HomeMy WebLinkAboutSouth Side Panel Group 07Group 7
Moderator: Patricia Burke
Patricia:
Please.
Ms. Dulany Oh, Well, I'm Christi
reared in Port Arthur.
the elementary school
Diane: Tell them about when
Group members:
Christine Dulany (mother)
Diane Hervey (daughter)
Barbara Clark
Bardin & Wendy Nelson
Transcriptionist: Alma Molina
Patricia: I know that sometimes the stories won't quite mesh but that's the way life is, that's
reality and if you stand a person on a street corner and you stand a person right
next to them on the other side and they all get to see three different things. But
that's where reality lies. So, if there is a disagreement about what happened, that's
good we need to hear all the stories because they all come from their own
perspective and somewhere in there lies what happened and probably all of those
things happened. So, before we start I'd like us to go around the table and
introduce ourselves and you might tell a little bit about yourself and how it is you
came to be here. Will you begin?
Ms. Dulany: Do you want me to start?
ne Dulany and formerly Christine Jones. I was born and
Only child of Clyde and Lillian Jones and I went through
there.
we moved here. Do you remember how old you were, I
was? Tell them how old I was. I was two years old. You can begin there.
Patricia: And you came here from Port Arthur?
Ms.Dulany: Port Arthur. I attended Terrell School. The first grade teacher was Ms. Esther
Crampton and her father was a guard at a small penitentiary and it's hard to
remember some of these things that's it been so long.
Patricia: I don't remember my teacher's name from the first grade.
Ms. Dulany: But after, she was a delightful person. We moved, we picked up our little
luggage, notebooks and so forth and walked over to the new school and it was the
Terrell School and it had a principal, Ms. Wayne Young and Ms. Wayne Young
was something to be contended with. You were going to be perfect or else. I can
remember going out on the school grounds and Ms. Young had her paddle in her
hand; she was so seldom without her paddle and ah, but we had fun. I can
remember we had a little ditch and then on the other side was a little area that was
just like a stage and we played movie stars on the stage.
Patricia: Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney. How old were you when you came to College
Station?
Ms. Dulany: Oh, I don;t know.
Patricia: How many children did you have at that time?
Ms. Dulany: One.
Patricia: Just one and that's Diane.
Diane: Actually I have one brother. They had two children. When they came here we
lived over on Highland Street. They moved and bought a house on Highland
Street. Actually, my grandmother and grandfather moved here first and remember
didn't they buy the house on Highland Street?
Ms. Dulany: Hm. ms.
Diane: And then,
Ms. Dulany: It was an old campus that had been moved off the campus and it was a delightful
house, but it was antique, of course and I can remember up on the top of the
garage
Diane: Where we played
Ms. Dulany: and places like that you know and you played with the Cobys and Sharon Coby
Diane: who lived down the street
Ms. Dulany: and across the street the Elkins children
Patricia: Do you remember what year that was in that you moved here?
Diane: Okay, I'm 51 and I was two years old at the time.
Patricia: So, it was 49 years ago.
Diane: Now, the reason we moved here is because my dad got a job with the City as
Director of Public Works and that time there was, I'm pretty sure Mr. Boswell was
the City Manager then
Dr. Nelson: Right
Diane: and it was Mr. Boswell and my dad and I don't remember I know the city staff
was quite small at the time.
Dr. Nelson: Three, I think.
Diane: I'm trying to think of who the other one was
Dr. Nelson: They live in Wellborn, I can't remember their name
Diane: Well, Diane Jones was the city secretary but I don't know if she had started back
then, it was another man
Dr. Nelson: No, a woman
Diane:
Dr. Nelson:
Diane:
Dr. Nelson:
Diane:
Patricia:
Diane:
Patricia:
Dr. Nelson:
Patricia:
Oh, Ms. Neely
Florence Neely
She was the city secretary at first
Yes
and they were the three. I mean that was about it. If I'm not wrong, you might
help me on this, their offices were there at South side at first, is that correct?
Above the, wasn't there an old office above like where Dr. Catcar had his? Dr.
Catcar ought to be here. He could add a lot of information on the actual shop that
was there. There and I remember the first policeman was Norwood and he drove
his own car. They could not afford a police car for the city so he had his own car
or truck that he used when he needed to which he never probably needed to
officially arrest anybody.
This was in 44 when you moved here.
Yes
Bardin, why don't you tell us just a little thumbnail about how you came to
College Station
Well, I didn't come that early but I know some of the background. I came in
1950. When we bought our house on Dexter, Dexter ended at our house. There
was the creek, there was no bridge across the creek.
So, it ended right where Dexter turned.
Dr. Nelson: Well, no, we were about, you know where Park Place turns, then there was about
a half block and it went to our driveway and the land where they later built that
Patricia:
Dr. Nelson:
Diane:
Dr. Nelson:
Diane:
Dr. Nelson:
Patricia:
Dr. Nelson:
Patricia:
Dr. Nelson:
Patricia:
Dr. Nelson:
new home was the Schwartz Farm.
Schwartz Farm
Yes and it extended all the way back to Winding Road and that area through there
and at that time from here to Texas Avenue was farm. I believe the Dubolvany
farm and there was a farm across that Texas Avenue. I remember a log cabin was
the
Oh, on Dexter that was Dr. Clark's
Well yes, but this was another one, another log cabin
On the Dubolvany Farm?
No, I think that farm was named something else across the way, it went all the
way back down to Highway 30 as far as you could go at that time. So, most of
this area around here was not the Dubolvany at all. When we drove from Houston
here everything, we came from Baton Rouge, LA. where it rained every day and
we had camellias and I had a 100 camellias in my yard and in my home, it joined
the LSU campus and when driving from Houston here everything was dead
You must have wondered where you were going
Yeah, and on the campus trees were dying and I asked why and they said we don't
have enough water that we have to ration the water, we've had the 7 year drought.
This was in 1950.
Yes, and later I saw a film called "The Seven Year Drought" that was made for
that drought that extended all the way to Amarillo and
Oh, my goodness
It was a rough time and it didn't rain from the time we got here in September until
April. Can you image that?
Patricia: No, I can't especially with the weather we've had these last few years.
Diane: They didn't have the benefits of the lakes, like Somerville that we have now that
helped in situations like that, so
Patricia: Do you remember the drought?
Diane: No, I don't I must have been too young.
Patricia: I think we have a historian here too.
Mrs. Clark: No, No.
Patricia: Why don't you introduce yourself
Mrs. Clark: I'm Barbara Clark and my husband, I'm not Clark, and I came to College Station
for the first time, I went to the University of Texas in 1948 or something like that
and had a friend who was going to school here and I came to all the parties girls
are supposed to come when they go to University of Texas
Patricia: Now, what year was this?
Mrs. Clark: 1946, 1947 to 1948
Patricia: Right in the middle of the drought
Mrs. Clark: Yes, and believe me it was one. It extended on into 1949 and 1950. I met my
husband at the University of Texas. He was an Aggie who had come back from
the war and wanted to get a Ph.D. and they didn't have the program that he
wanted here so he transferred to the University of Texas. But, he has a degree in
Entomology from A &M and wanted to get into Wildlife Management but that's
not why he ended up in Austin.
Patricia: What is your husband's name?
Mrs. Clark: Bill Clark. He graduated in '42 and then came back in '46, I suppose and I met
him over there in geology lab and he brought me over here to meet the nearest
thing he had to family in Texas, which was Dr. F. B. Clark. His name is Floyd
Barzillia and I didn't know of his death until after some time he had died maybe
a year or a year and half and I called over here to find out what I could about it
and I got the county clerk's office and she said, "Oh, yes I remember that, that
name." Anybody named Barzillia, when you are naming your children, name
them something weird and people will remember. I don't know where it came
from, but
Now, whose name was that?
Diane:
Mrs. Clark: Floyd Barzillia Clark
Diane:
Mrs. Clark: Yes
Diane:
Dr. Nelson:
Diane:
Mrs. Clark:
Diane:
Mrs. Clark:
That was Dr. Clark
Okay
And, he lived up to that name.
My dad just adored him. He just loved Dr. Clark.
Well, I'm glad someone did.
He loved his stories, I mean, he loved his stories
Oh, yes, yes he really was a fascinating person if you weren't related to him. His
wife was one of the loveliest, dearest people I have ever known and we named our
second daughter after her and my mother. My daughter incidentally is about to
graduate from vet school here, so we consider A &M a very important part of our
lives. These papers that I was digging through I was looking for the plat that says
Dr. Nelson:
Patricia:
Mrs. Clark:
Dr. Nelson:
Patricia:
Dr. Nelson:
Patricia:
Dr. Nelson:
Diane:
Dr. Nelson:
Dexter and there is one in here but I'm not finding it right off. Uncle Floyd wrote
voluminous things I didn't bring them all, and most of them made no sense
whatsoever, but these were the things that I thought might be interesting from the
historical standpoint that I brought. This is a picture of his wife, which was
painted by
Mrs. Clark: I just saw the name
, she was a beautiful woman. Ruth was not
just beautiful outside she was also beautiful inside. She came to our wedding and
she had on a peacock feather, and you know what peacock do and we could
follow her all the way around the reception there with the peacock feather.
May I interject here an interesting antidote concerning Dr. Clark. Visiting with
him just five minutes you would learn his worst enemy was Gib Gilchrist and he
had developed, Dr. Clark had helped develop the area which is Dexter and that
area and he bought a farm out beyond which owned for many, many years
And, did he develop the area to the west of Dexter, or east of Dexter?
Well, mostly south
South of George Bush Drive
All that area
All that area
Because I know there were two phases, I think
Yes, and the reason Gib Gilchrist, President of A &M, was his worst enemy was
that he had designed a lake where
It runs along by Dexter
that's out there
Patricia: Oh, Brison Park
Dr.Nelson: Brison Park, Fred Brison
Diane: I don't know what it was named first, but it later became Brison Park, didn't it
Dr. Nelson: Yes
Diane: I don't think it was always called that
Patricia: Now, so who it is that had developed Brison Park Lake?
Mrs. Clark: Uncle Floyd put the lake in when he developed this area
Dr. Nelson: and, they began to get complaints about mosquitoes, so Gilchrist asked him to
drain the lake and he refused to do it and Gilchrist came down himself one day
drove up there with a pick ax and went out and dug a trench and drained the lake.
That was the end of the lake.
Patricia: And that was why
Mrs. Clark: That's not the only reason he didn't like Mr. Gilchrist. He got fired by Mr.
