Do you remember seeing in the paper recently,
the last week, where Frank Williamson died? Yeah.
One of the women's authors asked me if I knew
him, and I said, that name's familiar, but
I, you know, I just, I can't place him.
She said, his wife's name is Janella.
And I, it still didn't ring a bell, you know.
And so I thought about that, and I thought, and
I told her, I said, I remember a Larry Williamson.
He married Alice Sheffield, and he died really young.
Had a heart attack.
And I got home and picked up the paper and
started reading that.
Most of it came to me.
Of course I knew him.
His father worked at Culpeper's, and they were
members of our church.
He had a younger sister named Virginia.
And he had a brother named Billy that works at
Culpeper's now.
And then this Larry was in between that died.
Oh, a good many years ago.
And Janella, of course I knew Janella, and she
worked for the city.
And I hadn't seen them in years.
So, you know, I just kind of...
I think it's Janella, I think is the one that
works for the Baytown Sun,
has that column right there, Janella Boynton.
Oh, yeah. But...
I want to, I think I want to start out.
This is an interview with Willa Bean Hines.
And see, what's your address, Willa Bean?
803 North Jones.
803 North Jones in Baytown.
And this is February the 11th, 1976.
And I understand you've been raised in Baytown
quite a few years.
Can you, what's the first address you can
remember that your family lived at?
119 West Street.
Do you remember what, what, I mean, as the
property now stands,
is the property now still there?
Yes, it's still there.
But it's not your family anymore? No.
We moved there in 1925 and lived there until, I
think, about 35. Thirty-five?
Thirty-four, thirty-five.
And my mother sold it to a group of doctors
that turned it into the Baytown Hospital.
Oh, the Baytown Hospital.
The original Baytown Hospital.
Do you have any idea who owned it before your
family did?
I don't know.
Tell me who they bought it from.
I don't know who.
I don't guess I ever heard that.
Well, Willa Bean, when you first recalled, it
was your public,
who's your family consist of?
I mean, how many members and who was living at
that time?
Do you remember?
Oh, my father was dead.
That's why we moved to Baytown and my mother.
And I had an older sister and brother.
And that's where a brother of my mother's lived
with us.
What was your brother's and sister's name?
My brother's name is Shirley J. Hines.
My sister's name is Amy Ruth Hines.
What was your mother's first name?
Nettie Alice Hines.
Or Nettie Lion Hines.
Her maiden name was Lion.
Was your mother a native Texan? No.
Or was she from out of state?
She was a native of South Louisiana.
South Louisiana.
Do you know what the circumstances were
when your father and mother married?
Did they meet in Louisiana?
Yes, my father worked in Alfield.
The story goes that he saw her and was attractive.
Met her and dated her and they married.
Was your father, what was his full name?
His name was Will J. Hines.
Will J. Hines.
And was he not a native of Texas or was he out
of state?
No, he was a native of Mississippi.
He was born in Kosciusko, Mississippi.
Kosciusko, yes.
That's in the, up toward the Natchez Trace area.
Yeah, kind of north.
North central maybe.
Do you remember, was he, I guess he found
himself in Louisiana
in the oil business I guess then.
That's how he got out.
He was working in the oil field there and then
he went to West Columbia.
They lived in Ged, which is no, it's not really
a town anymore,
it's just the remnants of a community.
Do you remember what your,
the wedding date for your mother and father
when they were married?
Did you ever recall your mother saying that?
No, I really don't.
But they were married in Louisiana.
Do you recall having your mother say anything
about where her family came from?
Like her mother and father.
Well, I think they were from South Louisiana.
I don't know.
What about, had you ever heard your father say
much about his family, Mississippi?
Had they come to Mississippi?
His father came to Mississippi from Alabama.
Originally, so my aunt discovered in doing a
genealogy survey
that the Hansies came from, I believe she told
me Delaware.
My grandfather stayed in Mississippi.
He first went to Louisiana and then back to Mississippi
and then he had a brother that settled in the valley.
Do you have recall how many brothers and
sisters your daddy had?
My daddy had one brother and three sisters.
Did you ever know your grandparents on either
side of your family?
I knew the grandparents on my mother's side.
My grandfather died the year after my father did.
