HomeMy WebLinkAboutEarly Education II Panel Group 6Grou 6
J.H. Caddess
Teeny Wicker
Curtis Burns
Early Education - July 31, 1996 Room 106
Moderator: Nadine Stuth
Interviewees: Teeny Anderson Wicker, Curtis Burns, J.H. Caddess
NS: This is Nadine Stuth and today is July 31, 1996 and I am interviewing for the third
time. Let's see, your name is J.H. Caddess, Curtis Burns, and Teeny Anderson Wicker.
And the interview is taking place in room 106 of the Conference Center at 1300 George
Bush Drive, College Station, Texas. This interview is sponsored by the Historic
Preservation Committee, the Conference Center Advisory Committee of College Station,
Texas. It is part of the Memory Lane Oral History Project. Each person will introduce
themselves in an identifiable voice for the tape recorder. OK, if you would introduce
yourself and say when you came to College Station and why.
JC: Stand up and do it?
NS: No, they've got it filmed so they can get you.
JC: J.H. Caddess. C- A- D- D- E -S -S. I came here as a student in the fall of 1928, and
the class of `32, and I had a good reason to come over here. I came from Mississippi and
I found that the old Mississippi A &M, the student wages was 15 cents/ hour. Over here,
it was 25 cents/ hour.
CB: My name is Curtis Bums. My father, Doctor P.W. Burns was on the faculty of
Veterinary Physiology/ Pharmacology of Texas A &M. And, I was born in Bryan in 1931,
we lived in Bryan until I finished first grade. We moved on to the campus in 1937 and I
went to second grade in the old school there on the campus. And in the third grade we
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opened up the brand new school in this area. I went through freshman in Consolidated
High School, and the last three years at Bryan High School. When the faculty moved off
of the campus in 1940, my parents bought a home in College Hills.
NS: OK.
TW: My name is officialy is Mary E. Anderson Wicker. They. call me Teeny. My
parents moved here in 1928. He was called by the Presbyterian Church to continue to
establish an A &M Presbyterian Church here. I am one of the few children in the
community who actually lived and grew up at Northgate. That was sort of the church
center at the time and Manse for the Presbyterian Church was at the corner of Church and
College Main. With a cotton patch between the manse and the building. So, needless to
say, since and now back here, I lived out of state, I've seen lots of changes in the area.
NS: Well, you've brought these annuals, and you say that the "old school" and the
"new school ". Where was the old school?
TW: That was actually on campus. It will be interesting to me to hear some more
interviews. I started first grade and went all the way through Consolidated and graduated
from the new high school located about where this center is. At the time of the education
system, there were only eleven grades. No junior high. We had seven grades in grade
school, and four in high school. It was like that all over the state of Texas at that time.
When I and some of the others who were here started school, we actually started in a
white, two story building that was actually on campus. It was a wooden structure.
Someone said they think it is where the music building of A &M is now, but I am not
certain of that.
K
JC: Stucco, wasn't it?
TW: Yes, it was it was wood with stucco covering it. It was a square, two story
building.
NS: You were a college student when these ... you saw the children on campus going
to school?
JC: Oh, yes.
NS: And did you go to school on campus?
CB: Yes. Second grade I was in that stucco, two -story building that later on was called
the music hall. It was in the corner of the corps area which was being built at that time in
1939. And, across the street was Casey's Confectionery, which was a wooden structure.
It was at them East end of Lubbock Street which is no longer Lubbock Street, it is now
Joe Route Boulevard.
TW: Well Joe is Lubbock; it changes.
CB: It is a different street, though.
TW: Oh, is it?
NS: But there is a Lubbock on campus.
CB: But, Lubbock street used to be perpendicular to the railroad tracks (east and
west). And then they renamed the street after Joe Route who was in A &M a about 1936,
`37, `38, something like that.
TW: Outstanding fellow.
CB: Lost his life in World War H.
NS: So when... So this is the 1940's, so you had the new school in 1940?
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TW: I was trying to figure that out, and I think it was...
CB: About that.
NS: And how many students?
TW: It was a little later than that, I think, because I graduated in 1943. It has to be. I
mean the annuals are proof. They are far better proof than my memory.
NS: Well there are all the pictures of the grammar schools in here too.
CB: To the best of my knowledge, my second grade was 1938 -`39, on campus. So,
1939 -'40 school year was in the new school. I started school when I was six years old.
NS: Well, here is someone bending over in her bathing suit. Do you know who that is?
TW: Oh, no.
NS: I just thought that's a pretty wild picture there.
TW: Bending over, oh no.
NS: I mean, this is the back end, I didn't think you would probably recognize her.
CB: You would probably have to get some of the guys to identify that one.
NS: Now they might know who it is.
TW: I'm not going to give a name, but I think I know who it is.
NS: One of those we have to use discretion on.
TW: Yes, I'm not going to get caught.
JC: What again was your father's name?
TW: Norman Anderson.
JC: I knew him. I knew him well. I went to his fiimeral.
TW: Oh did you? Thank you for coming. He was a real fine man.
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CB: Went to your church?
TW: He was a real nice guy.
NS: Well, let's see. Here's all the different clubs. Were you in any of the clubs?
Either one of you? Here we have the press...
TW: Oh I was in it for about three years.
NS: And the dramatic club, and home ec.
TW: Jim Bonnen and I, as I recall, were coeditors of one of the annuals, and there is no
reference, I believe in this one. Anyway, the editorial staff was not listed in one of them,
and I believe that that was the year that we worked on it, and we opted, because of the
war years, to make it a school tribute to the war, and to not make any personal credits.
NS: Now, Mr. Caddess, have you lived here since, the whole time since you were a
student?
JC: No.
NS: You had no children that went through school here?
JC: I had one that went to Bryan. When I came here in 1928, there were two railroad
stations, the IGN, and the Southern Pacific. There were three railroad passenger trains,
north on each track, and the same south, so there was twelve passenger trains a day. And
the transportation from College Station to Bryan was either on that old road there, it was
on the old street car track. The old street car track ran in the `28 -'29 session, and then it
was abandoned.
NS: Yes, we were talking about that last time. I still wish it was here.
TW: You have some background in transportation.
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NS: Yes, my father was in Southern Pacific. Let's see, OK, they want to know if you
have brothers and sisters that went to school.
TW: I have two younger brothers who also went to consolidated.
CB: My brother is nine years younger than I, and he was born on the campus, and he
went through probably the same as I went through: Freshman in high school at
Consolidated, then three years at Bryan.
NS: They want to know how you got to school. Walk, I assume.
TW: All of us were great bicycle riders. I started out on a size twenty in first grade, and
drove all the way from Northgate to the campus. I mentioned that in transportation. We
had developed such an attitude and respect for the military, because there were no civilians
in A &M at all. Strictly the military corps. And to get from school to my house for lunch
and back, I had to pedal and go through the military formations going to mess. And cross
Military Walk which was just huge to us. And I didn't know whether I was going to get
into trouble riding my bicycle between the squads or the platoons or whatever, the
sections of the military, and I ould sit there and I think, "Oh gee, if I don't go, I'm not
going to get lunch. If I do go, I may get in trouble with some of that brass."
NS: (To J.H. Caddess) And now, you were a student marching around with all of
these little kids.
JC: Yes.
TW: All of the Aggies were always real sweet to us. They really were. They were neat
for us little kids and the teenaged girls.
NS: And did you walk to school or ride a bicycle?
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CB: Oh yes. Second grade, it was only two blocks `cause I lived on campus, our house
was on the comer where G. Rollie White Coliseum is, there at the comer nearest to Kyle
Field. So that was easy. Then, when they opened up this school, my house in College
Hills was probably not more than two miles, if I was getting around by road. A couple of
us would often cut through the pasture, and occasionally there would be an old mean bull
out there, and we'd have to run to get away from it. Whenever they had bulls out there,
we would go around. Otherwise, we would cut across. It's a golf course now, but it used
to be a pasture. I rode a bicycle to school often.