Gilchrist and the reason he was fired was that he made some rather unkind
remarks about him when he was running for the senate. He ran for the senate at
the same time that Lyndon Johnson and Stevenson ran and Uncle Floyd always
claimed that he was the only real Senator from the State of Texas because he
knew that those people who voted for him were honest. Nobody else could have
voted for him. He also claimed that the reason that he ran at the time not
knowing he would get in on anything quite that historic was that he wanted to
write this little book which he wrote on what happens when you run and what's
involved in the political election laws and he did not know that he was going to
have anything quite as interesting to study but that was the ultimate reason that
Gib Gilchrist fired and of course, they weren't friends at that time anyway. That
was about 19, I don't remember the exact date on that anyhow but once Gib
Gilchrist was gone Lyndon Johnson became his arch enemy. In his later years
whenever he had an accident with his truck or you know a dent appeared or
something like that Lyndon had sent somebody to get him.
Dr. Nelson: He maintained a very active interest in politics and he spent two hours trying to
convince me I should run for the city council of College Station.
Mrs. Clark: and he didn't convince you
Dr. Nelson: and I said why have you picked me, and he said, well, we're friends and he said
I think you would listen to me.
Patricia: So, what year did you move here to College Station?
Mrs. Clark: I never lived here.
Patricia: Oh, you never lived here.
Mrs. Clark: No, I just came up here to meet his family and we stayed over here several
weekends and I lived, the house you know is the one that Bill Lancaster's daughter
now lives in, and it was on the tour of historic homes and that's the one that Ruth
built and she had a white carpet because she had no children and in those days
Patricia: and a lake in front of her house
Mrs. Clark: right,
Dr. Nelson: That is the famous house on Dexter, that was the log cabin that she mentioned
which was his wife's studio
Mrs. Clark: Well, no that's her sister's studio.
Dr. Nelson: Oh, her sister's studio.
Mrs. Clark: Yes, and here's a picture of it. Her sister, really a very fine artist, and this is what
she gave us as our wedding gift and she never was satisfied with this picture
because she said it was much too pinky, but I love it for many reasons but Marie
painted it for me.
Patricia: Who built that log cabin?
Mrs. Clark: Uncle Floyd in the 1920's sometime and I don't know the exact date. When he
came to College Station or rather when he came to teach at A &M he found out
that Bryan had a law that no one teaching at College Station could have a home
at College Station because Bryan wanted to be the town and not College Station.
Uncle Floyd said "I am an expert in constitutional law and that is unconstitutional
to tell me where I can live and where I cannot live" and he bought this ranch and
he made into a place where he could build a house. He named all of the streets
for cows, Jersey, incidentally it is a very popular cow now because it is a little
tiny cow. Have you ever seen it?
Dr. Nelson: Do you know where he got those names? From John, Dr. John Ashton.
Mrs. Clark: Well, I didn't know that but
Dr.Nelson: That was from Ireland and
Mrs. Clark: That's how he knew about such cow
Dr. Nelson: Dr. Ashton wrote a book about the breeds of cows and they are friends, Jersey,
Ayrshire, Guernsey,
Patricia: Diane, do you and your mom realize that you are probably with the old guard here
in this group because you were here in '44
Diane: I just wish my dad was still alive because he had stories that would fill the room,
I mean they were related to the City and its development and I have been just
racking my brain trying to remember some of them. I know he rented part of a
pasture from Dr. Clark and it was where South Knoll now sits, that was part of
the pasture and we would, I don't really remember exactly how old I was but my
brother, David and I were about probably 8 or 9 and if you went, we lived on the
corner of Highland, the first when you turn onto Highland off of George Bush
Drive, which was then Jersey on your right was Dr. Andre's clinic. Dr. Andre and
Dr. Holt. That was all that was there. Then, the big house on the right was our
house. The one with the pointed roof. The people that have purchased now are
fixing it up and they are doing a real nice job. It needed it.
Patricia: And, your dad bought the house or did he built the house?
Diane: It was moved off the campus. It was a house that was on campus.
Patricia: Do you know whose house it was before it was moved off campus?
Diane: No, we could probably find out, but I don't remember. I don't think I ever knew.
And, I know when, after my dad died and we went through his lock box we found
the certificate, I mean the letter, that where it was moved, where the movers,
house movers that moved the house off campus charged either $400. 00 or
$600.00 to move it and it was a contract written in a form of a letter.
Patricia: Can you tell me what year your house was moved off campus?
Diane: No
Patricia: No
Diane: No, I don't remember. I know it was cut in half and moved off. But, I'll tell you
what, the letter is dated so I have that at home.
Patricia: Terrific, would you be willing to share that with this group?
Diane: Oh, you bet.
Patricia: Wonderful. Ms. Dulaney, can you tell me what your memory is of the street?
What did your street look like when you first came? What did the community
look like?
Ms. Dulany: Well, we I guess we were living on Highland in the old house that had been
moved off the campus and it was a large, lovely house. My dad and mother lived
there and David also, I remember the Elkins family that they played constantly
across the street.
Patricia: Were they your neighbors?
Ms. Dulany: and, they had three children, Bobby, Ann and Clair. Clair was the little one. She
was always tag - along. They would run off from her. Finally, Ms. Elkins had just
had enough of it. She said "you're not going to treat Clair like that now, and so
we reformed. And but I can remember the garage on the old house and it was
quite spacious. It had three large bedrooms, a big wide hall down the middle and
a small living room, a dining room, the kitchen and a lovely back porch which
had been added to the house with windows surrounding it. It was quite a place
to sleep in the hot summer time. I remember the chinaberry tree in the back yard
and my dad had fixed a rope swing and we swing back there. I remember Ms.
Elkins getting very peeved because we would run off from Clair. I mean we
would just leave as a tag- along, you know. And so finally she said "now you're
not going to treat Clair like that, she is just one of the group now" and so we
reformed and
Diane: Do you remember the house across the street?
Ms. Dulany: You mean the Elkins' house.
Diane: No, right across the street. It was used as a parsonage and several of our
preachers lived in that house.
Dr. Nelson: Yes, it was the parsonage of First Baptist Church.
Diane: and the lot that is now next to it, I guess you'd say, there's a service station there
now, on the corner of Holleman and George Bush Drive that is vacant for the
longest time until a service station was built there. So, that area was just real
open and most of the house down Highland were there when we moved there if
I remember. It was a populated street and it was immaculate. To drive down it
now is so, you know, sad because naturally as neighborhoods deteriorate but at
that time even though many of the houses were little they, everybody took pride
in the neighborhood and it was just immaculate and we had big ditches on either
side of the street, fairly deep you know for drainage cause there wasn't any.
Dr. Nelson: You were asking about when they started moving. It was before the end of World
War II somewhere they were allowed, the person who lived in the house on the
campus to buy the house. They started doing that and so probably Dan Russell
and Herschel Burgess developed that area down Highland and they built some
houses, very small, cute little houses but about half of the houses, I'd say were
moved off of the campus and even when I got here in 1950 well they had a very
stern policy they wanted to get rid of all the houses on campus but they allowed
people living there to continue living as long as they were affiliated with the
University. I bought about 8 of those houses myself and moved them off and
developed them. The, a couple of little antidotes to show you what life was like
in 1950, shortly after we moved on Dexter the city came and built the bridge
because there were houses that had been built beyond but you had to go down
Park Place and go around to get to them so they put in the bridge and the bridge
hadn't been in very long and Barbara, my wife, looked out and she saw this little
toddler just walking down the middle of the street. She was quite alarmed and
rushed out and what is your name. And he says Joe White and she said where do
you live. "Down there." and about two blocks down to their house. And, so she
proceeded to walk Joe home and turn him over to Darnell and you know I saw
Darnell about three years ago and she said, "Bardin, for the life of me I have
never understood why Barbara walked Joe home." Well, that was in those days
you didn't worry about your child roaming around in the street or anywhere he
was safe.
Patricia: That's a good story. Do you remember what Highland Street was like when you
were very young?
Diane: Yes, it was, I can remember many of the people. As I mentioned our house was
the first house on the right going south, I'd guess you say. The next house was
where the Winders lived. I don't remember his first name, but they had two sons;
one of them was
Dr. Nelson: Holland, Winder
Diane:
Holland Winder. He's over in Bryan. He would be a good person to get in touch
with because he was like a teenager when I was very young and I can remember
he was like in high school when I was maybe four or five. So he can add a lot
Dr. Nelson:
Diane:
Dr. Nelson:
Diane:
Dr. Nelson:
Ms. Dulany: Dr. Holt
Dr. Nelson: Dr. Holt. Yes, Andre Holt Clinic.
Diane:
of good memories from that era. It's hard to remember on down the street, but
after a couple of more houses, there was another parsonage on the right, the
Church of Christ possibly or Lutheran, I'm not sure because at one time some of
that property was owned by
Christian Church not Church of Christ, Christian Church
Some of that property was owned by the Lutheran Church. I know that right
behind our house we also owned two lots right behind it and still do, the ones
right next to the Varsity Apartments and that was our garden, my grandfather had
a big garden back there. In fact, our house it had a wooden garage that sat in the
back unattached and right behind the garage was the chicken coop. And I don't
remember if we had chickens but I do remember my grandfather had chickens and
the probably the people before, the ones that built it, and he had a large garden
behind the white picket fence.
Another interesting thing about your street was that if Christine needed to take you
to the doctor she just had to go next door.
And that really, I didn't like that.
It was Dr. Andre and I've forgotten
Of course, also that corner at Wellborn Road and Jersey Street, George Bush, was
vacant and the clinic kept a big metal oil drum, a large metal oil drum sitting out
in the middle of the lot and that's where they dumped their trash. And it was alot
of fun to go look in there and find syringes and no telling what all what was in
that barrel.
Dr. Nelson: Yeah, Bill Hensel's uncle owned that and he tried to get me to buy it from him
for $2,000 and I wasn't interested and he sold it to Miriam Pugh.
Diane: But, the rest of the street on the other side of the street was the parsonage, various
preachers lived there, then the Elkins lived in the little house with the flat roof and
then next to that was Mrs. Robebocker. I don't remember, her husband was dead.
Dr. Nelson: The Ashton just lived down the street further in a house that had been moved off
because he had lived in it on campus.
Diane: And, Dr. Dunn or Mr. Dunn, who taught music lessons lived
Dr. Nelson: Col. Dunn
Diane: CoI.Dunn and then on down I don't really remember and then when you got to
Park Place on down was our African American community, on past that. As a
matter of fact, at the corner of Wellborn and George Bush Drive, George Bush
Drive or Jersey did not go on over the railroad tracks. I think there was a
crossing there but it was just a dirt road on the other side because all that was
owned by the campus. There were little small houses over there.
Patricia: Can you tell me what a day was like as a child?