I don't really remember him too well, but my
grandmother lived,
I don't know what year she died, but she lived
a while.
She was aged.
She stayed in Louisiana?
No, she lived here.
She was here in 1918. My mother's two bachelor
brothers moved in here
when they were working in the oil field and
they resided over on East Right.
They had a married sister that kept house.
What was your grandmother's name?
Her maiden name?
Her married name was Line and her maiden name
was Gill, Ellen Gill.
Do you ever remember visiting her? Yes.
I used to go from our house over there to visit.
I don't know how often, but it seemed like at will.
Do you think you could describe just your trip
from your house over to her house?
The thing I remember about it most was there
were asphalt streets.
That was an asphalt street.
Of course, like most kids, I was barefooted
and the thing that I remember most is stumping
my toe on that asphalt
and having a sore toe and not being able to
wear my shoes.
What about the asphalt being hot in the summer?
Do you remember that?
Hot, but you could get off on the side and not
have to walk on it.
Suppose that you think back, say you left your house,
how would you have gone to your grandmother's?
I left my house on West D.C.
Usually I went down the railroad track until I
got to Wright Street
and then I would cut across and go down Wright Street.
Do you recall any buildings en route that are
probably still standing?
Do you remember a significant building?
Well, not really, because the one I remember
the most burned
was that a couple of years ago the old oiler theater
that was a furniture storage place.
Then there was a frame building across the
street down the corner
that I don't really know what it was, an old
bus station I guess.
Then all those buildings, they were buildings
on Main Street
with their bikes to the railroad.
Right, you were behind the main...
I was sort of behind them.
There was a double railroad track and we would
walk the center
when we would go to the east side of town
and we could go all the way to East Sale.
In other words, as I recall, the city myself,
you'd go across what is Guff Street now,
wouldn't you? No.
Would you cross that little railroad?
D.C. is north of Guff and I lived right in the
middle of the first block.
Another reason we went down the railroad,
I guess my mother approved of that because it
kept us off the street.
It was just a passway.
Do you recall if you had busy the railroads?
Was there any trains much?
No, not too much.
There was train to Dayton, that was about all.
My first train ride was from Goose Creek to Dayton.
That was quite a trip, wasn't it?
That was quite a trip.
Do you recall the name of the railroad?
Was it the Missouri Pacific or the Southern Pacific?
Oh, Southern Pacific.
Then and now.
Do you remember, you don't happen to call what
you paid, do you?
No, I didn't pay anything.
No, it was a free ride.
A friend took me and I'm sure she paid the fare.
Do you remember waiting in the depot with a
train to come or any kind of circumstances?
I sort of remember being on the platform.
I don't recall that I was in the depot.
We lived so close, we knew.
You were used to trains, though, weren't you? Yeah.
On the tracks.
Can you remember, just thinking back to those days,
can you remember what kind of cars that stayed?
Did your family have a car?
My family didn't have a car.
Well, you didn't really know what you left your town.
Well, my office did.
They had to have a car.
And the first one, I guess I really remember,
was an old Model T that my mother and bachelor
brother had.
And he at that time worked in Barbers Hill.
And sometimes, I don't know how old I was,
but that was my first time to drive.
He'd sit in his lap and steer his car.
What do you recall, say, do you remember at
that time,
if you ever took a trip in his car, say, to
Barbers Hill or anything,
did you go that way or what kind of roads were they?
Oh, the roads were terrible.
If we went back to Orangeville, where we came
from here,
that was just a major job.
The roads were not good, and you had to go when
it was dry.
It was wrong for bad weather.
You couldn't go very fast because the roads
were bad.
Do you remember ever making a trip in a car to
Houston in those days,
in the car? Yes.
How would you go?
Well, the bus station was, at that time, had
moved from the corner.
And later, it was back there in more recent years.
But it was sort of in the center of the block
between Texas and D.C.
It was a short walk.
He had a touring car, and that was the bus to Houston.
It had a seat.
Would it be a regular schedule to go?
Yeah, they had a regular schedule, as I recall.
You'd have to go to somewhere about the bridge
at 146.
There was a ferry, and you'd go across the ferry.
Was that called the Cedar Bayou?
Then you traveled up by way of Highlands, which
Highlands wasn't there then.
How'd you get across that river at Highlands?
