The Sterling Municipal Library, I'm having an
oral history conversation with Louise Fowler Heinz.
If you'll tell me, where were you born?
I was born in Galveston.
And when, do you mind?
No, October the 30th, 1898.
Okay, and who were your parents?
My parents is Samuel J. Baker, my father, and
my mother was Frances Heidemann, well
she was Frances Heidemann, that was her maiden name.
And she was a Mrs. Coffee with a little boy,
when my dad married her.
Her husband died when the baby wasn't but six
months old, and so I had the half brother.
Oh, now when did you move to Cetabow?
I came to Cetabow in 1918, this age.
My dad brought me over in a little Ford car, we
were living in League City at that time,
and I lived at the Parsons, preceded by
Methodist Church, Parsonage, with the minister
and his wife.
There's another teacher and I roomed together there.
How long did it take to get here from League City?
Oh, now that's the thing.
I don't remember just how long we were coming
over, I'm sure it was all day long, a fair.
First time I'd ever been away from home, and of
course I felt like he'd just, when he drove
off to my, it was the end of my world, you
know, among strangers.
You didn't know anybody?
No, he took me to the president of the board to
sign the contract, and then he went on
back home.
Well how did you find out about the job in
Cetabow, how were you hired?
Well, after I'd gotten my certificate to teach,
see then, you didn't have to go to college,
you went, I took a summer normal course, and
then you took state examinations, and if you
could pass a state examination that day, they
issued you a certificate to teach, and that's
what happened in my case.
And I went to the county superintendent in
Houston, and at that time teachers were hard
to get, and they offered me about three or four
different places.
One of them was teach the seventh grade in
Pasadena, but he says, I wouldn't advise you
to take that because, he said, that's a rough
bunch of kids.
And he said, this is Cetabow, they had little
children, and I said, that's what I want.
Now was this part of the county system, the
whole part of it?
Harris County.
Harris County system. Uh-huh.
And you, well, he was county superintendency,
and so that's how I was hired.
And I met my husband, he came home, that was
during the war, and he came home from the,
he was in the Navy, and he came to school to
see his little sister.
And another teacher and I were, well, we were
getting ready to go to a ball game up in Mont
Bellevue, basketball game, and the
superintendent asked me if we had a way, and I
said no, and
he said, we, well, he said, I'll just ask this
young man out here if you can ride with him.
And I said, oh, no, you don't, if you do, I
won't go.
And, but, evidently he did, anyway, the other
teacher and I did go with him, but he had
a couple of high school girls in the car,
within the front seats, you know, and I never,
I just thought, whew, what a good looking
sailor he was, he was really handsome.
And we went to Mont Bellevue to the basketball
game, that was my first time I ever saw him.
And then when we came back home, and that
night, they had me in charge of the, we had
a valentine party, see, it's almost that time
of year, at the parsonage, and they had me
in charge of the games, church, you know, and I
was hoping that Delmore would come,
but I didn't, I didn't ask him to come, or I
didn't say anything to him about it, because
I was, I thought, well, he belongs here in this
community, and you know, sure enough,
he turned up with his little sister, came to
the party, and he asked me to be his partner
out playing the games, and before the evening
was over, he asked me for a date.
Oh my goodness, what, where was your first
date, what did you do?
Well, he asked me if I'd go, he said he had to
go up to Crosby to pick up his luggage,
his, what kind of bag they call it, duffle bag,
to pick up his duffle bag, and I went
with him, and I mean, I told him, I asked him
if he'd mind if the teacher was ruined
with me, he'd go with us, and he said no, no,
he wouldn't mind, see, I was very cautious,
you had, and a sailor, you know, and the way
I'd been brought up and everything, so he
said sure, so she went with us, and we went up
and got his duffle bag, and on the way
back we were talking about picture shows, and I
said something about, I liked Shirley
Temple, and Shirley Temple was playing down in
Pelly then, at theater in Pelly, and that
was the show then, even though Pelly was so
rough, rough, you know, but that was the show,
so when we got back, she walked ahead of us,
beside the teacher, and he asked me to go
to the show, again I said, if you'll take your
friend, yes, if my friend can go, oh
sure, he said, but she refused, she said he
didn't ask her, so I'm not going, so I asked
Mrs. Stewart, the minister's wife, what must I
do about it, she says, now listen, Delmer's
a good homeboy, we know him, and it's alright,
you just go right on, and so I did, that was
the beginning of it.