Diane: Well, it was like most of the days I remember were summer because we were not
in school. Even before I went to school I went to Ms. Law's kindergarten. She
lived over at the corner of Park Place and the street there, Dexter. I believe that's
where it was. I remember, I'm trying to remember as far back as I can, and I
remember when I went to kindergarten, Daddy would take us. And at that time,
when he worked for the city, he had a truck, an old truck he drove that it was like
a flatbed truck in the back and he would take me to kindergarten on the way to
work, I guess. And, I think that's when you teaching school when I was old
enough to go to kindergarten, my mother starting teaching, went back to teaching
second grade. And, of course that's whole another story that we can tell about
Timber Street about a day. About a day let me get back would be like in the
summer, you know, barefooted, anybody's kids that wanted to play just went out
in your front yard and looked up and down the street to see who was out in
bicycles, there were no sidewalks, we rode our bicycles in the street. It was a lot
of fun to go over to South side and buy an ice cream cone and we had a dirt path
that ran, that went across that vacant lot, where now there is a service station and
the first building we would come to would be the lodge building and there was
a vacant strip in there where Loupot's now has his store but that was all vacant
and then the first store was the Cleaners, I believe, Park Cleaners
Ms. Dulany: Orr's Grocery was on the corner.
Diane: on down at the other corner was, it wasn't Orr's, it was Oldham's. Is that what he
called it, Oldham's?
Dr.Nelson: That's not quite right, but that's close.
Ms. Dulany: I remember there was a grocery store.
Diane: First, was Park Cleaners, and the Pruitt, the Lyles should be here too. And then
it's hard for me to remember exactly what was next but it was like a shoe shine
or a, it seems like it was a place where you could get your shoes, a barber shop.
Then there were upstairs, when you went up the stairs, there was Dr. Catcard and
that's where you had a dentist office and he still lives in town. And, I think if I
remember correctly at that very earliest times there were city offices up there. I
could be wrong about that. They were.
Ms. Dulany: Your daddy's office was up there.
Patricia: What did your father do?
Diane: He was the director of public works
Dr. Nelson: For the city
Diane: In fact I brought a picture that was taken at a later date, maybe you can remember
who these people were, this was my dad and it tells on the back when it was
taken, it was taken I think in the 60's or but, and this is Benny Luedecke and
Dr. Nelson: Yeah, I remember
Diane: and Mr. Boswell and my dad, the other two men I don't know
Dr. Nelson: He was an engineer and a member of our church but I cannot remember his name.
Diane: And, the other man I cannot remember
Dr. Nelson: He looks familiar but I cannot remember
Diane: I'll tell you what, Bill Lancaster might be able to remember
Dr. Nelson: Yeah.
Diane: Turn the picture over and see what it says on the back.
Dr. Nelson: It just says Granada Hotel, San Antonio.
Diane: Okay, that was, they went to a conference, like a short school, or like a little
convention in Brownsville, or San Antonio and that's where that was taken. Let's
see where did I leave off, them having the city offices upstairs. And then I'm
trying to remember what else was there.
Ms. Dulany: Dr. Holt was upstairs, that's all I can remember. He was the dentist.
Diane: Dr. Catcard. Dr. Holt was over in the clinic. But the grocery store, oh let me tell
you about the pharmacy first. Mr. Madeley is here and he will be able to but you
went in and it was just delightful for a child because any child in the
neighborhood could go in there, wander around his store, it wasn't a threatening
environment, I mean he was so friendly and so nice and you know how kids have,
you always go through a period when you were young when you want to have
sticky fingers, and you see things that look so good and you don't have a nickel.
I remember one day standing there at the candy counter and I looked up and there
he was. He must of just known, you know that I was getting ready to reach out
for something, but they had the old fashioned soda fountains and with the little
round stools and I remember the Huffs that lived out at Wellborn had a daughter
for about every year for about four years they had a whole string of girls and they
all worked behind the soda fountain. You could go in there and there would be
a Huff girl there anytime.
Dr. Nelson: Raymond's sisters
Diane: Yes.
Dr.Nelson: There were three or four boys as well as the girls.
Ms. Dulany: You could get your prescriptions at the back.
Diane: At the back. And then as you went he had booths, little square booths and I know
daddy and the people from the city would come over and have coffee there every
morning. They would get in their car and drive down Wellborn over to Madeley's
and that's where they had their coffee breaks. And, sit there for about ten minutes
and then get in the car and go back.
Dr. Nelson: You couldn't have coffee on campus then. All the faculty at ten o'clock in the
morning and three o'clock in the afternoon would go to Madeleys
Diane: and it was a very busy little place at that time. I know that during the summer
if I had something to ask daddy I knew we could find him there at about 10:00
in the morning or 3:00 in the afternoon. Then on back he had a little gift
department, now imagine all this in that small store. He had a little gift
department and he had several shelves, that's where we bought all of our birthday
presents for my mother. Daddy would give us $5.00 and we would go over and
pick something out and then back in the back. Down in the grocery store it was,
that's where you would send us when you needed a quart of milk or a loaf of
bread and it was just a little market. You would go and he had maybe one or two
cash registers and fresh vegetables, but everything just, very small amount of
everything. I don't remember ever doing our weekly shopping there. It was just
Patricia: Where did you do your weekly shopping?
Diane: We went to Bryan. I don't remember Orr's was there but it was before then I
don't remember
Dr. Nelson: There was an A &P store down on Main Street.
Patricia: Now, what year are we at here?
Diane: Well, Pm still like going from when I was five or six or seven or eight.
Patricia: Okay, so we're getting close to 1950 here
Diane: I'm trying to recall the 1940's if I can.
Ms. Dulany: I can remember downtown Bryan was limited. There was a red brick library,
Carneigh and then there was a lovely dress shop
Diane: Lesters
Ms. Dulany: And, on down on the corner, I can't, Edges and across the street was the
Diane: Well, there was the big Woolworth's there
Ms. Dulany: Across the street was WSD
Dr. Nelson: that's was a men's store
Ms. Dulany: and then there was another
Diane: A &M Waldrop's
Ms. Dulany: A &M Waldrop's
Diane: Well, no wait a minute it was just called Waldrop's in Bryan and we had an A &M
Waldrop's in north side. But, I can remember one time riding my bicycle over to
south side and you know, Mimi, that's what I call my mother all the time, was
always very careful to tell us to be very careful when you're on your bicycle,
don't, look both ways and don't get in the street if there is a car coming and I can
remember riding my bike and she also told us to stay out from behind cars and
what did I do, I was riding behind a car and Mr. Pruitt was just backing out and
he had pulled right in front of his fabric shop and he hit the end of my bicycle,
just bumped it you know and I toppled over and oh, he stopped and he threw on
his break and got out of that car and picked me up and he was just frantic, he was
so afraid that I was hurt but I wasn't. He was just barely rolling but that really
did teach me a lesson and that kind of thing was just so, you know, was just
unheard because it was so safe everywhere in town.
Dr. Nelson: I had a very close relationship with her father, Mr. Dulany, because of buying
those houses, worked with him, but he was also the superintendent. I taught
Sunday school at First Baptist Church and he was the superintendent of my
department and one little antidote I'll never forget, the boys kept telling me about
all the cedar trees along the creek by our house and it was one just before
Christmas and they came dragging this cedar tree that they had dug up and they
said this would be a nice Christmas tree and I said yes it would and about that
time Mr. Dulany was passing by and he stopped and he said, "Howard where did
you get that tree ?" Howard said, "we steeled it ". I was mortified.
Ms. Dulany: Do you remember the picture show that was on the corner?
Dr. Nelson: Yes.
Ms. Dulany: just off campus on the corner
Diane:
Ms. Dulany:
Dr. Nelson:
Ms. Dulany:
Dr. Nelson:
Ms. Dulany:
Dr. Nelson:
Diane:
Campus Theater
That was a lovely theater and also right in that area was Ruth Little's Flower
Shop. Ruth Little was a lovely, lovely person and I can remember going to
church in the First Baptist Church over there on the corner of I used to know, but
anyway I can remember where we sat, I was 7 years old and I can remember our
pastor, what was his name
Brown
Brown, and I can remember Mrs. Brown.
Oh, she was a lovely lady
Yes and she was a big asset to Mr. Brown, I think
In fact, she ran his life for him
You know I can remember you said "what was daily life like ?" A big, on Sunday,
you know, we got up and we got dressed and went to Sunday school and church
and we never went out to eat. We came back home and ate. Back then there just
weren't that many places to go and after we had Sunday lunch we would, the thing
to do, and like visiting the Loyds that lived down, the people that lived on that
side of town and taking my grandmother with us because she knew some of the
older people that lived over there.
Dr. Nelson: There was an eating place but we didn't go there and Jack Fugate and his wife are
here. It was known as Hard Liquors. They were very popular with the students.
They
Patricia: Where was it?
Dr. Nelson: It was if you went down Wellborn Road and came through Park Place that was
at that time that was the last street and it was right next just south of it you know
where the little Chinese restaurant is now, that was Hard Liquors Tavern and his
daughter here and she is Mrs. Jack Fugate. It was very popular with A &M
students because it was one of the few places where they could drink beer but
they couldn't sell hard liquor. The students
Patricia: They couldn't sell hard liquors at Hard Liquors?
Diane: No, that was the people's name and I don't know how it was spelled
Dr. Nelson: Hardlicka
Diane: But it was pronounced that way.
Dr. Nelson: You had to go to the Brazos River and cross over and there was a tavern across
there that you could, there was a constant stream of people going out there
Patricia: I've heard about marches to the bridge
Diane: And, to even I can remember, even, the thought of ever having hard liquor or sold
in Brazos County was just a gasp to think that it would ever happen back then
Dr. Nelson: If you wanted liquor, go to Burleson County
Diane: Yeah, they were quite happy with it on the other side of the river.
Patricia: Now, you were talking about shopping and going to downtown Bryan, how often
did your family do, was it weekly that you'd go to downtown Bryan or
Diane: Well, like when we went to the grocery store it would be once a week but it
would not be downtown it was somewhere, I know Orr's was over on Texas
Avenue down where there is an auto store there now. Auto Zone that was where
we shopped when I was younger. I don't remember, there was another store
somewhere, for groceries somewhere on Texas Avenue, I don't remember the
name of it but to go to downtown Bryan we, rarely would we ever drive down
Texas Avenue. We drove down Wellborn Road or through the campus. Back
then the straight route was through the campus and everybody drove through the
campus. Then we got on College Avenue and drove down College Avenue, with
houses, which people actually still lived in them, and it was a beautiful drive. We
would drive into downtown Bryan maybe once every two weeks, I don't remember
going every week but maybe once every two or three weeks.
Ms. Dulany: I can remember the picnics we had at Hensel Park.
Patricia: When you did go shopping, was the shopping done on a cash basis, a credit basis,
how was it, do you remember?
Diane: Pretty much cash
Ms. Dulany: Cash.
Diane: I can remember my mother would write a check or pay for it in cash.
Dr. Nelson: There were ample opportunities for credit. For example, our neighbor, the Gattis,
we argued with them over and over and we paid cash for our groceries and they
went to Northgate and there was a grocery store there, I've forgotten the name of
it, but it had been there forever and they said, "they didn't have to keep that much
cash on hand, they had to have credit" and we would compare priced and they
paid so much more than we did but we were never able to convince them that
they should buy elsewhere.
