrs. Ford Munnerlyn. And she wrote the
music, I mean the words for the...
CC: Well, she was one of our neighbors. She wasn't the first one.
26
RC: Well, anyway, she wrote the words, I understand, for the "Twelfth Man"
CC: Yeah
RC: And the neighbor after that was, uh, what was his name? He'd raise all the vegetables and
kept bringing them to you.
ML: Pinky Downs
RC: Pinky Downs!
CC: Well, the Millers stayed there for a while. Dick Miller.
RC: Dick Miller. His son an Aggie became a judge out in West Texas.
CC: Dick Miller lived there, then the Down's moved in.
RC: Pinky Downs was her neighbor.
ML: Did you know Pinky Downs?
ML: Did you know Pinky Downs?
WB: Oh yeah!
RC: Everybody knew Pinky Downs
WB: Great Publicity, man!
ML: He made up the 'Gig Em sign.
Moderator: Oh, he did?
ML: He said he did. I guess he did.
Moderator: oh, ok.
WB: Didn't he live up in Waco for a while?
CC: Well, he's from Temple
RC: Temple. He's from Temple.
WB: Temple, yeah.
27
RC: They said he used to go to funerals and during the ceremony, the pastor would say, "Does
anyone have any words to say about this fine man ?" and old Pinky would stand up and say "Naw,
but I can tell you about Texas A &M!"
All: Laughter
WB: Well, I'll tell ya'll something about Reville. We hear all about Reville now, the mascot.
Well, Reville was a sophomore when I was a freshman. She was just an ordinary little dog, black
and white. But everybody loved her and she didn't have any preference. She didn't stay in the
same place every night. she moved around from one place to the other. And if she showed up in
your room and was in your bed going to sleep, you had to leave. You go find another place to
sleep, otherwise,man the rest of the students would really get after you. I never have liked the
present Reville because she isn't like the first one. I always thought they should have just gotten a
little dog like that.
CC: A little black dog.
WB: and made it Reville. I don't like these Collies that they call Reville.
RC: Yeah. We had all kinds of varieties of hounds. Just one we picked up. That was the first
Reville. Now they got that beautiful house dog.
WB: That original Reville, she'd get out in front of that band and go up and down that football
field. I can still remember her doing it. They never had a rope on her. She was a free agent at all
times.
Moderator: What I'd like to do is kind of just go around one final time and let you say whatever
you want to say, a final memory or just whatever. So, Mr Bailey, do you have any last thoughts?
WB: Well, I've just about worn myself out talkin. I'd intended to stay just about thirty minutes
when I first came down here, But I got so interested in reminiscing here that...
Moderator: Well, we've enjoyed it.
WB: I've enjoyed it very much.
Moderator: Well, thank you. Mrs. Lancaster?
ML: I think I've said all I know to.
Moderator: Thanks for sharing your memories with us, we appreciate it. Mr. Cooper?
RC: I just think it's wonderful to be raised on the A &M campus because I got to meet and be
associated with all the professors children and the Extension Service children and the army brats,
28
and leading entertainment things would come to town and we'd get to see those. It was just a
wonderful childhood on campus.
Moderator: Thankyou Mrs. Cooper
RC: And I met my wife too.
CC: What comes to my mind is, several years ago there was an article in the Bryan Eagle, I think
about College Station and the uniqueness of the town. And how it was all into itself. I mean, and
that article, I'm sure you have a copy of it someplace, really sums up what College Station is. It's
different from any other little town, community actually, we were a very snobbish little town if
you want to know the truth. We had our own little cliques inside, you know, and it was very
difficult for people to move in. Ask him, they had to measure up, but it was an unusual little
town.
WB: Were any of you old enough to remember, I can barely remember, I rode it once when I was
a 4 -H Officer. But that used to have an interurban?
CC: I remember seeing it
RC: Waco, between Waco and
CC: No, no, no, College Station
WB: No, between Bryan and College Station, There was a guy, was a student, at that time, told
me that if too many people got on it, they had to get off some place between here and Bryan and
all had to push, there was a little rise over there, and then thy had to push it over the hill so they
could go on in (laughter). That was the only transportation from here to, from Bryan to College
Station.
CC: I just have a vague picture of the trolly.
WB: No, no, it was a little before my...'bout the time the shacks were here.
CC: Oh, I'll tell you something I do remember, you remember that Boyett, the service station out
there on, the road to Bryan, it was the end of University Drive, there was a service station, Boyett
Service Station, and that's where the guys, the Aggies, all caught their ride to Bryan (WB -
Yeah!) and then we had, uh, I think it was an old Dodge...and at that time, there couldn't have
been, us, all the boys and me, but I mean, that car was full. And mother stopped just for the heck,
to see how many boys would get in that car, and I think four got in. (laughter) Ya know, each
one put a kid on their lap.