Oh my goodness, and you went to the movies in Pelly?
What was that like?
Well, it was tough, it was bad, that's what I
keep hearing, it was bad, why as we
were getting out of the car and started going
to the show, the pig jumped out the ditch,
just things like that, and I remember later, we
went to the show there, and it was a burlesque
thing, where the men paid so much to put the
garter on these, the dancers up on the stage,
and it got pretty rough, so I told Delmer, I
said, I'm leaving out here, and people lived
in tents down there, you know, just rough,
rough, and talk about transportation at that
time, we had nothing but jitneys, what they
call jitneys, that was Ford cars, from Pelly,
you see those three things in Baytown, Pelly,
and Goose Ridge, and that was the only way
you could get to Houston, unless you would
catch the mail car here, they brought the
mail out, the car, and ride to Crosby, catch
the train there, and ride to Houston, and
through the, when it was real bad weather, when
we had these big rains, and the bottom
was all flooded, you couldn't get through on
the road, so that's the way you had to
go, and that's the way my husband came for us
to be married.
Oh, is that right?
That's the way he came over there, to League
City, my folks were living at League City,
he got to Houston, and then took me in urban
down to League City.
Talk about a roundabout way.
Yes, just that, and it doesn't take you a half
hour to drive over there now, you know.
How long did it take to go from Cedar Bayo to Houston?
Oh, well, I don't know, the roads were terrible
then, and the Model T's didn't go very fast,
you know, and we teachers didn't go alone in
those chitneys, you know, unless a couple
of us would go.
Oh, it was rough men, you know, and things, so
we were very cautious, we had to be, and
How many chitneys a day would, I mean, would it
be two a day, or how many, what?
Well, I guess it all depended on how many
passengers were going in, how many times they'd go.
I see, and they'd catch the train, obviously. Yeah.
Nine, 10, 10.
Well, these chitneys would go clear on Houston,
if the road was open, so they could.
Oh, I see.
Oh, was it a gravel road, or?
Well, gravel, or just plain old mud roads,
that's where they all were.
That's where they all were, over in Chambers
County, and then I remember after we married,
one to, over at Handcomber, that's where he was
born and raised, and through that road
that's 90 now, highway 90, they had logs across
the road, you know, like a bridge,
for a long way, because the sea was low then,
and muddy, and it'd take nearly all day long
day even to get over to Handcomber, because
we'd have to go around, you see, and then
come down that old bad road, and look what a
highway that is, and I think about that
every time I go down highway.
I bet you do.
What a, what a change.
And then after we married and lived in Chambers
County, of course all the roads were bad back
there, and people come to Houston, come
Houstoning around to go duck hunting, because
rice fields,
you see, and if they bogged down then with
their cars, why, they'd hire my husband to
pull them out with the mules, you know, we'd
charge them $10 to pull them out,
ruined them, ruined one mule, she wouldn't ever
pull after that.
She just wouldn't pull.
No good to you.
No, no, no.
What was the name of the school?
Cedar Falls.
Oh, it was Cedar Falls, and how many grades?
We had through the tenth, they finished school
through the tenth.
You told me there were four teachers?
Yes, and I had the primary and the first and
the second grades, and the next teacher had
the fifth, she had the third, fourth, and
fifth, yeah, and then the next teacher had
the sixth and the seventh, and then the
principal had the high school, which was just a few
kids, you know, one girl graduated from high
school that year, and that's Mrs. W.T.
Bush, Bessie. Yeah.
Oh, I think you gave me her name. Yeah.
She graduated.
How many children did you have? Me?
In your class.
I don't know, I had quite a few though, I'd say
25 or 30 children, and we didn't have
a janitor, and so they had been paying the
janitor $12 a month, and so we
divided that between the 3 of us, you see, so I
gave us an extr$4.
And what-
We'd have to make our own fires, and I had one
or two little boys that was pretty big,
and they always stayed and helped me, you know,
they'd stay and help me to clean the
room, and you know, and of course early in the
morning there was a rough trying to get
a fire to warm up the place.
What kind of stove up?
Yeah, just that you put wood in, and the old
wood was green pine spit and filmed and fizzed,
you know.
Oh, and smoked? Yes.
Yes, yes.
Oh my goodness.
And what was your salary?