Diane: Well that's interesting because I can remember the Elkins, the people that lived
across the street in the house with the little flat roof, they were retired Army or
Air Force, and they were used to doing the commissary type thing and they
bought their groceries and they went once a month and bought in bulk and on
credit.
Patricia: Where was this, do you know?
Diane: It was
Patricia: Was it in town?
Diane: It was a place on Texas Avenue and it was not as far in as Orr's. It was closer,
do you remember what it was?
Dr. Nelson: It's where the Sherwin Williams Paint Store is. It was in there, I forget the man's
name that had it but they were in First Baptist Church.
Diane: Okay, and they might have gone over to a grocery store there at south side to get
their milk or bread or whatever they needed to replace. They did a big once a
month type thing. Going to downtown Bryan was definitely where you went
when you went to buy clothes or now I can remember my dad going to A &M
Waldrop but there were no ladies dress shops in College Station
Ms. Dulany: There was a little shop on the corner
Diane: In Bryan
Ms. Dulany: I just can't
Diane: Well, there was Lester's, there was Beverly Braley's and there was Edge's
Ms. Dulany: It was Edge's on the corner
Dr. Nelson: One of the great developments for Bryan and College Station was when
Weingarten's came to town.
Patricia: And where was that?
Dr. Nelson: Where Safeway was in there and it's closed; the building is vacant now. Where
you make a sharp turn
Patricia: In Bryan
Diane: Um hum, you know where Gallery Nissan was and it's now Douglass Nissan, just
north of that at that point
Dr. Nelson: Yeah, right
Patricia: Now, what was Weingartens
Dr. Nelson: That was the greatest Kroger store in Texas history
Mrs. Clark: Absolutely
Dr. Nelson: Known all over the state
Diane: Yeah
Patricia: We've got to make sure that the camera knows what Weingartens is
Diane: I can remember the grand opening. I'm sure we went right for the grand opening
but we went the next week and it was just an event that everybody attended.
Mrs. Clark: Seems like they were based in Houston, weren't they?
Dr. Nelson: Yes, right
Now, you said you went to First Baptist or where was that?
At the northgate area on
At northgate and did you also go there?
and College Main. The first Sunday that I attended church there we, the pastor
of First Baptist Bryan had written us a letter in Baton Rogue welcoming us and
that they would send someone. But we said we want at least to go to First Baptist
in College Station before we join. We didn't go to Sunday school we got there
late and they ushered us to the front row and all we could see was the sea of
uniforms. The place was packed. Everybody had on uniforms. We saw hardly
any family groups at all and gave the invitation and my wife says "do you have
the thought I have" and I said that we are badly needed here? and she said "yes"
and I said "are you ready to join ?" and she said "yes" so we joined.
Ms. Dulany: I was baptized there
Patricia:
Dr. Nelson:
Patricia:
Dr. Nelson:
Dr. Nelson:
Patricia:
Dr. Nelson:
To give you an idea Mrs. Barry was superintendent of the freshman department,
freshman Aggie department and she became ill and they persuaded me to fill in
for her. Do you know what my greatest job was? To recruit 23 teachers, can you
imagine that, for the freshman division?
My goodness
They couldn't go home then and they couldn't do anything other than go to church,
they couldn't leave the campus. So, that was their one opportunity and so they
would, the place would be packed every Sunday.
Diane:
Dr. Nelson:
Diane:
Ms. Dulany:
Diane:
Ms. Dulany:
And, do you remember like in September when they first came? When they all
joined, they would all join at once practically, the first couple of Sundays and they
would, when the preacher would ask anyone wanting to join the church they
would just get up and there would be a row of Aggies clear around the front and
up the sides
Up either side
And the families, the Aggies sat mostly in the center section and the families sat
generally as I recall over on either side, I guess because we sat over on one side
and back then when you went to church you practically always sat in the same
place.
On the side in the direction of Bryan. You and daddy and David and I would sit
over there and I can remember where Mrs. Brown sat. I can remember what
wonderful preaching, I was baptized in that church. Ruth Little was our Sunday
school teacher. Between the sanctuary and the other building, eventually there
was another building, and then there was a tail in the middle.
Tell them about when you taught Sunday school. She taught Sunday school when
I was little and tell them about how you would, we would always you know, she
would have the children sing and Ruth Little played the piano and about how you
would say "Everybody sing out and Ms. Little is going to play real soft." Well,
Ms. Little had a real heavy hand and you could just hear this piano and could not
hear anybody singing and she was hinting to Ms. Little, like "Ms. Little is going
to play real soft and everybody sing out."
Let me tell you something, Ruth donated to our little Sunday school class a little
table, she said "there needs to be a table for the teacher to sit at" and but Mrs.
Little had a heavy hand when she played the piano. Oh, you could hear the
singing and try to sing as loud as Ms. Little played and but she was a wonderful
teacher. I remember when we were promoted to the next age group and had to
leave Ms. Little and the piano and the table that she used that she taught and in
our church today we have the same table that Mrs. Little used, we still use it at
Sunday school.
Where exactly was the church located?
Where the north gate post office is and if you go on down College Main you just
go past half a block and it's right there on the right. It's owned by the Methodist
Church now.
Where did you go to school when you were growing up here?
I went to first grade, we didn't have public school kindergarten then. When I went
to first grade my mother was teaching second right here on Timber Street the first
building which has been remodeled now was a white wooden cafeteria and then
the elementary school fell in line right behind it. They were just white wooden
buildings and I think there's just one left or maybe two left. We had two first
grade teachers, two second grade teachers, two or three fourth grade and maybe
two or three fifth grade teachers. It was A &M Consolidated Elementary School
as I recall it was called.
Ms. Dulany: It was Ms. Luke, the principal
Patricia:
Dr. Nelson:
Patricia:
Diane:
Diane:
It was Mrs. Creswell. Ms. Luke, she's the one that wrote the little book, the little
text book on phonics.
Dr. Nelson: phonics, yes
Diane:
Dr. Nelson:
Mrs. Clark:
Patricia:
Dr. Nelson:
Mrs. Clark:
Diane:
Dr. Nelson:
Diane:
Dr. Nelson:
Diane:
Yes, very important book for teaching phonics.
Our school system was right here.
I remember when they built this high school. We came over here one night and
that domed shaped and Uncle Floyd was fussing because he said that was so
expensive, do you remember the dome shaped building? What was it, was it a
Yeah, the music hall, right over here
The auditorium
Yes, he thought that was so silly to build anything like that when you could build
a square building for so much less
That is the picture that was taken when I was in second grade inside the
classroom, my mother standing up there and then below is a picture of kids in our
class. Doesn't it say second grade? And then that little song is a song that
Dorothy Barry
Dorothy Barry wrote the music and mother wrote the words for it and we sang
that, and what was the name of it, I'm Proud to be a Texan
I'm Glad I am a Texan. It was second grade
Where we sang that for the program. But I went through the rest and that's an
early elementary scrap book and there's really not a lot in there. There's a lot of
promotion certificates from Vacation Bible School and Sunday School and things
like that but there's no pictures that I could find except that one and that was
taken on the inside. If I can locate my, another album, we do have other pictures
that were taken of early elementary schools like the one of the big events that
school was to have was a Thanksgiving pagent and everybody would dress up as
pilgrims and indians and we would sing songs and do things of that type at
Thanksgiving and I do have some photographs of kids in costumes. Everybody
was lined up in front of the wooden building and those baseball cards.
Mrs. Clark: I wonder have you tried to sell them? They look to me like they are worth a lot
of money.
Diane: Most on the back of them you can't even tell who that was.
Mrs. Clark: Oh, that's Bob Lemmon, you don't remember Bob Lemmon, do you?
Diane: Don't mean nothing to me except I needed something to paste in my book.
Mrs. Clark: Oh my goodness, he was the pitcher of my day.
Patricia: You mention the Thanksgiving program, were there are other community
gatherings, whether it be with the school or just as a community not school
related.
Diane: There were programs on campus at the grove. And the grove is still on campus,
it's an outdoor theater. It was a screen and a little stage in front and then they just
had like picnic benches for people to sit on and in the summer they showed
movies at the grove
Dr. Nelson: And everybody went to the grove
Diane: Yes, everybody went and mosquitoes and it was hot but
Patricia: Did you go with your family to the grove as well?
Dr. Nelson: Oh sure, everytime. You would see practically everyone in the community.
Diane: Was it every night that they'd show a movie? Or was it like every other night or
twice a week?
Dr. Nelson: Twice a week, I think.
Diane:
Patricia:
Diane:
Dr. Nelson:
Diane:
Ms. Dulany:
Dr. Nelson:
Diane:
Dr. Nelson:
Diane:
Patricia:
Diane:
And, so therefore it was something to do.
Did you have to pay to see these movies or was it was
I think you paid
You paid
But it was like a nickle or a dime or something
Not much and they had good picture shows
Who was the manager? He was loved by all the children because you paid a
quarter to get in Guin Hall
Even less than that, like a nickle or a dime for children maybe for adults it was
a quarter
But the reason they loved him so was Mr. Putty, Tom Putty, if you went and told
Mr. Putty you didn't have any money, he would say "That's alright, you pick up
ten popcorn cartons and bring them to me and that's your price of admission." So,
particularly on Saturday you would have hundreds of kids marching in and they
would be looking all over for popcorn cartons.
All the kids would sit down front but then there would be during the school year,
there would be Aggies in there they would sit in the back. They had a balcony
so if you were old enough to have a boyfriend you went up to the balcony
because you could hold hands up there. Guin Hall, that to me was one of the
saddest days when Guin Hall was destroyed, it was a real landmark on campus.
Do you remember when that was?
I don't think I was living here at the time. It was after I graduated from high
school. It was before Rudder was built, Rudder Tower, because that's where it
was.
Dr. Nelson: It was about '64, '65 somewhere in there.
Patricia: You went to high school here
Diane: Our high school was just torn down for Willow Grove and the round auditorium
was where I graduated from high school. I think we were the last class to
graduate inside that round auditorium because it's got too many kids and Bardin
is a year older than I am, is that correct?
Dr. Nelson: Yes
Diane:
Dr. Nelson:
Diane:
Dr. Nelson:
I think he would have graduated a year before me, but I think the next class they
had it out on the football field, the graduation. This building is where I went to
Jr. High School. When I started the elementary school, the jr. high was in a little
wooden building, I don't if it's still there, I know it's not like it used to be, but it
sort of angled off behind this building and then this was the high school but as I
progressed up through Jr. High as I got to jr. high this became the jr. high and
they built the new high school. That was solid it was, didn't Park Caudill Rowlett
built that, the high school and it was, everybody would look at it like what are
these people building. It was all glass
It was a new concept, too. You went down the hall and there were wide
openings, no doors for the rooms.
It was the open concept
I remember going to an open house and I asked one of the teachers and she was
explaining it really was a disturbance to have all this noise going on. About that
Diane:
Dr. Nelson:
Patricia:
Mrs. Clark:
Patricia:
Mrs. Clark:
time the superintendent walks up and he says "What did you say about the
building ?" I said, "The building was very fine" I'll never forget that.