NS: Now you were telling us about how many elementary school and high school
grades. It was eleven grades...
TW: It was a total of eleven years, eleven grades. First through seventh were
elementary school, then four years of high school. With no junior high, we graduated with
eleven years of school, which put us quite young starting college. My birthday, for
instance, is in August, and we started school the day after Labor Day, so I was sixteen
years by one month, actually. And graduating in eleven years, I actually enrolled in
college before I was seventeen. Which put me out of college at twenty.
CB: Most folks graduated at sixteen. I, for example, skipped the 5th grade. I would
have been in the 5th grade in 1941, but I went to 6th. And, we liked that because
everybody always said the 5th grade was the hardest. Of course, we got the same material
as the 6th grade. But, it resulted in everybody normally graduating by age sixteen.
NS: You personally, or your whole class?
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CB: Well, our whole class jumped from the 4th grade to the 6th grade. We didn't have
a 5th grade because that year, must have been the fall of 1941 was when they went from
the 11 year to a 12 year curriculum. And each class, depending on what class they were
in, skipped a grade.
NS: I was always wondering how they made that transition. They just bumped you up.
CB: I just happened to be in the class that skipped the 5th.
NS: So, you really went eleven years.
CB: I went eleven years.
NS: Although it sounded like twelve.
CB: It sounded like twelve.
NS: OK.
TW: That was the transition, as I recall, that happened all over the state as far as
educational programs.
CB: Oh, yeah, it was. Of course, you know, back in those days we didn't have as much
to learn.
JC: I went to high school in Mississippi, and we had twelve grades over there. That
was before the twelfth grade was invented over here.
NS: Now, when you came as an out -of -state student, did you have a different tuition
like they do now?
JC: No. Same.
NS: The same tuition as the...
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CB: Out -of -state tuition. I don't think that came in until after the war. A &M used to
be a haven for people who wanted to go to college to get a good education that couldn't
afford more expensive schools. Aggies would come down here, bring almost all their food
and live in the Project Houses and share a very inexpensive rent. Very inexpensive. And
it was, it had a very good reputation in engineering, agriculture, and in medicine.
Particularly those three for out -of -state students. And my father was teaching Veterinary
Medicine, he had fifty percent out -of -state students. Particularly from states which didn't
have a Veterinary college. Well, until the war.
TW: We were the only Vet school in the state of Texas.
CB: We are still.
NS: I think there are other...
CB: Still is the only Veterinary school in the state of Texas.
TW: Oh, that's right, the medical schools have opened, but...
NS: Medical schools, right. We've had Baylor for about seventeen years, now. Now,
the elementary and the high school, were they in the same building or.... It shows they're
close, but they're not...
All: No, no, no.
TW: There was no elementary school that was a part of this complex, here. That was
strictly high school property. No elementaries.
NS: And where was the elementary, then?
TW: You know my brothers went there, and I don't remember where they used to go.
D
CB: Well, where was that picture that we were looking at? The elementary school
were those 1,2,3,4 about 4 one -story buildings immediately to the West of where we are
now. Between here and what street is that?
NS: Timber, is that Timber Street?
TW: Timber Street. West of here is Timber Street.
CB: Well, now when it was on the campus, this was high school. It was in Phifer Hall
TW: Thank you, I've been trying to remember that.
CB: Phifer Hall. And they tore that down during the '5 O's.
NS: Phifer. Must be with a P -h.
CB: P -h. Phifer Hall.
JC: My first night on the campus I slept in Phifer Hall.
TW: Did you really?
CB: And the grade school was the one we were referring to as later called the Music
Hall. And it was, to my knowledge, never a dormitory, I don't know what it was before it
became a school. And I have no knowledge of whether they built it as a school. It was a
rather ramshackled old building when we were there, when I was in second grade. For
example, the fire escape to the second story had been condemned, and all the kids were
supposed to stay off of it, of course that meant that we were always out climbing it.
When we moved here to this brand new campus, of Consolidated, you can see the
buildings in the background. This is the high school in two different units, and connected
by a covered walkway.
NS: Well, the other one was bigger.
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CB: Yeah, the other one was a better picture. Yeah! Here we are. You can see, clearly
see these buildings back here. Those were the elementary school grades 1 through 8,
after they went to the 12 grades.
NS: These windows look really high up.
CB: Well, the design for this was state -of- the -art. And the buildings were all oriented
towards the south. The sun coming over, it was gauged so that during the summertime,
the sun was high, and it would come down, and it would shine inside the building. And
during the wintertime when the sun was at a lower angle, the sunshine would come in
through the windows and provide additional warmth and lighting for the buildings.
NS: Did it work?
CB: Sure. Because they were not air - conditioned.
TW: There was no air - conditioning back then.
CB: The only thing that was air - conditioned back then was the Campus Theater.
Remember?
TW: I guess that is the reason we loved to go to the Campus Theater.
CB: Exactly.
NS: That's right. OK. It started after Labor Day.
TW: As I recall, as a general statement, all through my school time at Consolidated,
certainly in the early years, the school schedule matched A &M's schedule. Because so
many of the kids from school were children of the faculty. Or support system around the
college. And so we started school when A &M did, and we got out when A &M did.
We'd have a long Easter holiday, spring break.. .
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CB: We didn't have a spring break, but we had a good Easter holiday. There was no
spring break in those days. And Christmas holiday was about two weeks instead of a
month.
TW: Yeah, that's right.
CB: See, we'd get out about the middle of December, or a little after the middle of
December, and come back January 3rd or the first working day after New Years.
NS: But did the University start about that time?
CB: Same time. Same time. And as I recall it always went pretty well through the end
of May. I think I graduated from high school on the 31st of May of `48.
NS: In elementary, I guess we should talk about a typical day. What time of the day
did school start?
TW: It started the same time college did, because we didn't have any school buses, in
my first years. So as the parents went to work on campus, they'd drop the kids off at
school. So our classes started around eight. Not as early as some of them now, some of
them start at 7:30. But we went roughly 8:00 to 12:00, and 1:00 to 3:00.
NS: And went home for lunch?
TW: And went home, most of us did, in my years.
NS: Did they serve a lunch at school at all?
TW: No, in fact in my memory, in contrast to what happened later, it was just lots of
fun when Mom and Dad, when parents would let you bring your brown bag lunch, and
you could stay on campus and play.
NS: That was kind of an extra special day.
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TW: Yeah!
CB: I do not recall Consolidated High School having a cafeteria. Bryan, who is larger,
did have a cafeteria.
TW: And of course, you know, there was no government support program.
NS: Do you remember what they charged for lunch at all?
CB: No.
NS: Well, I can remember that I bought lunches for a quarter in the `50's and `60's, but
I can't imagine what it would have been...
CB: Probably about the same price.
JC: The ward in Sbisa Hall in my College Career on up through the Great Depression,
it was $21 dollars a month. But, we got no Sunday night meals. $21 dollars a month.
TW: I bet they made extra rolls at noon on Sunday, didn't they?
NS: Extra Rolls. I think that was standard even when I went to the University in the
`60's, that we just got no Sunday supper, or lunch. And recess. Did you have a recess?
TW: Oh yes.
CB: Oh yeah.
NS: Morning and afternoon?
TW: Yes. Morning I'm sure of
CB: I don't remember, but I do know that this field out there between the High School
and the Grade School had no grass, just had dirt, maybe a few sticker burrs, but it was
great for playing marbles. Marbles was the predominant activity. Also, I can remember,
since we're talking and got into the subject, I can remember spinning tops a lot. And also
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I can remember in the trees that are south of the grade school, we used to get out there
and play tin can hockey. But, the faculty and the teachers kind of frowned on that,
because we'd always come in with scrapes and nicks and bruises. Because pretty soon a
tin can gets into a crumbled up mass of tin. No aluminum in those days, it's tin. But those
are the three things I remember doing besides just roughhousing.