Sixty dollars a month.
My goodness.
Four dollars extra with the- Yes.
Do the janitor work.
Well now, how did the children get to school?
Did they all walk, or were they-
They walked, or sometimes their parents brought
them horse and buggy, and things like that,
you know.
Do you remember any specific problems you had
with any of the children, or any-
Well, none of my little youngsters, I didn't
have a problem, one little girl I was telling
something about the other day, the Wilbournes,
I don't know how you know the Wilbournes.
I don't know her today.
Did you know Etta? No.
Well, she and her brother both in my room, and
I had a little problem with her, and it
was funny, she sassed me, and so I was going to
spank her.
You know, they believed in them, and their
parents would all talk, now don't behave,
you know what to do.
But I loved every child I had, I really did.
And anyway, Etta ran from me, you know, and her
brother stood up, and he says, Miss Baker,
spank, Whipper Miss Baker.
Well, finally, she stopped, and I got to her,
and she said, Miss Baker, if you whip me,
you'll break my mother's heart.
So I didn't.
But I didn't have any more trouble with her.
You know.
Oh, my goodness. Yeah.
Well, I guess the county provided books, or did
the children have to buy their own?
Hadn't buy their own books.
I know we did.
I was going to school all the way through, we
didn't buy our books, that was the problem.
Sometimes it's hard for my dad to rake up
enough money to buy those books.
Oh, yes.
Well, look, could you buy them here, or did the
children have to go into Houston?
I don't remember just how we got our books here
at Seabaugh.
I don't remember that part of it.
I imagine they did like we did, they had the
books available at the school, and then we
bought them.
Oh, I see.
Well, when you moved to Seabaugh, about how
many people lived here?
I don't know, it was quite a community, quite a
little community.
We had three stores on the bank of Bile Hill,
and the post office, and we had a Blacksmith
shop, and then we had another store, a Smith
store over there on the highway, and we had
two churches, and the Masonic building, and
before we had this school that I taught in,
they taught school in that Masonic building, a
lot of the old-timers went to school in that.
That's the building that's still there?
Still there, yeah.
By Seabaugh Methodist. Uh-huh.
What was the other church besides Seabaugh Methodist?
Christian, first Christian church, but they
didn't have pastor when I first came here.
Where was that located?
Well, it's gone long ago.
It was right by where Cedar Crest Cemetery is
now, right along there.
I see.
Well, what kind of stores were they?
Well, general stores, and I was going to tell
you about the way they got the freight in
by boat.
The boats came from, well, they had a route
from Houston to Seabaugh, and then from Galveston
to Seabaugh, and there's certain days that
those boats came in with supplies. Yes.
Brought supplies, you see, to the stores, or individuals.
People would be down there with the wagons and,
you know, to pick up their produce.
Things they had ordered themselves.
Well, yes, they'd order, like, things by the
case, see.
I remember my dad always bought, like, corn by
the case and tomatoes by the case and soap
and all those kind of things by the case.
We didn't buy one or two cans at a time,
because, you know, you didn't go to run to town every
And that's the way supplies came, right down
here at this landing at the end of the Seabaugh
Road, where it makes the crypt go on down Ferry Road.
Well, now, is that where Ilfry's store was there?
That's where the landing was.
Is that where Ilfry's store was?
Ilfry's store was there and McLean's store.
I see.
And there was another one?
There was a service? Yes.
Let's see, Ilfry, McLean's, and Fisher's.
And the post office's Fisher's store at that time.
In the store itself?
Well, there's a little compartment, yeah, off
to one side in it.
That's where I got my mail at that time.
Well, were most of the people in the city about
white, or were there black people?
Oh, yeah, we had a lot of colored folks that
worked for us.
I see all these shipyards, but that's something
else we had.
We had these, I mean, not shipyards, but
brickyards down the vial.
That's right.
There were a lot of those, weren't there?
This was made out of cedar by a brick.
Oh, is it? Uh-huh.
That's cedar by a brick.
Is that because there was clay along?
Oh, yes.
Good clay to make bricks.
I thought that must be it.
And they had their kilts, you know, their
places to process a brick, make a brick out
of them.
Cook them. Yeah.
How about Mexican Americans?
Were there many? No.
Not at that time. Uh-huh.
You don't remember when they began to move? When?
After the refinery.
I see.