Nobody liked it, the teachers, no one liked that high school but I mean that was
what was built and that's what we had.
And, they didn't have air conditioning and they provided them, it got so hot in
September that they bought some of these big fans but they only, this is how
poorly the thing had been designed, there was only every other room had an outlet
so they would cut a little hole that could reach through the wall to the outlet from
the other room. So one day, Barbara who was teaching there, said to one of the
boys, "would you plug in the fan?" He reaches to plug it in and he yells, screams
and she said "what's the matter ?" He said "Someone nearly knocked my hands
off' and she went around with the man teacher, he's a principal now at one of the
schools, and she said "What in the world ?" and he said "I saw this hand sticking
through there and I slapped it" and she said, "He was trying to plug in the fan".
He said "Oh, well, I didn't know that ".
When you came to visit, what were your memories of?
Oh, well I don't remember just a lot about the area except that Dexter Street was
a lovely street and
Was there a lake still there?
No, no the lake was long gone and you telling me that story explains that Uncle
Floyd's writing is sometimes a little obscure. But here's the original plan and
that's the lake and it says here "All oldtimers are hereabouts know full well the
implications of this story." When Ruth, Mrs. Clark, sat for half a day under the
mouth of a drag line to inhibit an action by certain persons in authority at the
College which appeared as one of the number of instances of skull drudgery we
have encountered in connection with the jobs we were intending to do. But you
see it really doesn't tell me anything about it. But, since you told me the story
about the, she sat there
Dr. Nelson: She sat there to keep them from using the machinery.
Patricia: To keep them from getting to the dam
Mrs. Clark: To keep them from going in and taking out the dam.
Dr. Nelson: But Gilchrist found a way
Mrs. Clark: But you see that was in the 1920's. So, she was way ahead of her time in sitting
down and having a passive resistance. I remember she, during the war I was told
the story that, of course, sugar was in short supply during World War II but she
in order to have sugar and sweetener she took watermelons and she had a huge
stove in the kitchen and she took the meat out of the watermelon and put it in big
pans at the back of the stove and got rid of the water, you know with the heat, she
didn't boil it she just let it sit back there until it made itself into sugar and that
was how they made sugar, probably it was as much syrup as it was anything.
They grew most of their food out there. She had chickens in her back yard even
when we came that was about the same time the chickens started to disappear in
the early 50's. She had her dogs and was quite a horseman and had her horses out
on one of the farms that they bought and Uncle Floyd tried to talk the College
Station into putting all their sewage into a pond on one of those farms but I do not
know which one or where it was but he was using it in a rather modern way.
Diane:
Mrs. Clark:
Patricia:
Mrs. Clark:
Dr. Nelson:
Patricia:
Dr. Nelson:
Patricia:
Dr. Nelson:
Patricia:
Dr. Nelson:
Patricia:
Dr. Nelson:
I remember that. I can tell you a little story about that when you get through.
That's where he got his tomato plants. He would go out there and dig up tomato
plants around there where the tomato seeds came through holes. That's how he
got his tomato plants and he did very well. But you know these people didn't
make any money to speak of at all, it was only after, well I know when we started
out the first year, we made about $3,000.00 for the whole year. We'd get down
to $.75 but these people knew how to manage.
To put that dollar or seventy five cents into a relative context, what, you say you
made $3,000.00 a year
At the same time now we would make $30,000.00 to start out teaching.
To give you an idea my income was about $4,000.00 when I came out here. I
bought the house on Dexter for roughly $11,000.00. I sold it for $65,000.00.
Was that one of the houses that was moved over?
No, it was built.
Do you know who built it?
Herschell Burgess
Was it built for you or was there a previous owner?
No, a previous owner.
Do you know who that was?
Yeah, he was gosh, I can't remember his name. He got a divorce and was selling
the house. I met him at the house and he had on a suit with a vest with all these
holes in his vest and some in his coat and he smoked continuously and he would
let the ashes pop off on his clothes. He asked when we bought the house if he
could stay there or if we were going to be moving in within a week and I told him
no and he said well just leave one mattress on the floor in a bedroom and I'd like
to sleep there that evening. So, my father in law was over and he said "why don't
I help you move the sewing machine and some other things over to the house ?"
and I said oh, I don't think Louie Franke wouldn't object to that. So, my father -in-
law and I were carrying the sewing machine and we got to the door and Bardin
Jr. was a just a young boy, he knocks on the door and Louie Franke comes to the
door with a cocktail in his hand and he was completely nude, not even any shoes
on. So we asked him and he said come on in. So we put the sewing machine
down. I'll never forget Bardin's statement as we were walking back, he says,
"Dad, he was drunk and he thought he had clothes on."
Mrs. Clark: This is a picture, I'll say one thing for Uncle Floyd, he did put the names of
people in his pictures and these might be people that you know because this is
1958.
Patricia: A dinner party at the LaSalle Hotel.
Diane: Boy, that was rich people.
Mrs. Clark: Well, that was one of those things that Uncle Floyd did when he wanted to tell
people what he was doing, he'd have dinner parties. I believe Maries Haines is
in that picture. She married Fred Burt who was a geology professor, I think, here.
And they went together from about 1935 to about 1949 and his mother died and
they got married. She lived at 123 Union Street. I've always thought that was the
most marvelous address. Another one, I don't know this person but this might be
someone that people know, a Mrs. Morrell.
Diane:
Patricia:
Oh, here's Sarah Goode, Sarah Philips Goode.
How did you come by all these materials?
Mrs. Clark: Oh, Uncle Floyd did write books and they come, and some of them are that thick
and they are about nothing that you'd want to really know anything about because
he wrote mostly just what he thought about some subject, some obscure subject,
such as the marketing works of art, which is completely crazy
Dr. Nelson: He had a daily correspondence almost with Lyndon Johnson. He showed me
some of the letters where he was ripping him apart.
Mrs. Clark: I would like very
Patricia: Do you have any of these?
Mrs. Clark: I wish I had, I do not know what happened to Marie, I mean, Ruth was a big
collector and she had the most marvelous collection of bottles you ever saw.
When she first came here she went around to drugstores and places where they
might throw out bottles and things like that and she, you know those great big
glass bottles that were shaped like this, they are apothecary bottles of some sort,
here's a picture that Marie painted of one of them. She had several of those that
she had just found out behind someone's drugstore. She also had, they had lived
originally in Virigina and I don't how it was she had met Floyd but she was from
there and she had been collecting bottles for years and years and years and she
actually had two booze bottles which are just about the rarest of the American
bottles. They are square, sort of a greenish color bottle and today I'm sure those
two bottles together being a pair, would be worth more than $5,000.00. I don't
know what happened to all those things. She had upstairs, she had what she
called the Sam Houston bed and of course, we thought that was funny, and I don't
know where she had gotten it but we always thought well, that was just Ruth's
idea that she'd just call it, but the same bed or one very exactly like it is at the
Sam Houston home in Huntsville and it was owned by Henderson Yoakum. So,
I have a feeling that that bed may have honestly belonged to Sam Houston and I
listened to Ruth say that I just thought she doesn't know what she's talking about,
I mean how do you know that it belonged to Sam Houston. She had a pair of
spindles, walnut spindles beds, Jenny Lind type, that were just, you couldn't find
them if you were looking for them again. She told me that if I ever had daughters
I could have those and Uncle Floyd said "no, she can't have them ".
Patricia: Did you tell me where they lived? I'm sorry I really can't remember.
Mrs. Clark: Where they lived? Where Bill Lancaster's daughter now lives, next door to the
Lancasters. Across the street from the one time, pond, lake. She had some
marvelous antiques. She was apparently a very enthusiastic member of the study
club and some where in here
Dr. Nelson: Campus Study Club
Mrs. Clark: Campus Study Club and they wrote a very nice tribute to her, where did I put it,
that, but anyway it's in here somewhere. He said he was going to build a museum
to put all of her things in it, and I would have preferred it if he had done that.
Dr. Nelson: I thought up until this day that he had set up so that that cottage could never be
torn down. He told me that he had.
Patricia: The log cabin. When did they tear that down?
Mrs. Clark: I think there was a lady who was taking care of him and of course his mind was
Dr. Nelson:
Mrs. Clark:
Dr. Nelson:
Mrs. Clark:
Dr. Nelson:
Patricia:
Dr. Nelson:
Mrs. Clark:
Dr. Nelson:
probably, he died in his 90's and his mind was gone for perhaps ten years or
maybe longer than that and they had the big Clark family reunion in Virginia and
one of the people who was coming came through here to see Uncle Floyd on the
way and when he got there he found out that Uncle Floyd had died and he said
"Well, she earned every penny she got." But that's what happened and I have no
idea who she was, I do not know her name.
I remember her but I don't remember her name.
It is a matter of public record somewhere but we were in Florida and there was
no point in following up on it because he left it to her. And, she apparently
She was chauffeur, nurse, cook and everything for him
In fact we didn't really, but I wish she had let us have some of the things that he
had that meant alot to the family.
You really hit me on this one, I know every single one of them
Bardin, do you know when that log cabin came down on Dexter?
Apparently late,
Yes, I don't think
I'd say the late 60's or maybe even in the 70's
Mrs. Clark: Well, it was still here in the we left Texas and went to Georgia in 1966 and there
was no talk of tearing it down at that time and,
Dr. Nelson: I'd say it'd be the middle 70's. Yeah, it was still there when I moved from Dexter
and that was in 74. So,
Mrs. Clark: I was really surprised to find it was gone. I thought it would still be here. I don't
know why it was torn down or exactly, I couldn't tell you exactly where it was.
Dr. Nelson:
Patricia:
Mrs. Clark:
Patricia:
Diane:
Dr. Nelson:
Diane:
Mrs. Clark:
Dr. Nelson:
I know it was, what, two or three lots from the house that he built.
It was exactly where the house that has, the new house that was built that has the
columns in front
The front porch
But you talk about what things were worth, he was selling his lots for $100.00
apiece. Lots that subsequently sold for $30,000 to $60,000.
Oh, my
Who was the lady that lived that had the bird feeders, but she had
I believe the Scoates lived in it.
but, she would, she would have a fascination with birds, and she had bird feeders
everywhere and bird houses. In all those trees the birds would flock and I
remember as a school group would go over there occasionally and she would point
out birds and the log cabin being right south of that house.
We use to laugh about it. It had a basement and of course it had a sump pump
too because the basement was absolutely useless in this part of the country but
he came from a part of the world that had basements so that's where he put the
heating system and I'm sure that the basement has long been filled in and the
house that they built, they built that house even though they had trouble with that
basement in the log cabin they still built a house and put a sump pump in at the
same time they built it.
Speaking of birds and flowers and so forth, this past week two of the teachers that
taught with Christine died, Pearl Danzer and Lois Rogers. The thinking of
significant development that took place, Pearl Danzer was known for one thing the
collection of wild flowers. Your children would have you driving all over town's
end to Independence collecting wild flowers to see who would have the most wild
flowers when Ms. Danzer finally took them up.