Well, that's what I'm fixing to tell you.
We'd go up what is now the Barrett Station.
And there was a pump station there.
I don't remember what kind, what company.
And you'd make a west turn on that.
And it was somewhere in the vicinity of where
old Highway 90 is now.
But you'd go across the river there.
And then later, they built the bridge across
the same center river where we now know. Yeah.
But the bridge, that was the only bridge then,
wasn't it?
Kind of where old 90 probably was. Yeah.
You'd call anything.
And that was an all-day trip to Houston.
I just thought you had to get on there.
When you went to Houston, it was sort of an all-day.
Well, in the first place, you had to, I imagine
the schedule of the trip was such that people
could do their shopping or take care of their
business and then come back in the afternoon.
Do you recall anything where it went? No.
Probably went downtown somewhere, I guess.
Well, it went downtown, but I don't know.
Where you got off, anything like that?
The first bus station I remember was the one
over on the other side of Main.
And it was sort of where old Market Square is now.
That was the first one I remember.
Did you, at that time, you could call it the,
if they had a train that went over there, was
that train?
Oh, yeah, they had trains.
We had two train stations, and we had an
interurban that was a Missouri Pacific line
that left to here, well, later.
I don't know what year that was either.
But left Baytown and went through Highlands and
went to Houston.
And they had a bridge across the river there, I guess.
And I don't know where they crossed, I don't
remember, but they did have a bridge.
But you made that trip?
A few times.
Do you recall how long it took you to go there?
I don't know.
But not very often.
We just didn't travel very much then.
So the adults went to Houston to take care of business.
Where would you, for instance, like at a
Christmas shop, and you're not going to buy
your Christmas presents.
Did y'all just, you used to go right here in Baytown?
Did you ever go over to Houston for that?
We didn't.
We got one present, and I imagine my mother
ordered them.
Probably from Sears and Roebuck.
Oh, that reminds me.
Do you recall offhand the first time you ever
went to the post office in Baytown?
Do you remember where it was and ended up at
the post office?
The post office, I believe, was on Texas when I recall.
We had boxes.
And I don't remember what our box number was.
For a long time I did.
It was a two-digit number.
And I remember where it was.
I mean the location in the post office.
Do you remember the postmaster's name? No.
The first postmaster, I guess I really knew,
was Flo McElhaney.
And she was postmistress, I believe, when that
big post office was built.
I bet she'll know where it was.
I bet she'll know where it is.
She's probably two minutes.
Is that all?
No, it's just she's talking.
Where was the first post office, do you remember?
Come in here.
On Texas?
We went on Texas and we had a post office box
that had two digits.
Was it 16?
It had a combination, no key.
And you had to move the little combination.
I had a combination.
Do you remember, going back to what you
remember offhand,
the first grocery store you remember?
The first grocery store I remember that we traded.
My mother had an account at Kelly's. Kelly's.
Do you remember where it was located from your house?
It was located sort of in the middle of the block,
probably about where that famous brand shoe
store is on Texas Avenue.
On Texas Avenue?
And it seemed like it jiggled around.
It moved, you know, maybe sometime or other.
Was it a pretty big store?
And later on it moved down to one block west,
where probably the TSO is now.
If you could think back, say, back those days,
you know, first came to Baytown,
and you walked down Texas Avenue safe from your house,
say, going west.
Can you remember what was on the,
what would you be coming to first?
It was about two blocks long.
About two blocks?
About two blocks long.
The first and second block were about the only
ones that had any stores in it.
What would be a place, would you be able to,
were there a drug store in that area?
The drug store was behind us, and it was Wood's
Drug Store.
Wood's Drug Store.
And then there was the grocery store?
And there was a bank on the corner, what was
the Security State Bank.
It's where, I don't know what's in that
building now.
They're on the corner of Asheville and Texas,
and next to it was Wood's Drug Store.
Cross Street with Herring Drug Store, both.
No, it does a block from Kenyon.
The block down?
In the first block, also 100 blocks.
Did they have a picture show?
Yeah, we had the first movie I remember going
to was the O'Lorra Theater,
and they had silent movies.
And then later on, the McKinstry moved the
theater around to Texas Avenue,
and the spot that is now, it was next to Culpeper,
where old Culpeper used to be.