WB: Pile on, wouldn't they!
CC: There were five of y'all!
29
Moderator: I would like to thank y'al for coming, your time and your memories, which I think are
very valuable, and I know I certainly learned a lot and enjoyed today and Thanks to you too for
filming and for writing, so we'll go ahead and end it now.
(stop, tape 1, side A)
THE END!
30
Remarks:
City of College Station
Memory Lanes Oral History Project
Memory Lane: Fa(' Li_ 1 ft : Stoi
Name 09 filth iq C
Interviewer
Interview Place
Special sources of information
Date tape received in office
Original Photographs Yes No
Describe Photos
First audit check by
Sent to interviewee on i /15
Received from interviewee on
Copy editing and second audit check by
Final copies: Typed by
Oral History Stage Sheet
Swp r+
Interview Agreement and tape disposal form:
Given to interviewee on Received Yes
Date Signed Restrictions- If yes, see remarks below. Yes
Transcription:
First typing completed by Pages
(name)
Proofread by: 1)
2)
Photos out for reproduction:
Original photos returned to:
Indexed by:
Sent to bindery by
Received from bindery
Deposited in archives by:
Interview No.
Interview date
Interview length
# of tapes marked Date
# of photos Date Recd
(name)
(name)
Where to:
Pages
Date
Pages Date
Pages Date
Pages
Pages
Date:
Date:
Date
Date
Date
Date
Date
Date
Date
No
No
Remarks:
City of College Station
Memory Lanes Oral History Project
Copy editing and second audit check by
Final copies: Typed by
Oral History Stage Sheet
Memory Lane: Fac kt ft( rot f {- , S 0ort
Interview No.
Name k e 0On Q ,fr Interview date
Interviewer Interview length
Interview Place
Special sources of information
Date tape received in office # of tapes marked Date
Original Photographs Yes No # of photos Date Recd
Describe Photos
Interview Agreement and tape disposal form:
Given to interviewee on Received Yes No
Date Signed Restrictions- If yes, see remarks below. Yes No
Transcription:
First typing completed by Pages Date
(name)
First audit check by
Sent to interviewee on I) I ic7
Received from interviewee on
(name)
(name)
Pages Date
Pages Date
Pages Date
Proofread by: 1) Pages Date
2) Pages Date
Photos out for reproduction: Where to: Date:
Original photos returned to: Date:
Indexed by: Date
Sent to bindery by Date
Received from bindery Date
Deposited in archives by: Date
Remarks:
City of College Station
Memory Lanes Oral History Project
Memory Lane: Fottotil Sta e c
Name WDelti(Owww C�CIi l� U
Interviewer
Interview Place
Special sources of information
Date tape received in office
Original Photographs Yes No
Describe Photos
Interview Agreement and tape disposal form:
Given to interviewee on Received Yes No
Date Signed Restrictions - If yes, see remarks below. Yes No
Transcription:
First typing completed by Pages Date
(name)
First audit check by
Sent to interviewee on
Final copies: Typed by
Oral History Stage Sheet
Su p pn f - �
Received from interviewee on i z-1
Copy editing and second audit check by Pages Date
Proofread by: 1)
2)
Photos out for reproduction:
Original photos returned to:
Indexed by:
Sent to bindery by
Received from bindery
Deposited in archives by:
Interview No.
Interview date
interview length
# of tapes marked Date
# of photos Date Rec'd
(name)
(name)
Where to:
Pages
Pages Date
Pages
Pages
Date:
Date:
Date
Date
Date
Date
Date
Date
Date
Remarks:
City of College Station
Memory Lanes Oral History Project
Memory Lane: r C t l ft E taC e _ Stk
Interview No.
Name YVtar " L .rlea5ff r Interview date
Interviewer Interview length
Interview Place
Special sources of information
Date tape received in office # of tapes marked Date
Original Photographs Yes No # of photos Date Recd
Describe Photos
Interview Agreement and tape disposal form:
Given to interviewee on Received Yes No
Date Signed Restrictions- If yes, see remarks below. Yes No
Transcription:
First typing completed by Pages Date
(name)
First audit check by
Sent to interviewee on 1 t
Received from interviewee
Copy editing and second audit check by
Final copies: Typed by
Oral History Stage Sheet
(name)
(name)
Pages Date
Pages Date
Pages Date
Proofread by: 1) Pages Date
2) Pages Date
Photos out for reproduction: Where to: Date:
Original photos returned to: Date:
Indexed by: Date
Sent to bindery by Date
Received from bindery Date
Deposited in archives by: Date
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.