Diane: She was my fifth grade teacher and I still have mine taped and labeled.
Patricia: How wonderful
Diane: And, I was frantically this morning looking for things but I couldn't find them,
they are somewhere probably with my baby book, but I couldn't find them
Mrs. Clark: Well, if anybody comes across any of these things, the pictures particularly that
we are sorry lost out on and the sleigh bed downstairs in the room that she used
to sleep in. She loved sofas, she collected sofas. She had sofas all over the house
and most of them were Ompier or some such and most were done in opulent
fabric but she also had dogs which had full freedom to do what they wanted to
with her lovely furniture. She just cleaned up the lovely white rug behind them
and think of the fascinating things about College Station and it changed quite soon
after I was here was when we just take a bath, I took a bath religiously before I
came so I wouldn't have to take one while I was here because you could not get
the soap off. The water was so soft.
Diane: It's still like that.
Mrs. Clark: Is it? I thought they had put other water into it now so that it wouldn't be that
bad.
Diane: It's still real soft. You know, you probably remember the swimming pool, the
natatorium we called it
Patricia: On Campus
Diane: On campus. That was the only swimming pool. That was one of our activities
like going to the grove. Every kid in my era learned how to swim over on the
campus. We went and at summer they would teach you to swim. They had
classes. I can remember going every day. We would walk from our house. We
would walk through project housing which were across George Bush Drive from
southside and there was a little store there. That picture there was taken from the
tennis courts looking south at the project housing. We would skate on the tennis
courts. Of course, during the summer there weren't students in P.E. classes or
anything so we just had the run of the tennis courts that were there, all of the
fields, there were still some open field areas on the campus and it was not
uncommon for us to go on campus and go all over the place and play. It was just
a big play area.
Patricia: In the summertime, did they have classes on campus?
Diane: I think they had summer school, but the campus enrollment was very small then
that you could go over then and there was no danger of traffic or anybody. The
little creek that runs where the president's home is, that creek, we would play and
jump from side to side of the creek because then creeks were not washed out like
they are now, they're big gullies now. Like the creek where the lake was on
Dexter, we played in that park and that bridge that ran across it we called Billy
Goat Bridge.
Dr. Nelson: In fact, that was called Billy Goat Park for a long time until they named it, this
Brison Park.
Diane: Okay, I knew there was a name for it. This picture is a snapshot of a friend of
mine named Blair Pearman, we called here B.B. Pearman and I played with her
alot. This other little girl, Ann Elkins, the one that she was talking about and her
little sister in the back, Claire, that picture was taken at the corner of then Jersey
Street and Dexter. You know when Jersey was erected, it used to go, I don't
know what they call it now, but it's not like it was then. In fact, where George
Bush drive is now in front of southside it went more straight, now it makes a little
curve, maybe it's now more curved than straight, may curve to the south slightly.
It's hard to describe. And it went, I can show you where the street is. It took
another direction down a residential street and then there was a low bridge that
went over and that's a picture of that bridge. So it was different then. Also, back
then it was not uncommon for there to be trees in the middle of the street. When
they put in around the southside if there was a beautiful tree where they wanted
to put a street they just went around it, one way down one side and one way down
the other and they put a little red reflector button on either side of the tree so at
night you wouldn't
Patricia: Was that common?
Dr. Nelson: That was common all over Bryan and College Station. North Avenue had one
until a couple of people almost got killed hitting them at night.
Diane: It seems like I can remember a couple of trees on Park Place down there around
where Ms. Law lived and in that area possibly. It's hard to remember exactly
where they were. Certainly on the street just west of Billy Goat Park there were
trees all in there.
Patricia: So everywhere you hit a tree the road split and then came together again
Diane: Yeah, and another thing I made a little note on, we're getting out of order here
because we're jumping around but my dad worked for the city and back then the
city had no money, not any money, you can image three employees and maybe
someone that did manual labor because when a sewer line broke or a water line
broke it was repaired with one person with a shovel, maybe two or three with a
shovel and rubber boots and that's the way it was done. And when we had a
storm all the lights would go out all over the south side of town and everybody
knew that Mr. Delaney was the one to fix it and they would call our house all
through the night wanting to know when the electricity was going to come back
on and after Mother got tired of answering the phone she turn it over to my
brother and I and they would say "we want to know when the electricity is going
to be turned back on" and we would say "well, my daddy's out working on it right
down and when he gets home it will be back on." That's all we could tell them.
Dr. Nelson: I'd like to add something here on that, there was a negro man that worked with
your daddy and with the shovel, and one day he stopped by my house, I had a big
patch of okra, and he said "would you sell me some of that okra" and I said "why
I'll give you a big bag" and he said "how much do you think that's worth ? ", and
I said "well you think it's worth a quarter to you ? ", and he said "Oh yes!" and I
said I remember one time seeing you had a garden and he said not no more and
I said why and he said "you can make $.50 an hour you can't afford to be doing
any gardening ".
Patricia: Isn't that something?
Diane: They, it was different.
Patricia: And, what was this gentleman's name?
Diane: Socks, all we knew him by was his nickname and I don't know what his name
was but he was a loyal employee of the city
Ms. Dulany: And he lived way out towards the, used to be I was trying to remember out by the
Diane: Oh, way out there, that community was called Peach Creek
Dr. Nelson: Peach Creek
Patricia: Peach Creek out by the speedway?
Diane: Yes, it's still out there, Peach Creek Road, in fact, talking about the school, we
had I don't know how many school buses the school had, but it was not unusual
for one bus to take several routes, so usually the way they did it was the kids that
lived closest, would get on, may be there would be three school buses lined up to
pick up kids at the school after school, at the elementary school, the kids that
lived the closest were delivered first and be lined up to get on. The poor kids that
lived in Wellborn or Peach Creek, their bus routes ran last and they may were at
school an hour before they could get on the bus and go home and then they had
another hour perhaps to get like to Peach Creek and so we had the school bus that
went out to Wellborn, because it was consolidated you know alot of these kids
that lived in the country came in and then I can remember the bus route out to
Peach Creek and the Barker kids, there was a kid in every grade in school I mean
they had one in every grade like a couple of them in the back woods
Ms. Dulany: and they came barefooted
Dr. Nelson: You mentioned the project housing. Whoever gets this together, there was at least
two articles in Readers Digest back in 38 about the project houses and that was
a prominent part of southgate.
Patricia: Can you tell us what about the project houses, before you do that, you moved here
in 1950, what did you move here for, I think we need to document that.
Dr. Nelson: Well, I was director of testing and guidance at LSU, which was an administrative
post and there was a man who came in as president and I didn't like him and I had
planned to stay at LSU the rest of my life. I wanted to get the administration to
get him before him, Dan Russell, who developed the project houses and he was
my kind of person and I knew when he told me about it. Florida State offered me
the same job I had at LSU at $2,000 more than A &M was offering but I wanted
to get into teaching and before I came here in August my dean said the President
from Texas A &M is coming over and wants to look over your division. So, lo
and behold in September I came over here to do full -time teaching.
Patricia: Which department?
Dr. Nelson: Ag Eco and Rural Sociology. Well, lo and behold the first afternoon here I get
called by Tom Harrington or dean as he was then, he is president. He says I
didn't have any idea you were coming to A &M. He said, I want to make a
request of you. We are setting up a division just like yours and how much of
your time can you devote to it and I said I came here to do full time teaching.
He said, well what about this for a year or two. So, I devoted half time for a year
or two cleaning out that mess, teaching for a while and then 1/3, 1/3, 1/3, one -
third research, one -third teaching and one -third extension. And he said first of all
from a novelist job to changing a small military college into a major university.
Earl Rudder got $3,000.00 together and we interviewed 1,000 students over and
who didn't know where we were coming from, the image that they had of higher
education to their grades. A and B students that we want to have no part, all male
or all female college and we don't have any part A and B students of an institution
of compulsory military training. That upset Rudder to no end but then he got over
it and got a Large committee. But the project housing
Patricia: Yeah
Dr. Nelson: In the depression well students had no money and so Rudder devised a plan of
these houses that would hold anywhere from 12 to 20 students
Diane: That was before Rudder
Dr. Nelson: Oh yes, that was before Rudder. This was in the 30's in the depression. And the
kids would bring canned foods, fresh vegetables and even, from home and they
employed a cook
Patricia: Each house or
Dr. Nelson: Each house and the cook was sort of the mother for the house and they paid her
$5.00 a month so they could come work on the campus, digging ditches and it
spread like wildfire, almost every county had a project house here at A &M. They
were, the best ones were lined up at Southgate, it was in the picture you saw,
about a dozen of them
Diane: Yes, there was just, I felt like to me it was a large number
Patricia: Two story houses, I mean I only moved here in '83 but there were two two story
white clapboard houses behind the police station on the corner
Diane: Yeah, they began removing them I think at the end there was two left
Patricia: Okay, those were the project houses
Dr. Nelson: There were more of those but that was just the icing on the cake, the counties
bought them all over Bryan and College Station where they could find a big house
that was for sale and then buy it and turn it into project houses.
Patricia: And, students from those counties went to live there?
Diane: Oh, I didn't' realize that that was how it worked
Patricia: Okay
Dr. Nelson: And it was written up more or less as tribute to Dan Russell in Readers Digest
Patricia:
Dr. Nelson:
Patricia:
Diane:
Dr. Nelson:
Patricia:
That's very creative
He and Dan Davis worked on it. Dan Davis lived right back just one block from
them right back of what was then grocery store and Dr. Catcar's office and
Madeley's Pharmacy and then Dr. Huntley next door to them and
What about air conditioning just a little earlier, that just kinda of triggered
something with me, how did air conditioning change the life talking about not
being any air conditioning and people being outside, did you see a big change or
was it just gradual or
It was more gradual
Very gradual. For example the MSC which opened up in the summer and then
they got more and more pressure about buildings being so hot for people in the
summer. The college thought they would be magnamous, were going to allow
you to buy a window unit for your office and we'll provide the electricity. So that
went on for several years and then they came up with the chilled water system and
it was more economical and they started putting it in
Now in this community most of the homes originally were not air conditioned
Diane:
Dr. Nelson:
Diane:
Dr. Nelson:
Diane:
Mrs. Clark:
Dr. Nelson:
Patricia:
Diane:
Dr. Nelson:
Like the house that we lived in that they had moved off campus, it had big
enormous windows very very tall, very wide wooden, you know,
12 foot ceilings
Yeah, and if in the summer they of course had screens in the summer all the
windows were up; neighborhoods were safe and you didn't worry about anybody
breaking in your house; you left your doors open, screen doors and you might put
a little latch on it, if it had a little latch. You just burned up in the summertime
and you just prayed for a breeze
The first development was water coolers. You remember evaporated water
coolers.