NS: No playground equipment?
CB: Don't remember any.
NS: What was the ... there was a man in the transportation group, and he talked about,
he had been a teacher and a school bus driver. And he said that the. ..I can't remember
what his name was, but he said that the faculty would go out and they would play with the
students, too. Kind of a fort on weekends and at lunch. You know, everybody got to
know each other real well.
CB: Well, it's such a small community, everybody knew each other real well. I think I
knew pretty much everybody in grade school, and when I got to high school, I certainly
knew everybody in high school.
TW: All of our families knew each other. The whole community was so small.
CB: Close knit.
NS: Well, how many were in your graduating class?
TW: I haven't stopped to confirm my memory by adding it up, but my memory is that
we had roughly sixty students start first grade with me, and we graduated forty students
eleven years later, which was the largest graduating class of that time. Incidentally, of
those sixty that started, ten were left handed. And Mrs. Sloop made no big deal, made no
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problem about it. They tried to get her to change us to right handed, and she said, "I am
about to retire, and I will not do it. I will not." And she lined us all up in one row, and
we were the left handed row, and if anything, we were special.
NS: Well, that's great.
CB: Mrs. Sloop had some very outstanding, but very outspoken ideas.
TW: Oh, absolutely.
CB: She was an early proponent of phonics. She was big on phonics. And we all
learned to read well.
NS: And you can spell well?
CB: Oh, let's say I'm not the world's greatest speller, never was, but that's a pure
memory function. But I can certainly read and write well.
NS: Well, I always thought that phonics would help with spelling.
TW: Most people you can tell. I've done a lot of transcribing in my former years, and
you can tell from typing. You can pretty much tell who has been phonetically taught,
because words they do not know how to spell accurately, you can spell them phonetically.
If it's P -H, and they don't know if it's P -H or F, it sounds like F, and you can interpret it
very easily if you have been phonetically taught.
NS: Let's see what I'm missing here. We've described recess ... What were you no
good at?
TW: Shorthand. I was no good at it in high school, and my father was going to have
me audit it at the University of Texas because he thought I would in the future. I couldn't
do shorthand. Kind of like spelling, it's an art.
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NS: Well, did they have certain math, English, at certain times of the day?
TW: Yes, I recall the regular school day program of the time. Our high school and
school system was very small. But we recruited the right staff. We had excellent teachers
many of whom had been professors...
------------- - - - - -- portion of interview missing due to end of side A of tape 1
TW(Cont.) The only, in my day, and realize I'm several years ahead of Curtis, but in
my day our main problem was that it fell in the area that some parents wanted their
students to have certain courses that they had had or felt that they should have. But there
were not enough to demand a class. They would alternate, tried to alternate every other
year, a course in Latin. And we had Spanish, we did not have French. Some of the
parents were eager that their children have Latin as a background for general language
understanding. But fortunately, for me, it never came up my year to take it.
NS: So you took Spanish instead?
TW: I took Spanish, two years of it, and still, when I get in the environment, some of it
comes back to me very well. The other thing, we had a little problem getting the
laboratory supplies and equipment and space for a Chemistry lab. I don't believe, in my
years, that Chemistry was taught. Physics was. Caroline Mitchell taught Physics.
NS: Was that because of the war, or was that because of just general...
TW: Well, of course a Chemistry lab is an expensive thing. And that room cannot be
used for other things because of the chemicals. I mean, because of the chemical storage
and all. And there may not have been, I don't know, there may have been a teacher
problem. But I did not take Chemistry in high school.
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CB: Was that this high school? This location?
TW: Yes.
CB: I thought there was a Chemistry lab.
TW: I guess there may have been by your day. Because we moved into this building
during my high school years. I went to part of my high school at Pfifer Hall. So we were
among the four first year students at the high school. But we really got a superior
education. If you go back and look through the what the graduates of A &M Consolidated
have done out of college, going various places; A &M University, North Texas State,
TSCW, University of Texas, and some of them went out of state. But if you follow
through with the graduates from Consolidated, you will find that they have done some
pretty powerful stuff. They had been very well educated and motivated.
CB: Well the community was predominately, at least the children were predominately
children of faculty. And this presumed a higher emphasis on education. And that's
understandable, but it's entirely true.
TW: There is a remarkable diversity of interest. Some of the fields represented, as they
matured, a high level of academic, corporate, and military acomplishment.
NS: A survey, an official survey of what everybody did, that would be ... Now you said
you belonged to several different clubs at the campus and what they were like and all. Do
you remember any particular clubs, social or academic?
TW: Well, I was in the Spanish Club. I tried to play the violin. Colonel Dunn was our
director, we did not have a band.
NS: I was going to ask, yes my children are in the band, now.
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TW: There was no band in those days. That is in my early school days, I'm talking
about grade school. Now Colonel Dunnof the A &M band conducted our orchestra.
Mother told me last night that he was a little upset about girls being in the band. And that
they would have to wear skirts. He was not going to let them wear pants like the boys
did.
NS: When did they start a band? Do you know?
TW: That was after my days at Consolidated. I do not remember our having a band at
all.
NS: Now, you're a little later...
CB: Yeah, Consolidated had a band. High school had one.
TW: What years were you there?
CB: I graduated from high school in `48, but I was over here in `44 and `45. I have my
Shorthorns from 1945. Consolidated had a band, as I recall. A football team and a band.
TW: I do not remember the high school band, now I cannot attest to the fact that there
was a band or not. Now, my what have you got?
CB: This is the `42 Shorthorn, the latest one you have.
TW: I did not have the `43 annual.
NS: And here's the orchestra. Here's the `41 orchestra.
TW: Yes, we had an orchestra, oh listen, we had an orchestra from the time I was five
years old.
NS: I don't, I see here the football team, but I don't see a band.
'rE:
TW: We had a pep squad rather than formally having cheerleaders. Of course, with no
band, in my era, we didn't need twirlers and stuff. So the pep squad was the thing to be a
member of, as I was. Pep Squad and the orchestra. I worked with the Shorthorn Annual.
I did a lot of stuff. I enjoyed extra - curricular activities.
NS: Here are pictures of the home -ec club, and somebody playing leap frog, here.
TW: Some of them I can identify, some I can't.
CB: Teeny, the group that were freshmen with you, or freshmen in 1942, were seniors
of ours.
NS: Now, the next thing they're asking about is: Did they put on any formal dances?
TW &CB: Oh, yes.
TW: We had proms. In fact part of girls education in the last two years of high school,
there was sort of an unwritten rule among the parents that as juniors, we girls could begin
to date the Aggies. Now, of course the high school boys didn't like that a bit. So, and
that was in the era before World War H, so we had the big bands coming around. These
gorgeous bands that came through. All the members of the big bands. And formal prom,
I mean corsages and floor - length, the whole bit. The Aggies would have dances on Friday
and Saturday nights with big bands. Some of us girls tried to work it out so that, unless it
was a special prom night in high school, it was routine from about March to May we
would try to go to the Aggie ball one night on the weekend, and go with the high school
boyfriend the other night. Trying to keep both fields open. But some of the guys in high
school didn't like that understandably; some of the guys, after the girls started dating
Aggies, would not date the high school girls.
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NS: Did you date any local girls?
JC: Oh, yes, married one.
NS: Married one, that's why you're still here.
JC: 61 years ago.
TW: Congratulations.
NS: How would you meet the Aggies? At church?
JC: In church group.