Was that a tree in the street?
No, it was two, four days.
Two, four days?
Second block.
It was in the second block, and on the corner
was Gooberman's.
What was Gooberman's?
That's now the cage.
Was that a clothing store?
It was a clothing store, Gooberman's.
And above it was the Baytown Hospital, until
they bought our house
and moved it around to 119 West Street.
And then next to it was Culpeper's.
And then next to that, I believe, was the Texan Theater.
But it's been changed, so it's kind of hard to
say exactly what spot.
They had a sweet shop, a little tiny place that
was called the Sweet Shop,
and then next to it was the movie.
Would that sweet shop be things like bakery products?
No, it was just kind of a candy store
and a place where you bought things to go to
the movie.
I think it's called the Sweet Shop.
And I don't recall.
We bought candy.
Do you know what else they sold?
But before that, all the theater was on the
corner of Conroy, DC. Yeah.
It backed up our apartment.
Well, Bill remembers that.
It burned about two years ago.
Yeah, it did.
I know Bill. Furniture.
What was there, a furniture store?
There was a cafe back there that backed up in
the alley to our... Eli's?
Eli's Cafe.
And then next to that was Kilpatrick's Hardware.
Do you remember who ran that Eli's Cafe?
It was Greek. Greek.
The Greek and spoon.
One time we went to, my sister and brother and
a cousin,
that's my sister's age, went to church.
We went to the First Baptist Church over on
Texas Avenue, East Texas.
Was that across where 446 is?
No, no.
It was about, it was on the corner where now
there's some offices.
On the corner of East Texas and about Second Street.
Is that as far down as it was? Uh-huh.
And it was on the southeast corner of that block.
And when we left our place to go to the
sunscreen church,
we would go out our back door and go down the
alley to Connors
and then go down to Texas Avenue and then we'd
come back that way.
And when we came back from church one Sunday,
my brother and sister and I all passed over a
roll of bills
and my cousin saw it and picked it up and took
it home.
And she was told not to say anything about it.
And we watched the papers to see if anybody had
lost any money.
And, of course, it was suspected that there was
gambling going on.
They're evil.
And probably somebody had dropped it.
The Jitney stand was there on Connors Jitney,
we called them.
How much money was that?
Jitney was a cab, wasn't it?
Eighty-something dollars?
It just seemed like 62 or something.
Well, anyway, something like that.
It was a whole lot of money.
And nobody ever claimed it.
Did your cousin get the keys to this? Yeah.
Are you sharing it with y'all?
Oh, heavens no.
I'm sure she didn't.
But anyway, we were put out that three of us
walked over it.
Did y'all have your chance?
Yeah, and then she found it.
And also right back of our house was a store
that belonged to Isiera
and it was a men's store.
And Bill's Grocery Store.
What about it?
Bill's Grocery Store.
Was that Kelly's? Bill's?
Bill, we didn't trade there.
We traded with Kelly's and it was...
Man, we'd wash that garbage can and get us a banana.
Well, you know, it was good.
Yeah, it was good.
You slipped it over ice.
Well, now people pick them up in the grocery
store for, you know.
We used to get that day-old bread, you know,
from the tasty bakery.
We never did get any day-old bread, but we did
get that half-spoiled fruit out
and ate what was good.
I remember my uncle used to sell strawberries,
you know,
and he couldn't sell what he called cuddles.
He said, let us have a cub, maybe we'll get you
as good as anything.
Do you all remember offhand what, say,
can you remember going to a silent film?
Do you remember that? Timex.
Do you remember what happened when you went in?
Did they have somebody play the piano for you?
Charlie Kaplan and Timex.
Did they have somebody never play the piano or
something like that?
No, we weren't that uptown.
It was just, what we used to do if we couldn't
get the nickel required to go,
we'd walk along the sidewalk, the thing was
built right,
and it had air holes, you know, kind of at the feet,
so they'd have air, circulation of air in there.
And, of course, we'd go peek through those
holes if nobody was sitting in those seats.
We couldn't, you know, we could see what was
going on, and we'd do that sometimes.
And since you didn't have any noise anyway,
it's all right.
Remember, it was a pretty exciting thing, I
guess it was.