We didn't have those, but I do remember, I do remember people that had them.
I think the first one I saw was in San Angelo about 19 . It was wonderful in
San Angelo. They must have been pretty good here too.
Well, not too good, but it beat
What did you do to stay cool?
Well, we had emerson fans, everybody had one. We had one that was one of the
smaller ones and when we ate dinner at night we'd be sitting there at our little
table and it would be revolving as we sat there and ate. When mother and dad
would go into their bedroom, they would pick it up and take into their room and
plug it in and my brother and I just didn't have one.
You recall about it being gradual, I'll never forget this day, Ty Tim sent his
secretary, he was head of our department, the Ag Eco and Rural Sociology, send
her around and said get all the men and tell them to come to my office. I've
forgotten how many, probably 40, and we went to the System Building and in one
room there must have been 50 of those little black fans and Ty said "get as many
as you can carry" they had just air conditioned that building, these were all the
fans in the whole building and he knew the president real well and he said if you
can come and get them you can have them. So, that was our, they didn't provide
them for us those were for administrative people.
Patricia: Oh my
Dr. Nelson: So we had landed up
Diane: I can remember though when I don't know how old I was, I was about 10 or 12
maybe, the window unit that came available for home use and I guess they got to
the point that we could afford one and remember you'll went and bought one and
put it in the, there was only one window in and they had sort of a central bedroom
in this old house and it only had one window because our side porch had been
converted into a second bath. The house originally only had one bath. So they
had taken a little side porch and converted it, I believe into a second bath. It took
up two windows because the bedroom apparently had had three windows so it
only left you one window. They went and bought a window unit and put it in that
third window and that was just the most wonderful thing to, we'd all congregate
in that central bedroom and just when in the very hottest weather we'd all huddle
in there in the one room with the air conditioner.
Dr. Nelson: Speaking of her house, Mrs. Mamaliga who is here today and her mother, Mrs.
Bedonker, bought their house and she extold that house and she would it was a
hassle for her and she filled it with antiques and she wanted to sell the house and
she called me over and took me around and showed me all antique furniture and
said if you'll buy my house, I've got to move and if you'll buy my house I'll give
you all the antiques.
Patricia: Oh my, and did you?
Dr. Nelson: No
Diane:
I don't know who the people that lived there for so long raised dogs and part of
the dogs were pets and it I met somebody that commented that and I had wanted
to go it was after we had moved back here and see I wanted so bad to go over
and see the house, and I know that if I had gone over and knocked on the door
she would have said yes, come in, but I couldn't bear to do that knowing that she
had dogs like in that back bedroom, and in the front bedroom, so I didn't and
every once in a while I'd drive by and look longing at it. Then, several years ago
the people moved and put it up for sale and the people that bought it have three
children and are very interested in fixing it up and we happen to be over there in
that area and saw them out in the back yard and we stopped and they were so
delighted to find somebody that had lived in it and she asked me to come in and
look at it and it just was so thrilling to go back and stand in that bedroom where
I had grown up and of course, many things had been changed. There was a wall
that had been moved and the people before them in an effort to modernize the
house and give it more open feel you know like houses have developed into but
these people had put a drop down attic stairs so we went up in the attic and the
comment that my husband and I made was "I have never seen so much wood in
all my life ". You practically could build 5 houses with the amount of wood in
that house today.
That's how they used to build them.
Yeah, and the attic is this big as the rest of the house because it has the tall
pointed roof and it's just really fun to go back and I had never been in the attic
because when I lived there the only way to get in the attic was to bring in a ladder
and put it into a little trap door that went up there so we never used the attic. It
was unusable. They are in the process of building three big bedrooms up there.
Oh my goodness.
They were going to put in a real staircase, so they're doing something with it now.
And, where do you live now?
We live out at Wood Creek. We moved from that house and my mother and dad
built a new home on Poplar Street which is right behind where Bardin lived across
the creek.
Dr. Nelson: Yes, I could throw a rock and hit their house.
Mrs. Clark:
Diane:
Mrs. Clark:
Diane:
Patricia:
Diane:
Diane:
Dr. Nelson:
Mrs. Clark:
Diane:
And, then after he passed away we decided to move and had been living in my
grandmother's house on Poplar Street.
Where Bill Kuvlesky lives. Their house was at the very end of the cul -de -sac.
What made you come back.
Well, I don't know the time was just right. My husband and I had a little girl, she
was two when we moved back. We were just sort of looking for an excuse to
move back and my grandmother really needed to move in with someone else so
my mother's house was available so we got to thinking, there's that house we can
move back and so we did. It was a real opportune time to move back. There's
another old house that, I was telling you, my dad had rented a pasture from Dr.
Clark and we got to it
Patricia: Where was this?
Diane: It's over in south
Dr. Nelson: Southwest Parkway area
Diane: It's really where South Knoll School is. It's located, because right on the other
side of the street, one block over east from South Knoll School is a big old white
house, one of the original houses moved from the campus and it's still sitting
there.
Dr. Nelson: It was the commandant's house and
Diane: Was it?
Patricia: On Park, the commandant's house is on Park. I thought the commandant's house
was on Park, correct me
Diane: I don't know. All I know is that I didn't know that that had been the
commandant's house. All I know is that house was right out in the middle of the
pasture.
Dr. Nelson: Are you talking about the Ballinger home?
Diane: I don't know
Patricia: I'm trying to image where this is
Diane: Okay, if you are at South Knoll school
Mrs. Clark: Here's a map of South Knoll School
Diane: How recent? Well okay,
Patricia: Is it north or south of South Knoll
Diane: East of South Knoll
Dr. Nelson: East
Patricia: Okay, east of South Knoll
Diane: I can't remember the name of the road that runs there by South Knoll School. If
you go over a block there are some houses on another street and this old house
is sitting there and it's like a sore thumb because it's standing out from all these
other houses and it does not belong there. I mean in a modern residential area.
Mrs. Clark: Was this the one that on that farm?
Diane: Yes, that's where and
Mrs. Clark: I know which house you are talking about
Diane: A man lived there whose name is Warren and his daughter was my age and was
in our, Mary Lou Warren was in my grade through school. We would get to, see
here's a street named Warren Street, Warren Circle and that is probably where that
old house might be on that street.
Dr. Nelson: Warren worked for me as a carpenter.
Diane: He was
Dr. Nelson: He was a very nice fellow
Diane: And, he, to get to that pasture at that time we probably would drive down Park
Place and maybe even went across the creek there at Dexter and drove on out and
then all that was pasture land somewhere out there, there was a dirt road and it
came to that white house, that big old white house because I remember
Mrs. Clark: I remember doing that it was there right in the middle of the field
Diane: It was right in the middle of the field and to get into that pasture land we went ver
Mrs. Clark:
Diane:
Dr. Nelson:
Patricia:
Dr. Nelson:
Diane:
Patricia:
Diane:
Patricia:
a cattle guard I think or it might have been a fence that you had to get out and
take it off, you know, open it up
It was where Mrs. Clark had her horses at one time and we went out there
Well he rented that pasture from Dr. Clark because he wanted to have some cows
so we would go out there and my dad bought a pony and we kept the pony out
there along with the cows and practically every time we would go out there in the
evening Mr. Warren would come out and say hello
Now Bill Finch bought that from Dr. Clark
Was that the house that you say was the commandant's house that was just out
there?
No, that's not the one that. If you're standing at South Knoll, north of South
Knoll School and you look to the east there is a big story and half house pretty
much like their home that is there now, Dick Ballinger bought, it was the
commandant's home on the A &M campus and they moved it out there and I
haven't seen or heard from the Ballingers in a long time. I don't know where they
are now.
You have to go out of the way to go down that street. It's not on a street that you
would just pass by and see it. You have to make several turns to get there. I will
drive by and I will find the address and call you.
I will have to look for it.
I will have to drive by too, I haven't seen it in five or six years.
Now when you moved in, how far south did the street like Dexter, and Pershing
and Lee, how far south did they go?
Dr. Nelson: To Park Place
Diane: Just to Park Place and then right there it ended and it was all grass.
Dr. Nelson: And it was the Schwartz Farm right in back of that. Wheeler Barger asked me to
go into partnership with him and buy that Schwartz farm but the loan that Wheeler
had fell through and then Woodsons, Woodson's Lumber Company, bought it and
they developed that area then and put in streets
Patricia: Where there neighborhood association, community associations activities within
the neighborhoods for everyone who lived there?
Dr. Nelson: No, about the only thing this school had an annual community wide dinner, open
house and fried chicken, baked potatoes and the reason I remember so well was
that they called me in on the committee and they had been able to hundreds of
people, they'd have it in the basketball gym and it would just be packed with
people and you would pay about $2.00 for the meal. We'd get everybody
involved but for some reasons we couldn't get the Czechs to come. So what we
did was we got one of the women in the area
Patricia: And who was that?
Dr. Nelson: I don't remember her name, but at any rate we persuaded her to chair the next one.
To be the chair person for the next meal and asked her to make it sort of a Czech
dinner and invite a lot of the mothers and it was such a great success from then
that we didn't have a problem with involvement of the Czech families. Once they
had come.
Patricia: Did university activities influence the community activities and was there, you
were talking about how the campus was so empty?
Diane: Well, another thing that I'll interject right here that just came to my mind was the
4th of July fireworks. That was a big community involvement thing.
Patricia: Where was that?
Diane: It would be usually be held at the football field.
Dr. Nelson: Well, no it was primarily here at the A &M Consolidated football field. Raymond
Rogers
Diane: Yes, he would do it and his son would help him and I guess the reason he was
always involved with doing it is because he had been a city manager and I guess
he started it when he was a city manager. And when he was no longer city
manager he kept on doing it. But, at the football field, where I always remember
it being, the high school football field, everybody would come it to and it was
fireworks and it was always a wonderful display of fireworks. I thought
considering the size town we had and you would see everybody there and Mr.
Rogers would do it every year for as long as I can remember.
Dr. Nelson: My son, Judd, worked with him. It was very dangerous and I didn't like the idea
at all but he insisted on it. Well I was visiting with him one time in my storage
building and we would listen for sirens and whenever they would hear a siren they
would jump in the car, rush out and take pictures of it, and rush back and develop
them and then rush over to what was then a new TV station with the idea of
getting them on the 10 o'clock news. And very frequently they would make it.
Diane: And were there always alot of fires associated with the 4th of July fireworks?
Dr. Nelson: No, these were highway accidents or fires or whatever.
Diane: Of course, another big community event was always bonfire. And it was there on
the drill field on campus and everybody in town went. Back then you could all
go and get there and not feel you were in a traffic jam of which you would never
get out again. But we would walk from our house. We would walk down Dexter
and go to bonfire and it was just great fun to watch the band march around it.
Now, I know alot of people still go but there are so many university students there
that it's discouraging to try and get in all the traffic and go.