TW: In those days, all over the country, we didn't have the bars, the single bars and
women going to bars, and all this kind of stuff. And that goes back to where the church
and the town hall meetings and community productions were the center of that. We didn't
have that other stuff to do. Really the home, the church, and the community constituted
the social and the informational environment for the community.
NS: I agree, go back a little bit. So we don't have any former teachers, here in our
group, so we don't have to ask, talk about... they want to know what was the hardest
part about teaching. Well, what was the hardest part about being a student? Is there
anything? You seemed to have some good experiences.
TW: Nowadays, they would say that the hardest experience was the strictness and
unquestioned obedience that we had.
NS: As a boy, maybe.
CB: Well, yes.
TW: No, we just knew that we could get into trouble. I mean either at principal level or
at home. Realize the small community, once again. I already mentioned, for some reason
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in transportation, but they wanted me to play hookey one day, and I didn't want to, now
that I look back on it. But I didn't object to school. I was education oriented. But the
kids wanted me to play hookey, and I said, "I'm the only preacher's child in the
community. They know me in high school; they know me in the community; they know
my father and my mother in the community. I couldn't be away from the school for thirty
minutes, during school hours, without the whole community knowing it. And my father
would be here to greet me when I came back. And I've got dates lined up for two weeks
and I'd rather go on my dates than play hookey for one afternoon." So between the
school and parental discipline, which was true at that time too, when mama was home.
NS: When, I wish to go back to the prom, I guess it is an interest to me because my
daughter and sons are into that now, but, were they held in ... Where would they be held?
At the school, or ... I mean the high school dances, now. Now the Aggie dances were at. .
TW: Were at Sbisa hall.
NS: Right, but the high school dances, where would they be held?
TW: They were held in the gym.
NS: That old gym?
TW: That old gym that they took down. I don't believe they were ever held anywhere
else. I don't remember.
CB: I don't remember about Consolidated, but Bryan could often hold the dances at
the Country Club.
21
TW: The Bryan Country Club. I went to dances there. A lady had a home where she
did wedding receptions and also had a hall, I think it was on the 2nd floor on Main Street,
where a lot of private formals were held.
CB: Are you talking about Miss Maggie Parker's?
TW: Yes. Maggie Parker.
CB: She had a beautiful home here in Bryan, which also had summer outdoor
weddings, but also the 2nd story up there: Parker's. It was a place where adults would
get together and dance groups. A lot of my parent's friends had dance clubs from Maggie
Parker.
JC: The student dances were held in Sbisa Hall.
CB: Yes, they were.
JC: They brought girls down here...
CB: From TSCW.
TW: All of them brought them from home sometimes, toq which we locals didn't like
very much.
NS: Didn't like that, huh?
CB: Well there was two places for dates to stay in those days, in the `40's. And many
of the locals would rent spare rooms for, I don't know how much it was.
TW: I don't know either, but we had them in our house.
CB: My parents often rented a spare bedroom to the girls who came as Aggie dates.
Sometimes the same girl would come two or three years.
JC: Or the Aggieland Hotel on campus.
22
CB: That was usually fullfor a dance.
JC: Just west of Sbisa Hall. 2 story, I guess it was two story.
CB: It was more than two story, wasn't it? I had an idea that it was a big place.
TW: Well, that's the way everything looked. That's the way military walk looked. It
looked huge to me, and I look at it now.
NS: Mr. Caddess, on these dances, they'd bring in the bands. The big bands. Famous
bands, with a concert you would have a dance. Am I getting the picture?
TW: You know, this goes back to the days of Tommy Dorsey and Glen Miller and Red
Buttons and Everlee, and most of those bands, I don't think ...but they would arrange
something. And one of the requirements on campus was that the freshmen had to go.
They were optional for the upperclassmen, juniors and seniors. The guys had to have a
date for those dances. And that's the way, quite often, how many of us started dating the
Aggies and ultimately marrying some of them. Because the freshmen, the fish were in real
trouble if they didn't have a date to those things. And that was in the days of hazing, on
campus. So, the guys would, they'd scrounge `till they had girls with them. We local girls
got a lot of dates that way.
NS: You said they would have Aggie band, the Aggie band would play?
CB: Well, A &M had an Aggieland orchestra which was a very good quality dance
band. But, they would, two or three times a year, would have major bands come through.
TW: Rather often.
JC: The Aggie Band, and there was enough of them to constitute an orchestra.
CB: The Aggieland Orchestra.
23
TW: We also, really try to help identify this kind of thing with the era that I'm referring
to. From Consolidated, I went to the University of Texas in Austin. I couldn't enroll at
A &M. I really had, in high school, the experiences that many girls of that age group
would have had in college, but because of the war, big bands stopped, and transportation
stopped. You couldn't, the civilians were not as mobile; fabric even, you look back on
fashions, fabric for women during war, particularly later in the war, we were wearing
almost miniskirts. To cut down on fabric, everything slimlined. And as soon as the war
was over, the industry got started, skirts dropped to the top of your pumps, full skirts.
NS: Oh, yeah, the big petticoat.
TW: Because fabric was available. They were conserving fabric for military purposes.
CB: The new look.
TW: The new look.
NS: The new look, yes.
TW: I was privileged to have the college experience as a high school student as well as
a college student.
NS: Let's see, we've talked about the good teacher, the favorite, the one that taught
you phonics. The left - handed.. .
CB: Mrs. Sloop.
NS: Mrs. Sloop. OK, and.. .
CB: And her husband, Mr. Sloop, taught at A &M, and also taught high school over
here. (Mr. Sloop taught at Bryan High School. He taught Patti Caddess history).
TW: I don't remember him.
24
CB: You don't remember Mr. Sloop? I'll never forget Mr. Sloop.
NS: What did he teach?
CB: History, I believe.
NS: When you talk about the strict discipline in the classrooms, how would they... like
in the elementary level, you just knew?
TW: We just knew. That goes back to an era in which for instance ministers, and
doctors, school teachers were very definitely held in high esteem. They earned it, but they
also were respected. And if a teacher told you to do something, you did it. Now we
would get up in the classroom before the teacher came in, lots of spit balls and passing of
notes, and all this flying airplanes, but as soon as we saw the doorknob on that door turn,
we got back in our seats with a scramble, you could have heard it down the hall.
Everything got quiet, and we paid attention. But that was true in our era, we didn't argue
with the teachers.
CB: You're absolutely right. I mean, but let me give an example: When I was in the
second grade over in the grade school on the campus, a friend of mine, Wally Anderson
and I were horseplaying in the hall. We accidentally knocked over a statue, a plaster bust
of George Washington on a pedestal, and we broke his ear off. And we were marched
down to the principal's office, I don't remember the name of the principal, but both Wally
and I got paddled with a Ping -Pong paddle. And the interesting thing about it was from
grades 1 through 3, he used Ping -Pong paddles for his chastisement, but for fourth grade
and above, he had a little paddle that is not unlike the Aggie paddles. And I remember
that I was more careful in the hall after that.
KPI
NS: Did they glue his ear back on?
CB: I think they did. I think they glued it back on.
TW: The teachers were respected in those days, and in lots of cases, they still are, I'm
speaking in generalities. But they were respected, and they earned their respect. And
there wasn't a disciplinary problem. I would not have minded being a teacher in that
environment. Because if I were going to teach, I would like to teach and have learning
accomplished. And the environment now, in schools, where teachers do have a problem,
not only with discipline, but even personal threat, I would not be a teacher. I would not
want to teach and know that I had drug - oriented students in my class, that I had drug
dealers on campus and that some of my kids had guns and knives. That would not be an
environment in which I would want to do that. I might tutor in my home, because I like
learning and teaching.
NS: So because the community was so close that there wasn't... and some of these
schools always had the notorious bully...
TW: Of course.