I just thought that would be interesting. Yeah.
Oh, well, where were most of the homes that
people lived in in Cedar Bay?
Well, along, there was a lot of them right
along the same Cedar Bay Road right now.
This big house that's just been redone, that
was the old George Place, and it was one of
the nicest homes at that time.
Captain George. Yes.
Captain George. Uh-huh.
And there was, there's several houses along
there, for that matter.
And then going on down the bow, too.
And by the way, the trees were just lapped over
the top of the road, all the way down
to where Mr. Tompkins, he sold cars.
We bought our first automobile from him, it was
a baby Overland.
After we married, when he took the top off that
fall, then we bought us a car, and it
was a baby Overland, and we bought it for Mr. Tompkins.
And he also made caskets.
And you see, at the time, at 1918, that's when
they had that terrible flu epidemic that
so many people died.
And were there a lot here who-
Oh, yes.
Oh, yes, there's a lot of them.
And you moved here in the middle of the day?
Oh, yes.
I managed to get by.
Well, I didn't take it.
I took it all right, I was pretty sick, but the
doctor came by twice a day to see me.
He didn't hardly take his boots off, he was
gone day and night waiting on people.
Oh, Dr. Brooks.
How did you let him know you wanted him, I
mean, how, did someone go get him for you?
I guess the-
Some signal that was-
I don't know.
Well, he lived not too far, he had to come by
the parsonage to go across the bayou where
he was staying.
He was then living with the Shillings, Dr.
Shilling and place.
Of course, Dr. Shilling, Dr. John had gone to
the war and Mr. and Mrs. Brooks and their
daughter was living over there with Mr. Annie Shilling.
And their way to get across the bayou was in a
rowboat to come.
Across the bayou.
A lot of work, isn't it?
Yes, yes. Goodness.
And we had a lot of people living down the
bayou the same way, they came to school even.
I know the Shepherds lived way down there and I
had a couple of the shepherd children
in my room and every now and then Mrs. Shepherd
had them invite me to come down and eat supper,
you know, and we'd get in this boat and go down.
They had a motorboat with a cabin over it.
Better in bad weather than-
Oh, yes, oh, yes.
But that's the way people got around, either
horseback or by boat, not too many people
had cars, you know.
No, they didn't.
Well, were most of the houses wooden or were a
lot of them brick?
No, most of them were wooden.
Even though the brickyards were old?
Uh-huh, uh-huh.
How were they heated?
Wood stoves.
Everybody, just about everybody, heard of that? Yes.
You know, we had no such thing as like, well, I
don't remember about the electricity now.
I know we had, we didn't have anything like
that on the farm.
We had kerosene oil lamps.
Most people did.
Fair view of people, even on this side then had-
And you cooked on wood stoves.
Oh, yes.
A lot of work. Yeah.
Well, our water supply was either a well that
we dug, and we had, most always, my husband
fixed a, we had big old tanks and caught
rainwater, you know, and had these drains that
took the
water into the, and I used that for wash water,
and he always fixed it in the house for me too.
It was as convenient as it could, you know,
like to wash dishes and things like that with.
Well, I wanted to ask about how you washed the clothes.
How was that? Huh.
The hard way, on the Rub board.
Oh, my goodness. Yes.
Well, why?
I got my first washing machine just before I
had my sixth child.
My goodness.
Wire with a Rub board, a pot fountain yard, and
a boil in when the weather was so good,
some clothesline, you know, and you hung your
clothes out there, took your whole day off
for your washing.
Oh, yeah.
And then the next day was ironing day.
We didn't have any such thing as permafress or
anything like that, starch and iron.
Oh, my goodness.
That would be quite a task.
How did you keep things cold?
Do you have any form of refrigeration or?
Well, after we got on this side, we could keep
ice in the icebox, because we could get
the ice.
But while I was out, we lived on the farm, we
couldn't always get, I know my oldest child,
he would have been 65 tomorrow had he lived.
I had to put him on a bottle, and the doctor
advised me to just use Eagle Brand milk, because
he said because of the refrigeration problem, I
couldn't keep cow milk cold all the time,
you see, and he'd be sick.
So that's what I raised him on, is Eagle Brand
milk and made lime water to mix it with, as
opposed to made bone so he wouldn't have the rickets.
And we didn't have any such thing as baby foods
back in those days.
You just kept them on the bottle, I guess,
until they were out and about.