I think when they moved around to Texas Avenue,
our big thing of the week was going to the show
on Friday night.
Did they have a big night?
We'd go early, and they always had these serials,
continued things, you know, along with the movie.
Do you remember how long they lasted?
Oh, sometimes they'd have it on the weekends
like that.
They'd have two serials, wouldn't they?
And a comedy, and then the show.
We'd be gone two or three hours, I'm sure.
Yeah, right downtown.
Boy, we had to stay here pretty well.
Yeah, we didn't run the streets like some kids would.
Did your mother, I guess you ought to check
your mother-in-law out there when you're that close.
Did she make sure y'all just went, some of them
went together,
a bunch of them went together?
We went together when we were that young.
Did you say that your house, the house y'all
lived in,
did you say that your mother, was there
someone, it was an apartment house?
Well, my mother was untrained to make a living.
Of course, women, there weren't too many jobs
women could do then,
aside from being a waitress.
And that wasn't considered very high class, and
she didn't want to do that.
So she could stay at home with us.
We were all school kids.
This brother, and she bought this place, and he
lived with us.
And our apartment was on the back, kind of like
a lean-to shed,
one story where we lived.
And the rest of it was two story, and we had
rooms and apartments.
Three big apartments.
We had three apartments and then one, two,
three, four, five.
One time we had six rooms.
Were these usually single people or married people?
Well, no, they were mostly married people.
Were they the people that lived?
The ones that had the rooms where mother tried
to get men,
but sometimes she had to take women to keep
them rented.
But she'd rather have men because they're
easier to, you know, there.
Do you remember her having any trouble with any
of the renters?
Yes, she did. She asked people to move.
How about paying the rent?
Well, there's still people in Baytown that owe
us money.
The school system that owes us money.
That's right.
That's a shame.
I guess they did have school teachers live there.
I guess school teachers lived there.
Well, no, they later became, you know, their
standard of living got higher,
but they probably don't even remember they owe
that money,
but the people that they owe it to remember it.
Yeah, right.
You know, and it wasn't.
Now it's not considered a lot of money, but
then it was a lot.
And my mother was the widow trying to feed
three kids and raise them.
And it was pretty.
You mean they would be obligated for the?
Well, sometimes they'd get without a job,
and maybe right then they couldn't pay, but
some years later they could have paid,
but they forgot.
And they lived there in the department?
Oh, she used to get up 4:00 in the morning to
catch Mr. Peterson.
You know, they'd come out early, you know, and
go down the steps quiet.
And she'd get up there and try to get her rent
because he drove a taxi or a jitney.
He had to.
They went everywhere, but they brought these
guys out from the docks.
He got his money because they were,
he had a franchise for going down to the, what
was then the humble docks.
And those seamen had money when they hit port,
so he got his money,
and he'd even take them to Houston, you know,
and pick them up.
So he did pretty well.
And she was trying to get her rent from him.
Well, yeah.
Why didn't she throw him out?
Oh, we used to tell her she wouldn't do that.
She got right down to it, she probably wouldn't
do it.
When I got up over, I used to want to go up
there and get this stuff
and throw it down from upstairs.
I know what you mean.
She would get some along, but I'm sure it was
then, like it is now,
that some people think because it's a woman
they might.
Take advantage of it.
You know, they might can get by.
She was even older.
Well, she was just human.
She hadn't seen anybody out in the cold, but still,
they should have paid their rent.
But it cost her to have him there.
But anyway, she managed to feed us and raise us.
And wasn't in debt.
And wasn't in debt, and she paid her taxes.
And when she died, she didn't know anybody.
So she thought she'd done the right thing,
and that's all it can after all.
That's so true.
And she had the responsibility of raising you.
When your father was dead, she had that responsibility.
Well, some of the people in my generation that
worked with me
that lived other places during the Depression years,
that had fathers, said that they went without meals.
And we never did go without a meal, did we?
Oh, no.
We had good meals.
We always had food on our table.
That was good for me.
Well, that was the manager.
We didn't have roast.
We might have tomato gravy and fried salt pork.
And my uncles all raised the garden.
So we all had, you know, and they canned.
So every now or they'd go have a hog with, you know,
over a cross here somewhere.
One time, my uncle had a cow out in this area.