CB: But, memories like that are long since suppressed. I have a tendency to remember
the good things. The funny things.
NS: Yeah, the funny things.
CB: Let me mention another teacher. And I think Teeny will remember her too,
probably. One of our outstanding teachers taught Texas History which was Mrs. John
Cecil Culpepper. Her husband was in the real estate business. She had a deep, personal,
26
family involvement in Texas history, and I think she gave everybody a great appreciation
for Texas history. One of the more interesting subjects.
NS: Sometimes they take Texas history field trips. Did you take any field trips?
CB: I don't remember. Although I know Washington on the Brazos is close, I don't
remember ever going there.
NS: Because you didn't have a bus. You didn't have a bus.
TW: Well, I don't know when the buses were started, I would not have been a
candidate for the use of one. But, I started school in 1930. And that was also during the
depression era. And you have got to realize that in those days you didn't have two cars
for the family and a third for the teenager. You were lucky as a family member to get the
car one day a week. Talking about Mama, because Daddy needed it to go to work. And
there were no vans, or station wagons. If you had a two -door car, I mean if you had a
four -door car with a back seat, you could, I mean it was not illegal to load it up in those
days. You could fit a lot of people.
NS: I know they do some ... at some places there was always tradition of a senior
trip. Did you?
TW: Yes, we had that. And by that time we did have buses, because we took the
school bus.
NS: Where did you go?
TW: Out of town but I don't recall where.
CB: During the first time when I was taking Texas history was during the middle of the
war. So we would not have been able to take the trip because of limits on transportation.
27
But, I can clearly remember, in those days, family travel, before and after the war. My
family took me to San Jacinto battlefield to visit the monument and the museum. And the
Washington on the Brazos. And my father came from Cuero which was very near Goliad
and Gonzales, which were battlefields of the Texas Revolution. So, I visited those. And
I've been to San Antonio to see the Alamo. I was steeped in Texas History. It was, to
me, always much more interesting than either the Revolutionary War history, or the Civil
War history. Although, in those days there were still a bunch of the Civil War Veterans
around. I know they used to have reunions down in Bryan in the library in Bryan. Civil
War Veterans Reunions met in Carnegie Library grounds at old courthouse area. Texas
A &M was closed for this event.
JC: There was an old lady in my home town from Mississippi. She was very dignified
and always went to church and everything else, and the one word she said was just "Damn
Yankee."
TW: It was all one word.
JC: All one word.
TW: One thing I remember from my family is that Daddy would never use that four-
letter word under any other circumstances.
CB: Basically, our parents were strongly influenced by 19th century culture. And a lot
of this rubbed off on us. I can remember when, before World War II, people talked about
"The War." They weren't talking about World War I, they were talking about the Civil
War. They were still fighting the Civil War, and I'm sure this is true in Mississippi as it is
in Texas.
28
TW: Well, if my grandfather would have lived he'd be about 109, or something, well
over a hundred. He lived to be ninety -four, and I was out of college, long since out of
college. He was a teacher, an educator, and he was born just a few years after the war and
he lived with, spent summers with an aunt and uncle in South Carolina who had relatives,
brothers and sisters involved in the and some killed in the Civil War. I wish I'd had
history from him because he really made it live. But, he told me when I married a
Kansan, he said, "You're marrying a damn Yankee ?" I said, "Well, that was a long time
ago, grandpa."
NS: There's a funny book called the Southern Belle Primmer and they always talking
about: It's not called the war, but the recent unpleasantness.
TW: Yes.
NS: I always thought that was a good way of describing the real southern belles.
TW: That is a darling book.
NS: Oh it's so neat.
CB: The war of Northern Aggression.
NS: Yes, I've heard that.
TW: I've never heard that phrase.
NS: Yes, that book is so funny. It's even true for the Texas Germans. You know,
we're southern belles whether we liked it or not.
JC: It's off of the subject, right now, but there is a... in Sherwood Nursing Home,
there is an old black man over there, 104 years old. And he boasts the fact that his father
was a slave. And he says, if not for that, he would never have the privilege, or the
29
41 opportunities that he has had in his life. And he criticizes the black leaders that are
perpetuating all of this country.
TW: Mr. Caddess, do you know this gentleman's name?
JC: His name is Ben, I had his name wrong for a while.
TW: Well, mother and dad through the church worked in the black community might
have known him.
JC: His roommate is a white man by the name of Rice. Down the main hall, first room
on the left, and there they are.
NS: He has lived in this community all his life? That whole 104 years?
JC: I can't complete the answer to that, but people like Martin Luther King, and all
those that have been more radical leaders, he criticizes them more than I do.
• ------------------------- - - - - -- Portion missing due to end of side 2--------------------------------
TW: We did not have blacks attending our churches in those days. But, the A &M
Presbyterian church here did considerable charitable or philanthropic exchanges with the
black churches in the community, also. Now they were never, to my memory, invited into
our church, but if we had used hymnals or Bibles, choir robes, this kind of thing, they were
given to the black churches. I recall pews and tables and chairs given.
NS: Now the Lincoln Center was probably a black school at one time. Now, was that
incorporated about the same time?
TW: I don't know. Another thing, I go back to the time when there was literally five
miles between Bryan and College Station. Considerable rivalry between Bryan and
College Station. In fact, the kids from Consolidated, to abandon the Consolidated, they
0
41(
• went to Bryan High! We're almost traitors for this. You know, I mean really, there was
considerable feelings between the two communities at that time.
CB: Yes, there was!
NS: Uh oh, we've got one.
CB: In my defense, I didn't have any input into the decision.
TW: No, no.
NS: Your parents just... You moved?
CB: Oh no. I got on the bus every morning and went to Bryan High School.
Sophomore, Junior and Senior, graduated from there.
TW: Some of my class and right behind me did. Either Consolidated went through
three or four years backsliding in the quality of education, or there was a fad of going to a
• larger school. I just don't know. It was never discussed in my home as a possibility for
me or my family. So I never heard any input as to why some of these students were
transferring. And it didn't last very long, three or four years. In my memory there wasn't
a lot of it; it wasn't over a long period of time.
NS: Well, now if you go to a different district than the one you live in, you have to pay.
They didn't have to pay, or you don't know? You could just transfer if you wanted to?
CB: I do say that it did one thing: It helped to improve the relations between the two
communities, as far as people my age, when we had a number of College Station kids who
was going to Bryan High School. And, before that time, before they went over there,
there was a great gulf between Bryan and College Station. And, this helped bridge the
gulf, for a while anyway. And then, later on the community grew together.
31
• TW: And you knew each other from your school experience if you got into the work
force.
CB: There was a more mixing of high school kids between Bryan and College Station, I
mean between College Station students and Bryan High School.
NS: Quite a few from your class, then?
CB: Quite a few, yes.
NS: It was kind of the parent's choice at that time.
TW: You have to realize that College Station played really small schools. I have
forgotten what football, sports classification we had, but we were playing Iola and Snook,
Tomball, and oh, who else? In those days, when they were wide spots in a road. Mother
said they had to clear a field in order to have a football game.
• NS: Well, I remember we played College Station when I lived in Hearne. In the fifties
and sixties, College Station and Hearne were on the same level.
TW: Well, I'm going back to say the forties.
NS: Well, so even further back it was really tiny. You said you married a local lady?
Did your wife go to College Station?
JC: No, she went to Bryan.
NS: She went to Bryan.
JC: Her father was an attorney over there and in those days an attorney was an
honorable man.
TW: That's right.
JC: They didn't take on cases like the lady who spilled the coffee in her lap.
32
• NS: Right.
JC: A million dollars.
NS: I'm looking at these beautiful... Mr. Caddess has brought his 1932 A &M annual.
And liking the fashions, now they have Vanity Fair, there's ladies. Now I guess these
were some of the ladies that came to the dances?