X` ( Milt 4 6 e /et - Oep 1-
In t, rviewee ( ease prin
� o14.41.6 !/ 1 ary t Nt./.2( k -OpAy'
Signture of Interviewee
2_63A.A.6 Ldy9
Interv wer (Please Print)
/4L-42
Signature of Interviewezr
HISTORIC PRESERVATION COMMITTEE
City of College Station, Texas 77840
ORAL HISTORY DATA SHEET
Je Cev / (aP 1
Place of In ervie
Name
/2 /F/ nom/ 4-1,Z 6 4 1 774 i5
A r ess
Telephone ��nn
Date of Birth Ne4K
Place of Birth y�,y
INTERVIEW STATUS:
la ig.r In progress
ments. mans. etc.
O rvv . AL C 1I 11, i MN c L! ..
rvt w✓ La nglarail ier / !.O AA! - L / 'S!C n'w
Interviewee agrees to and shall rode nify and hold harmless CITY, its officers, agen s 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.
p aV l oovAn_ ! Dat e,
k 7 __L.-
54 - 2 e1^-641) ( v , Initial
S ,4-0 fn . CA-tn Lc► ,s r CU 4..
Completed
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I/yL
ene ✓ire
of Oc/►a •
t.w∎()f /CI G
cc r A-Sl°tJA1
\Aa LS 1 0
In erv iewer (Please Print
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.
ex L. / Coo/be,/
x �
Int- - •'ewe (• •se •ri
_
sii _ 4010
Sign •• re • er , iewee
/ L C7, z eY
Name
c /t //e1'1 - it T
Address
'7 DS
7& = ,�f�
Telephone 7i3 _ 7a 302, /3 -
Date of Birth )
Place of Birth US Any e, /e c (1_47C
List of photos. documents. mans. etc.
HISTORIC PRESERVATION COMMITTEE
City of College Station, Texas 77840
ORAL HISTORY DATA SHEET
S ignature of Interviewer
vv■ 10q `� Cadtle'9C __IZLI2C33 CO 6i
Place of Interview /
INTERVIEW STATUS: Completed
Date
k/
Initial
In progress
/ tt!A
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.
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.
X WO00/11o/
Interv (Ple se • int)
AAIII, Mks. /i
O
terviewer (Please Print)
Signature of Interviewer
b( 104 rt-,l\ ec p &- wart - Con' G UT
Place of Intervie4
List of photos. documents. mans. etc.
HISTORIC PRESERVATION COMMITTEE
City of College Station, Texas 77840
ORAL HISTORY DATA SHEET
igna ure of In erviewe
Name
A dr ss
Telephone
Date of Birth
Place of Birth
fl /0, /7/z-
� e So [o 7,Y
INTERVIEW STATUS: Completed 1/
In progress
1-/4— ao 6
1,
/i
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
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.
41c1 1,d►1 o �a� y'�U
InterViewe- `Please •rint)
Rt/2QA,0,74 1
Interviewer (Please Print4
Signature of Intervie er
__ j)OV A /c) L I , ( S C►A- lkirk-t
Place of Interview
List of photos, documents, maps. et,_
/ 91-71--
)
Signature o Interviewee
Name
Address -r� ( gl6
Tele fa / i -�� g4
Date of Birth - /9-/9.3.0
Place of Birth T�(a 7;C.
INTERVIEW STATUS: Completed
In progress
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.
- /5-- 9 �
Date
In
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
Conference Center Advisory Committee to be used for whatever purposes may
be determined.
with :
r
2.
4.
5.
6.
The City of College Station, Texas
Memory Lanes Oral History Project
INTERVIEW AGREEMENT
I have read the above and voluntarily offer my portion of the interviews
(Name of Interviewee)
i
Nor
11 - M
11)
r 7.
8.
rad py 9.
( D 14 10.
11.
12.
In view of the scholarly value of this research material, I hereby assign rights,
title, and interest pertaining to it to The City of College Station Historic
Preservation Committee and Conference Center Advisory ConPnitte
Interviewer (signature)
Date 7 - K— ‘ e?
Interviewer (Please Print)
This is
City of College Station
Memory Lanes Oral History Project
'Vgcryis )1 LA , 1Y7(?
(month) '(day) (year)
time c a
(Mr., Mrs.,
Mi hr Etc.) 6/3.4
This interview is faking place in Room /n c/ of The
O(/ Cj e /
at 1300 George Bush Dr.
College Station , Texas . This interview is sponsored by the
Historic Preservation Committee and the Conference
Center Advisory Committee of the City of College Station,
Texas. It is part of the Memory Lane Oral History Project.
Have each person introduce themselves so their voice is
identifiable on the tape recorder.
ALP-
I'm interviewing for the cf(--