You know, this was kind of way out of town.
And he'd come out here to milk the cow out on
about where I live now, North Jones.
And he had about three guards down on Texas
Avenue down there.
When he wasn't working, he'd sell the stuff.
Now, as I understand then, there was no
Tri-Cities as combined.
So in other words, Pele was a town by itself,
and Goose Creek was a town, and Baytown was a town.
Now, y'all actually live in Goose Creek, right? Yeah.
So do you recall any dealings that you ever had,
say, going, any reason to go to Pele or to Baytown?
Did you have any reason to do that, or y'all
were going out?
Well, I went to grammar school at what's now
Anson Jones.
And, of course, the kids from Pele and Goose Creek
went to the school there.
And the ones in Old Baytown, I guess, had a grammar.
They had a grammar school out there
because the Humboldt Company gave them the property,
and they built what used to be, was that San Jose?
And then San Jose moved over to the Cassie Hospital?
But anyway, the school was demolished.
No, it was right there on the Humboldt Trust.
Where was it?
San Jose? No.
I don't know what they call that school.
Is it the one that's rather by the docks now?
Yeah, they tore it down.
But anyway, it was the same grammar school with
kids in Pele,
and it was all the same school district, even then,
after it became a district.
And I don't know whether it was.
It was really Goose Creek and Piscoutas,
even before it was town.
And the high school was down there where Horace
Mann is.
First high school until they built Lee out.
And then when they built it, and they built it
out there
on Goose Creek stream, kind of between Baytown
and Goose Creek
in Pele, it was sort of a simple location.
Now, you mean Horace Mann down here on Pruitt? Yeah.
That was the high school?
The high school was there.
That wasn't a high school.
That building is gone, but the high school
was on that location.
It was also a junior school, too, I imagine.
That was combined, I imagine.
But it was Anson Jones and the high school.
And that was grade school, and they
might have had what we know is junior school now
and part of Anson Jones.
Yeah, right.
But by the time I was of school age,
I went to Anson Jones through the fourth grade.
No, the third grade.
And when I was to go into fourth grade, they
built Lamar.
And I transferred to Lamar.
And where was Lamar located?
Where was Lamar?
In the same location it is now on North Pruitt.
North Pruitt.
Right back at my house, where I live now.
Where Lamar was.
Oh, I see.
Of course, it's been added on to,
but I was one of the first students in Lamar.
I didn't realize that.
Was it at Brand's new school then when you went there?
I went the first year, and kids hate to give up
your friends.
Do you remember some of your classmates that
went there?
Oh, yeah. Mm-Hmm.
Some of them still live here.
That was a real new school, probably.
When I went to Robert E. Lee, I went like this.
And when we went to high school, we didn't have rides.
We went down on Texas Avenue and stood on the corner
and held out our thumb, and people picked us up.
Y'all were lazy.
I used to walk.
That was pretty smart.
It was real odd, and the public was educated to it.
Well, then they just picked you up.
It was perfectly safe because about that time.
You took a bunch of school buses, didn't you?
People were going to work at the refinery,
so there was a lot of traffic. Yeah.
And they picked us up.
Well, it might have been the best, I mean,
if it hadn't been the thing to do.
What about if everybody did it?
But everybody did it.
What about the weather conditions?
If it was raining, you had to wear your rain gear.
What about when class was out last night?
How'd you get home?
We caught a ride, went out on the road.
Was the shift in by the time?
I don't know if it was shift change,
but some of the kids' parents took them to and
from school
if they were lucky enough to have a car.
But not many people had cars.
I remember that myself.
I recall only one person I know now.
Her father worked at the plant, and there
were two girls in the family.
And they were the only kids at that time
I remember that sort of had the use of the
family car.
The rest of the kids got it on occasion.
Do you remember what the people's names were?
Yeah, their name's McClurg.
What's McClurg? McClurg.
And the two girls, the mother's still living,
and the two girls still live in Baytown.
What are their names?
Well, one of the older ones' names is Florine Thibodeaux.
And her sister's name is I can't recall it.
I'd better switch it.
She married a local fellow, though, that grew
up here.
I just can't recall her name right.
I'm going to turn this tape over.
Are you Florine Thibodeaux?
Yes, I am.
Florine Thibodeaux.