CB: Vanity Fair was selected from a number of photographs of girl iends that were
presented by the seniors. And, then there was always another section where they
published many pictures of senior favorites.
JC: Yes.
NS: I saw some ladies back there. OK, let's see if you can find your... See if your
wife's picture is in there, yeah. She might be in there.
• JC: I don't know who took those good pictures.
NS: Oh, look at those wonderful dresses. Too bad you can't get a good shot of those,
wow!
JC: Yeah, there's mine!
NS: Oh, there's your lady. Miss Patti Minkert. Yeah, there. So this is, and where is
your picture in there?
JC: My wife looked it up, there. Page 145 is one. That group.
NS: Front row, one, two...
JC: I was president that year. Over here.
NS: Did you go to A &M also?
CB: Oh yes. I graduated in 1952.
is
33
M
JC: I had an Aggie ring, but somebody stole it.
NS: That's too bad.
CB: Mine's barely recognizable.
NS: I was noticing it. It's worn.
CB: Two reasons: One, wearing gloves for flying Air Force airplanes when I was in
the Air Force, and the other thing is I believe they used to sell rings with a higher degree
of gold. So they were softer.
NS: What is it you're doing something here?
JC: I was on the tumbling team.
NS: Tumbling team, oh, you're watching the Olympics, wow. So, you weren't here in
`32, right?
CB: I was one year old.
NS: One year old. OK, you were born. OK, I'm trying to get my dates straight, here.
Oh, this must be your portrait. Oh, right here on the first one?
JC: There are a number of interesting things that people don't know around here. The
Administration building, and then the Academic building. Administration building was
built in an era of 1932 to `34. That was when the depression of `27 was still on. And
that building is architecturally superior, I believe still to any other buildings on the campus.
And that building cost in the neighborhood of $360,00.
NS: That's a lot of money.
JC: That's a lot of money. They used a lot of student labor. 25 cents an hour. And,
the trades, bricklayers and all those were getting a dollar and a half an hour. Now, I don't
M
• know what the Architect charged for a fee, but you couldn't get that kind of Architecture
done for the price of an old building, now.
NS: Well, you said you came here because the student labor was 25 cents an hour
compared to Mississippi.
JC: Yes.
NS: So what kind of labor did you do? On the building?
JC: Whatever kind there was. I worked mostly over in the Mechanical Engineering
Machine shops. You know, her name is Mrs. David Flemming (wife).
NS: Not personally, no.
JC: Her husband was in charge of the cabinet making for the Mechanical Engineering
Department. And they did all sorts of stuff. Making patterns. A lot of woodworking. I
I • contributed to the work.
NS: But, that was very common for the students to do labor?
CB & JC: Oh, yes.
CB: A lot of them worked their way through. It's hard to imagine working your way
through school at 25 cents an hour.
NS: I figured that was good pay the other universities were paying $.16.
JC: As of the day, yeah. A lot of people come by and ask me about what to do and if
they don't have the money, I recommend they get into the cadet corps and get a
scholarship. Or, if they can't do that, or don't want to do it, why go in on the coop
programs and work a semester at some firm, and go to school a semester.
KJ•7
• NS: There's lots of ways to do it. It has always been. Well, do you remember what
the tuition was? You said the room and board was...
JC: Not much. Some of those fees have been invented long since.
NS: The major cost- was it the tuition or the room and board?
JC: Room and board. $21 a month was a lot of money.
NS: OK, let's see if we've missed anything. You have lived in Bryan?
JC: Well, I graduated in `32 and came back to systems and got a masters degree in `34.
I worked at Gulf OR which is now Chevron down at the Gulf and Port Arthur for about a
year and a half. And I had a chance to go back to active duty and be a first lieutenant in
command of the administration part of the Civilian Conservation Corps, CCC. And that
was a six month deal, but I got and I came out of that.
I • NS: As far as our subject, you had children that went to school in Bryan and your wife
went to school in Bryan.
JC: Yes, we only had one son. Two granddaughters. One of them graduated here.
NS: Bryan or College Station, you granddaughter? A &M.
JC: She graduated from A &M. And three great grandchildren. Highway 6 hadn't
even been dreamed about. The Veterinary College off on that part of the campus, and all
that . Beyond that was private farms.
NS: So the Vet school was on the other side of campus?
JC: Oh, yes.
CB: You know where the Civil Engineering department is now? That was the
Veterinary Hospital.
I•
36
• NS: I know the engineering is in that one area.
CB: You know where the College of Architecture is?
NS: Yes.
CB: OK. And right across the street, to the north, the building has steerheads in
concrete all around the cornice. That was the Veterinary Hospital.
NS: Oh, the Animal Industries building?
CB: No, no, the Animal Industries building would be just across the street from the
Architecture Building to the west. I'm talking about on the north across the street. It's
on the same block with the big engineering building. Zachary Engineering building, but
it's closer. If you drive down there sometime and look at it, you'll see all the steer heads
cast in concrete around it. And that used to be the Veterinary Hospital. Now, my father
• and other disciplines in the College of Veterinary Medicine were in Francis Hall.
JC: It was all on this side of the railroad tracks, back in my era.
CB: Yes it was, yes it was.
JC: On that side of the tracks was where the field artillery and the cavalry was all horse
mounted and horse drawn. And all the stables were over there. And the cases for the
field artillery horses were stored over there. And, one of my classmates...
CB: May I look at this a minute?
NS: Sure. I was going to ask you, my husband's office, he's in range science, and he's
in that Animal Industries building. And it does have all those cast animals in the...
CB: Yeah, but that was for Animal Husbandry.
NS: When was that building built?
37
• CB: All those buildings, Animal Husbandry, Agricultural Engineering, what is now, or
what used to be the Systems Administration building, the Vet Hospital were all built in
that 1931 to 1936 era. Where the College changed it's face from facing the railroad track
to facing the Highway 6 that came in there from Houston. That's about 1936.
NS: I think it's a wonderful building, and like he said, it's so well built. He said they
had to do some equipment and normally, in a new building, they have to put all this stuff
that makes it steady and all this. They didn't have to do anything to that building. They
just moved it right in. And it is so solid.
CB: Do you know what building that is? That's Guion Hall. Guion Hall cost twice as
much to tear down as it cost to build because it was so well built.
NS: I'm glad they're redoing these others, now.
• JC: It was on one end of Military Walk and the other end was Sbisa Hall.
CB: And Sbisa Hall was on the other. Now, Sbisa Hall is still there.
NS: Right. Wonderful Tine drawings.
JC: Here are some of my classmates: Earl Rudder.
NS: Oh, he was in your class?
CB: Yes, class of `32.
JC: And the other one was Judson Loupot. He sold stuff all around here and people
think he's a real Aggie. He never got a degree. He was too busy working.
NS: Well, I thought that I had heard that somewhere that he really had never
graduated, but...
JC: Do you know the Veteran's Hospital over in Temple?
38
NS: The Veteran's Hospital there? Yeah.
JC: That's old Teague.
CB: He was a classmate of yours, too.
JC: That's right.
CB: Tiger Teague was `32.
NS: I used to work at the Teague building on campus.
JC: Old Tiger Teague worked his way through A &M. And about the first year and a
half to two years, he worked over on the other side of the railroad tracks where all those
horses are, and had to keep those things clean. And, then he got a job delivering mail on
campus. All that qualified him for Congress.
NS: Well, that's good. That's good.
• CB: One interesting thing: Tiger Teague and Judson Loupot were roommates.
NS: Oh, my. Well they're a very industrious group, that's for sure.
CB: They certainly were. `32 was a good classyou're in.
JC: Yeah. There were about 260 when I graduated.
NS: My house was built by a man, McNew, a Dr. McNew. Was he a professor or...