Dr. Nelson: To let you see how little there was to do, I taught Sunday school along in 30
years and I guess I taught, they pressured me, we had to do something every
Saturday. I started out we played, in fact the class members would come out and
one of the mother called me angry that her son didn't know where we were going
to school and she said "No, they should have known" and I said "I'm sorry." So,
then the next times you know you couldn't play ball. The next thing was to come
to White's Canyon that you go out Luther Street onto College property, there was
a great gulch out there with walls 40 feet high.
Diane: Luther Street, I should know about that
Dr. Nelson: It's down below Park Place. It's closed off now you can't go over the railroad now
like you could then, but
Patricia: Where were these walls?
Dr. Nelson: On College property across the railroad tracks
Diane: on the other side
Patricia: You're not talking about what we called the old gravel pit, are you?
Dr. Nelson: You may have called it that
Diane: I thought that was further out at Wellborn
Dr. Nelson: Oh yeah, that's at Wellborn, but this is here right here in College Station, just to
the airport in that area there where the Chancellor's house is now. We'd take the
kids out there and they would look for diamonds that the walls of the canyon
would have some charcoal and rocks of various descriptions and some glittering
and then we'd have a weiner roast in the base of the canyon, which was sandy and
they would play. They wanted to do that every Saturday because there was
nothing else to do. And then that led to our community building, do you know,
let's see, the park is now at the end of Montclair.
Patricia: Over near Luther
Dr. Nelson: Yeah. Montclair and Luther. Yeah, that was the first Little League Park. We got
together and we built the concrete blocks and you know seats, concrete blocks we
built it up and put the wood across it so people could sit on it.
Patricia: That was the first Little League Park? Do you remember that?
Diane: Well, I remember the park over on southside off of Park Place where it's still
down there. That little baseball field.
Dr. Nelson: Yeah, that's it.
Diane: I can remember little league. Oh that's the one that you're talking about. Oh
that's right. Mama
Dr. Nelson: Oh yeah. You go down by the grocery store and on down at the end.
Diane: Yeah, I can remember riding our bikes down there and watching baseball.
Dr. Nelson: Another interesting facet of that is as parents we'd make the snow cones and so
forth and that's where we got our money to pay the bills that we had through our
little snack stand. The coaches would always have to provide snowcones if their
team won but generally if it didn't w i n . The parents w ho had that week would be
again because of the
the concession stands. But there g
e age well they wanted to form
worked to death there at th
ctivity when the boys past little league lack of a lace. So we went to A &M
leagues, Babe Ruth LeagUe, bu `1e had no
other leag own here you'll see a baseball field. We
Consolidated School and in fact, you d
put those poles and before we put the poles up we attached the lights onto them
did all the work building that and we went in debt
and the men of the community quite a bit of
for somewhere between $
money and had to raise th
Patricia: How did you do that?
Dr. Nelson: Contributions. Asking p
Patricia:
It was being used.
e money.
eople to contribute, but we still were far short of being
able to pay it all off. So, we didn't know what in the world we were going to do.
We had a Babe Ruth league and they had some teams in
Bryan and so the use of it was going real well but there was the matter of the
debt. So, we went back to the school board and said look we built this facility,
it's on your land but it really belongs to the community. It's ours. We will give
it to the school if you'll let us continue to use it if you'll pay the debt. They
thought that was a great opportunity, to get a baseball field for very little money.
Well, I will always look at that baseball field in a whole new way now. That's
great. Well, I think I have kept you here too long. It's gotten really quite. I
could listen you to all day. I appreciate your coming. For the camera's purpose
I want to repeat everyone's name. Mrs. Christine Dulany, Diane Hervey, Barbara
Clark, Bardin Nelson and Wendy Nelson. I'm glad you'll could come here today.
Memory Lane:
Interview o.
Name T
AI 11..4 _ J Interview date X4)0
interviewer mrsirinirowy i , Interview length
_' Ii - n (;p7 A Pa /4s
Special sources of infor � f. ti
Date tape received in office
Original Photographs Yes No . # of photos Date Recd
Describe Photos
City of College Station
Memory Lanes Oral History Project
Final copies: Typed by
Remarks:►
Oral - Hstory Stage Sheet
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Sent to bindery by
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epo ited in ar es, • y:
# of tapes marked Date (1l/
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Given to intery wee on C Received Yes No
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Transcription:
First typing completed bar (f , _ S , " . _ _i Pages LC' 2- Date 1/7/2-14_5
First audit check by ��'YL� l J l�'ia Pages J '7- Date 6 117.--1 Q
117-14
(name)
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Date
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interviewer 1 -
Interview Place
Special sources of info mation
Date tape received in office
Original Photographs Yes
Describe Photos
Interview Agreement and tape dis. •sal orm:
Given to intervi wge
Date Signed / 14-
Transcription:
First typing completed b
First audit check by _ J
Sent to interviewee on Le / ? I
Received from interviewee on
Copy editing and second audit check by
Final copies: Typed by
•
City of College Station.
Memory Lanes Oral History Project
Oral History Stage Sheet
Indexed by:
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Deposited in archives by:
5 # of tapes marked Date Lo 1'//Z-/'9 - S
# of photos Date Recd
7
Intervie No.
Interview date :j -4/ 1,
Interview length
PCk
Received Yes No
Restrictions- If yes, see remarks below. Yes No
Pages 6 Date le //2-/
(name)
Proofread by: 1)
Photos out for reproduction:
Original photos returned to:
(name)
Where to:
e41110[.40 21c-v
Pag
Pages 2- Date
Pages
es
Pages
Pages
Date:
Date:
Date
Date
Date
Date
Date
Date
Date
Date
Remarks:
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Interview No.
Name �,, , Interview date 3i? 4l 6 i <\
Interviewer ' ���.J , Interview length
Interview Place ( tenon-I_ _ I D
Special sources of informatip
Date tape received in officeUi 6 # of tapes marked 7' -- Date (;)11 7 /'i A
Original Photographs Yes
Describe Photos
Interview Agreement and tape disposal fogm:
Given to interviewee q '174 I 2 Received Yes No
Date Signed -12.4I f , Restrictions - If yes, see remarks below. Yes No
Transcription:
First typing completed by f'I iYY� / l 1 LlL� Pages i Date (, f I Z 145
(name)
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1ph21g name)
Received from interviewee on
Sent to interviewee on
Copy editing and second audit check by Pages Date
(name)
Final copies: Typed by
City of College Station
Memory Lanes Oral History Project
Oral History Stage Sheet
# of photos Date Recd
Pages Date
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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
`11c —
Remarks:
City of College Station
Memory Lanes Oral History Project
Memory Lane
Name
Interviewer
Interview Place
First audit check by
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•
Ora History Stage Sheet
(name)
Sent to interviewee on 1-I
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lntervie y �V �� Gl..
Interview date l
nterview length
/7? /f
4A J. k A /
T%i of 4
algfigraillair /.t i .1
Special sources of info' ation
Date tape received in office ' / / 2- / 6 1s_ # of tapes marked '2- Date (i /l 7 / c a
Original Photographs Yes No)( # of photos Date Recd
Describe Photos
Interview Agreement and tape di osal form:
Given to intervie ee Qn )' 5 Received Yes No
Date Signed ? 7 I !I 4 Restrictions- If yes, see remarks below. Yes No
Transcription:
First typing completed by �� _ � , ! Pages 1 P 7_ Date
Copy editing and second audit check by Pages
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Deposited in archives by: Date
19 4q_3
Ca(tut R k
- 7 Z6
Date
Remarks:
Memory Lan
City of College Station
Memory Lanes Oral History Project
�1
Name 1 , .A 0
Interviewer !K AS=s . 1
Interview Place mil! 0 . ►P
Special sources of infor" ation
Date tape received in office (0/ 17 -/ 4 j # of tapes marked 7- Date tp (l2 -1 4'
Original Photographs Yes No # of photos Date Rec'd
Describe Photos
Interview Agreement and tape di • osal for :
Given to interviewee on i '„ 4 Received Yes
Date Signed 3/24--/ 'l Restrictions - If yes, see remarks below. Yes No
Transcription:
First typing completed by / a � ,I . . _ Pages fP w Date tP I
First audit check by
Final copies: Typed by
Ora History Stage Sheet
Interview o.
Interview date S
Interview length
-k
re ()env._ I Al
/ — (name)
Sent to interviewee on (01 (name) ,�
Received from interviewee on
Copy editing and second audit check by Pages
(name)
Pages (k' -- Date
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Deposited in archives by: Date
Date
No
The City of College Station, Texas
Memory Lanes Oral History Project
INTERVIEW AGREEMENT
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.
I have read the above and voluntarily offer my portion of the interviews
with l-i?)<._ ( / 2 s. to i Loil (4-4 f<6fULE---)
'E4 4 l-4- . CLi
(Name of Interviewee)
to_t__4,...‹,,_.) deit_e_
d
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 Committee.
Interviewer (signature)
Date d
(--- cx- r,r I`ea R 1 rb.
Interviewer (Please Print)
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
A (i(JIG K J
Int viewee (Pls$ p Joint)
Signature of Interviewee
Y ■1. 1P)Ork.
erviewer (Please Print)
(
Signature of Interviewer
Place of Interview
List of photos. documents. mans. etc.
Na
. f . I BOX 1 4 - 0A -
Address
C74 L TX 7 c2 4 L
Telephone
Date of Birth ° 7 /1' /2 7
Place of Birth L5 f LL - a x
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.
Date
Initial
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. ; 7 l ( / 5 o
vi ( pr' t)
nature of �ntery ewee
--)
U \c_NC� G . RS vrk --
erviewer (Ple Print)
Signature of Interviewer
Place of Interview
List of photos. documents. mans. etc.
HISTORIC PRESERVATION COMMITTEE
City of College Station, Texas 77840
ORAL HISTORY DATA SHEET
na
Name
Address 3 /
Telephone
Date of Birth z-
Place of Birth7
INTERVIEW STATUS: Completed
Initial
In progress
Date
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.
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. J� 11
rl 5 � rnG em e-
Interviewee (Plea print)
• 61-
Signatvr a of n erv' ewes
y# /fie a J. 77 �S
Address
(q/1)- ‘7 -3_
Telephone
Date of Birth )I.4 7 /
�� << Place of Birth %►� ',uA/, c
terviewer (Please Print)
Signature of Interviewer
Place of Interview
INTERVIEW STATUS: Completed
List of photos, documents, maps. etc.
Name
Initial
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.
e& , �c
Date
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. // //
//9 N E , HER V L
Intervi wee,(Pleape pr'nt)
Signature of Interviewee
0`�ri 66, G. uric.
rviewer (Please Print)
Signature of Interviewer
Place of Interview
List of photos. documents. maps. etc.
Nam , �5�. ,eB� q/7 . e , 57 -
Address 77
Telephone `/
Date of Birth 9 7` g
Place of Birth * A ez_r
INTERVIEW STATUS: Completed
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.
� lc c2'i T - 1 q q ',
Date
Initial
In progress