CB: John Thomas Lamar McNewwas a professor of Civil Engineering. There is an
interesting story there. I don't know whether Lamar would really want this told but, he
probably would. His son was at Consolidated at the same time I was about 1 or maybe 2
grades behind John Thomas Lamar McNew II, or maybe III. In any case, Lamar McNew
went to A &M and his father insisted that he take Civil Engineering. Lamar didn't want to
take Civil Engineering, but he took Civil Engineering. He graduated, got his diploma, and
Me]
he went and plunked on his father's desk and says, "Now I've done what you have wanted
me to do, now I want to do what I want to do." And Lamar went to Medical school and
is still a doctor here in the area. Dr. Lamar McNew. But he didn't want to take Civil
Engineering, he wanted to be a doctor. So he had his degree in Civil Engineering and,
subsequently went to Medical school.
NS: He and his sister came back and went through our house after we remodeled it.
CB: Are you living in their house?
NS: Yeah, we live in the McNew house. The brick one. He was telling us that there
was a pond in front of that house. He had a raft that his mama didn't like him to go out
on.
CB: Well, we called it a lake. Subsequently dried up to a pond, and then dried up to a
• grassy meadow, but it used to be, when I was a kid, it was a lake. I don't remember what
the name was.
NS: Dexter or Bryson, or whatever. The Woodcocks had it in- between the McNew
house.
JC: I came here as a freshman. The highway, I remember the one from here to
Navasota was a two -lane black top road that had a ditch and a fence on each side.
NS: It was paved, though.
JC: It was black top. And from Navasota to Hempstead was still gravel.
NS: So, how did you get here from Mississippi?
JC: (Hitchhiked) There's a picture in the annual here somewhere of people who would
hitchhike rides.
40
• NS: Well, now they talked about...
JC: And there's a whole line of them. And whoever got there first. And you didn't
have to have a ...you didn't have to be on probation to do it. In those days it was some
honest people around, and after my six weeks in the summer camp in the Army, and that
left another six weeks there that I couldn't get a job. And I hitchhiked across eighteen
states and the District of Colombia. Over half of that time was
NS: That is an interesting way to get around.
JC: Yes, it was.
NS: In Transportation they were telling us about the etiquette of how you got a ride.
How you found a ride.
JC: Had the old Aggie bag with you with sneakers on.
• CB: Well, the number one person in the line would have the choice. Let's say he was
on the south line which was at Eastgate, and a car came up, say going to Hempstead. If
the number one person in line wanted to go to Houston, he'd either take it and then stop
in Hempstead and get another ride, or he could pass it up, and it would pass on down until
somebody would take it to Hempstead.
JC: We used to beat around the campus and go to Bryan in a local car.
CB: Oh, yeah. You'd always ask how far they were going. Hitchhiking was still the
primary mode of Aggie transportation when I was in A &M from `48 to `52.
JC: The old cotton trucks would go through and they would go back empty. The bed
in one of those big flat bed would fit twenty, thirty Aggies.
NS: Oh, the cotton trucks! Oh, that's a new one!
41
. JC: They'd sit on the side of it with their feet hanging off. Riding.
NS: Here's somebody playing ... Well, I know one thing, being married to an ecologist,
he looks at the pictures and how flat and how open the country side is. And now it's so
broke up. It was really a prairie or ... was it open or was there a lot of brush and trees?
JC: Well, there were a lot of trees, too.
NS: This is probably out in the ... do you see how open? You don't see any brush like
Youpon or any of that stuff like used to. I am assuming this is out there on the other side
of the tracks where these people were practicing.
JC: Yes, here you see a bunch of scrub. But that's...
CB: That's Summer Camp.
JC: Yes, Summer Camp.
I * NS: Now, where was that held?
CB: Various places. Various Army bases. It depends on what branch of the Army you
were being trained in.
JC: The Army camp was up north of San Antonio, there. Camp Bullis. We had one of
our cadets killed. He was camping over there, and he was riding down through there in a
creek bed and a bunch of flat rock, there. And the horse slipped and fell and I don't know
how the horse got along, but it killed the rider. I'm partly deaf right now because I was
out taking the photograph of the 75 mm cameras fired. I got some good pictures there,
but I didn't protect my ears.
NS: Was the Air Force before your time?
42
• CB: My father was in the class of `23 at A &M. And, during the few years there, they
had an air service branch like the infantry and the artillery in A &M. It didn't persist until
W.W.H. But, he went to summer camp at Brooks Field in San Antonio. And they put
him through the Army Air Corps observer training course. And he came out as a rated
observer. And I have a picture, a photograph of him in a DH -9. He was 20. And I was
struck by how uncanny the resemblance between he, at that age, and myself at that age.
My father didn't go in the Air Corps after graduation. He came back to A &M and went
through Vet School and stayed on to teach.
NS: And so he taught.
CB: He taught here from 1927 until he retired after 41 years.
NS: Did he meet girls in Vet School?
• CB: Well, he met my mother who was from Bryan. Se was from Wilcox at a farm out
this side of Tabor. And, they were married in 1927.
JC: What is Reverend Anderson's daughter's name?
NS: She's not on there because she didn't think she could come. Her name is Teeny.
Teeny Anderson Wicker.
JC: Teeny?
NS: Like fi fteen. Teeny. T- E- E -N -Y. Because I thought it was Terri, because just
looking, but I knew her name was a different name.
CB: Wicker is her married name.
JC: I knew her father quite well. I was...
NS: I think her mother is still living.
43
0 CB: That's what she said.
NS: She was going to go to pick her mother up.
JC: Well, the head knockers at the time I was here were:
T.O. Walton, the President. Dean Puryear, the graduate school. Dr. Francis, the
Veterinary Medicine. Dean Bolton, the Engineering. Colonel Anderson, the
commandant.
Dean Friley, Arts and Sciences. Dean Kyle, Agriculture, of Kyle Field. Winkler of
Vocational Training, which turned out to be in ... Mayo was the Librarian. Charles W.
Crawford, Mechanical Engineering. Wingren, Faires. Truettner - Long, Brewer,
Iownard, Henry F. E. Giesecke, Architect.
CB: All these people are very familiar to me because they were still there during the
• latter 30's. And their kids, I grew up with. Charlie Crawford, his daughter lived around
the block from me, and Rusty and Wally Anderson were Colonel Anderson's sons. I'd be
interested in going to a session like this one on families living on campus. Get together
with people I grew up, who lived on campus. Knox Walker made a plan of where
everyone lived on campus in 1947.
NS: I mean, you've got a lot of names that are familiar even to my newcomer, myself.
We've been here twenty years, because they have lots of buildings and things.
CB: Yes they are, and streets named for them.
NS: And you went to school with all these people's children. So, did everybody live on
campus? Not everybody, but.. .
44
is CB: No. The faculty members living on campus, were generally heads of departments
and above, plus there were a number of administrative or houses over on the North side of
campus tending to be people in Building And College Utilities and other campus services
like the manager of the power plant. And, the other faculty members predominately lived
in College Park, Oak Wood, or College Mills editions. And then, in the forties, they
opened up North Oak Wood on the North side, over there. There were a few families that
lived in the Northgate area. The Northgate area was rather sparse.
NS: Teeny said she was one of the few people that lived in that area. Because of the
church.
CB: I remember where, exactly where she lived. Because I was Presbyterian, I went to
that church.
is NS: The minister lived near the church.
CB: We used to have Presbyterian church in the Assembly Hall on the campus before
they built the present church in College Station.
NS: It's the same Presbyterian church that is there now?
CB: Well, it was built, I don't remember when it was built, but I remember when I was
a kid the Presbyterian church held services in the Assembly Hall. The Assembly Hall was
a huge, ramshacked, wooden building across the street from the YMCA. It was a real fire
trap, and they finally tore it down before it burned down.
NS: Yeah, one of those. See, my children went to preschool at that Presbyterian
church, and I was just wondering... It's still in Northgate.
CB: I believe they built it during the `40's or `50's.
45
I* NS: Look here, were they wearing helmets on their football team, it doesn't look like
much of a helmet if there was one.
JC: It was a leather helmet.
CB: They were leather helmets.
JC: There has been lots of things to talk about. I think most of the talking has been off
of the track of what you were assigned to do.
NS: Well, we kind of covered all of the questions without asking the questions, really.
I'm seeing if there's anything we missed, I really don't know.
JC: As an engineer, taught in Mechanical engineering, teacher retirement after 37
years, but all of that wasn't teaching. There was four years when I was away back into it.
In 1958, I was over in the Orient.
• NS: In the Orient?
JC: Yes. I've learned one really good thing about the Muslims. They don't get along
with each other. If they did, the rest of the world would really be in trouble.
CB: You are absolutely right, there.
NS: I was just going to look at these dresses, here.
JC: I had the pleasure of
It consisted of three
commercial ships: The Mariposa, 24,000 tons. It's still in use. The President Coolidge,
33,000 tons, I don't know the location of where it is now, and the President Monroe was
dropped off in the Fijis. One of the cruisers that ran in the Air Force, and it took from
December 7 to January 12 for that to set sail.
CB: Where did you go? Hawaii?
46
•
JC: No, we went over there. Way, we landed in Melbourne, Australia.
NS: Melbourne, oh. That's a long trip.
JC: Ten days at shore during which time we uncrated, tested the equipment we had,
recrated it, and reshipped on Australian ships. Still an American cruiser for the Air Force.
NS: Well, let's see, I think it's about time for us to quit, but I just want to make sure.
Well, I thank ya'll for being here, I guess I'll make sure I haven't missed anything. Oh,
the only thing we haven't talked about is a typical Christmas holiday. I guess ya'll were
talking about they are two to three weeks long.
CB: It was a few days before Christmas, until the first school day after New Year's.
JC: Thanksgiving was about three days.
CB: Because of the game.
•
NS: Because of the game.
JC: Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
CB: We would always have Thursday and Friday off for Thanksgiving.
NS: Now, in Transportation, they said that nobody was ever in town on the Friday after
Thanksgiving, because they were all down in the Foley's, shopping. Is that true?
CB: I don't recall that, but I do know, back in the `40's, particularly. In the `30's and
`40's, people commonly would go to Houston on the train, shopping. But then they'd
come back that afternoon, or that evening.
NS: So you had like 12 trains running back and forth. Was there any community or
school celebrations at Christmas?
is
47
• CB: Oh, yeah, every year we'd have a Christmas tree, and have a Christmas program
the day before the Christmas break started.
NS: I can remember doing Christmas pageants, some with church and some with
school.
JC: A semester was eighteen weeks. We registered over in Sbisa Hall, there, wasn't
any computers and all of that. And the next day every teacher had a roll, written roll of
her students in that class.
NS: And how many were in your class?
JC: A typical class was 30 or 35.
NS: And in elementary school, were there big classes?
CB: I believe the early grades, first, second, third, were usually about two classrooms.
• Two homerooms, more or less, if you want to call it that. Although it wasn't like a
homeroom. We had all of our classes in that room. But second grade it seemed like there
were two different rooms, adjacent rooms. Seemed like it could be... Seemed like by the
time we got to the seventh grade, everybody was kind of together in the same room.
NS: Yeah, you have your ID, there. They will know who you are.
JC: Well, I'm the only one in the local phone book.
NS: What nationality is that name?
JC: It is a distortion of an old German name.
NS: I know Stuth, we're the only Stuths, and that's an old German name.
JC: Now, I looked up the other day, and Chan, I counted 19. And Chin, there's over
40. Chan and Chin. They're common Chinese names like Jones and Smith.
If
48
0 NS: That's right!
JC: And that's local.
NS: That's local.
JC: And, in the paper the other day, it told of Florida. Miami has a population now of
2 million, of which 12 percent are white, 24 percent are black, the rest of them are a
combination of Cubans, and what nots.
NS: They've got a big Spanish community down there. Hot music from down there.
As all you young people will know. All right, well I guess we better close this thing
down. Thank you very much.
The following is added information to the oral history that she wanted to include because
0 she had to leave the session early.
My name is Mary Evelyn Anderson Wicker, more often known as "Teeny ". My father
was Rev. Norman Anderson called to the A &M Presbyterian Church of College Station
when it was still under the Home Mission program of the Synod. He and my mother,
Mary Evelyn Dunlap Anderson, moved here in 1928 when I was two years old, from Taft,
Texas. At that time, there was no church building but the burgeoning membership had
built and provided for us a manse at the corner of Church Street and College Main, at that
time a dead -end street at the north corner of that property. As my father helped the
church to grow, we met for worship and youth fellowship Sunday evenings at various
places including Guion Hall, the Campus Theater (a movie theater), the Assembly Hall. the
49
Chapel of the YMCA, and I Imagine in my early childhood in homes as the congregation
was small and growing. Without being able to acquire the funds from church members
locally and around the state or from former Aggies sufficient to build a new church
building on the property subsequently purchased at the comer of Boyett and Church
Street, my father arranged to buy and move a military chapel from a military base. We
believe this to have been the U. S. Air Force Base at Victoria. This was opened for
services in the summer of 1948 and the current sanctuary of the A &M Presbyterian is still,
in 1996, the basic military chapel. The manse and property at the comer of Church and
College Main was sold when my family bought a home previously on the A &M Campus.
The manse still exists as a rent house at the comer of Boyett and Church Streets. The
Assembly Hall mentioned in the interviews was on the property now occupied by the
• A &M Chapel just north of the YMCA. This building was used, as were other assembly
halls of that era, for movies, theater productions, speakers, community assemblies, etc. It
was truly an "assembly" hall for the community of College Station and A &M.
I qD
50
I cannot let the omissions of the narration of page 45 remain
unanswered. My schedule required that I leave this session
before it was over:
My name is Mary Evelyn Anderson Wicker, more often known
as "Teeny ". My father was Rev. Norman Anderson called to
the A &M Presbyterian Church of College Station when it was
still under the Home Mission program of the Synod. He and
my mother, Mary Evelyn Dunlap Anderson, moved here in 192$
when I was two years old, from Taft, Texas. At that time
there was no church building but the burgeoning membership
had built and provided for us a manse at the corner of Church
Stree and College Main, at that time a dead -end street
at * /I corner of that property. As my father helped the
church to grow, we met for worship and youth fellowship
Sunday evenings at various places including Guion Hall,
the Campus Theater (a movie theater), the Assembly Hall,
the Chapel of the Y.M.C.A. and, I imagine in my early childhood
in homes as the congregation small and growing. Without
being able to acquire the funds from church members locally
and around the state or from former Aggies sufficient to
build a new church building on the property subsequently
purchased at the corner of Boyett and Church Street, my
father arranged to buy and move a military chapel from.a
military base. We believe this to have been the U.S. Air
Force Base at Victoria. This was opened for services in
the summer of 1948 and the current sanctuary of the A &M
Presbyterian is still, in 1996, the basic military chapel.
The manse and property at the corner of Church and College
Main was sold when my family bought a* home previously on
the A &M Campus. The manse still exists asa rent house at
the corner of Boyett and Church Streets. The Assembly Hall
mentioned in the interviews was on the property now occupied
by the A &M Chapel just north of the YMCA. This building
was used, as were other assembly halls of that era, for
movies, theater productions, speakers, community assemblies,
etc. It was truly an "assembly" hall for the community
of College Station and A &M.
Mary A. Wicker
9/15/96