Well, and then we started giving them like
mashed potatoes and soft things like that.
What was refrigeration like?
Did they deliver ice to your house, or how did
you get it?
No, we had to go get the ice.
Had a certain ice house, they'd go get the ice.
But later, they delivered ice.
Over in Chambers County, I had like about this
long and about so wide, and there was
aluminum pans, and there was three of them.
One shelf, and then the lower shelf, and then
the upper shelf.
And you'd put water about that deep.
You put water in there, and you had a curtain
all the way around, and the water would go
down like a wick lamp, you know, like the oil
comes up, it'd go down that curtain.
And then the wind would, of course, keep that
cool, and you could keep your milk all day
without it getting sour that way, and we'd put
our food and our milk and things like that.
And then after I gave that to a lady friend
that lived over there, after we moved over
here in Harris County, well, we could keep ice,
and I didn't need that anymore.
Oh, that's very interesting.
I've never heard of that type of arrangement.
Well, let's see.
Were there any banks in Cedar Bayou, or how
about, what about banking, what was that of?
Well, there was, I guess the First National
Bank must have been the first bank they ever
had in Goose Creek.
Must have been.
And people here used the banking?
I know, that's where we used.
We used the First National Bank.
You don't remember when that?
No, I don't.
I don't.
See, the refinery came in, well, that's when we
first, it was about five years after we
married, so that's 1919, 1924.
Must have been about 23 or 24 that refinery started.
I think that's-
Must have been long about that.
I think 1923 is the date they used to give for that.
And that, my husband got a job there after we
were broke on the rice farm, the bank foreclosed
on us.
And, of course, they had everything, they had a
mortgage to them, you know, and he got
salt water the last year, we got salt water,
and just didn't make any crop, didn't even
make enough to pay for the thrashing, so there
was no way.
See, back then, you'd borrow enough money to
run you through the year, and maybe you'd
make it that far enough so you could pay that
back and maybe have part of the money to run
the next year and have to borrow more money,
and that's just the way it went.
But for about five years, we did that, and
then, to tell you the truth, I was glad when
we got broke.
That's right.
Glad to quit that, huh?
It, in the long run, was best all the way
around, because he died when, in 38, and there
I was, with six children, all in school, and if
he hadn't been working in the refinery,
we would have had no insurance, because he even
lost that while we went broke, if he
hadn't dropped his policy, but working for the
refinery, he did have some insurance.
Oh, my goodness.
That's what I built this house out of.
And what year did you build this house?
I built it in 39, took any rumors and borders
and took care of my family and everything.
And worked hard. Uh-huh.
And everything turned out fine. Yeah.
Well, back to the early days, the city by, was
there a police department or was there
any kind of crime problem?
I don't remember ever having a crime problem.
I don't remember.
Would you call a sheriff?
I'd call.
It was just a nice little sleepy village. Yeah.
And you knew everybody? Uh-huh.
No problems?
No problems.
That's wonderful, isn't it?
Yes, it is. Really?
No problems that I know anything about at all.
Oh, my goodness.
I know that my husband, when he was on the rice
farm, he'd come to the bank on his payday
on Saturday to pay his help off, thrashing time
and planting times when we had most of
the money.
And he'd come to the bank and get the money,
and never even thought about being held up
or anything.
Came way out there in Chambers County with all
the money to pay the hands off.
That is certainly different.
We didn't have a gun, or we didn't have to lock
up the house.
It's only been recently that I've been locking
up my house.
Me too.
And I don't like it.
I don't either.
Don't like to live scared. No.
Just don't like to. Uh-uh.
Let me get my glasses on.
Let's see.
Do you remember any special celebrations in the
community, like for Christmas or Fourth
of July and the earlier?
Well, we always had programs at the school, and
programs at this church, you know.
And that's all.
I remember one time, it was April Fool's
school, and the principal went home to eat, and Molly
was gone, while we decided, we teachers
decided, that we'd take the youngsters and go.
Casey's lived way out there.
Where Humanae Hospital is now.
Oh, that was all Prairie out there, you know,
that in.
Miss Casey had her house living way out there,
and that was nice Prairie.
You know, middle. Uh-huh.
So we took all, took, we went out there and
took all the kids with us.
And our lunches and everything, you know, and
had a picnic out there.
And the superintendent got back, no teachers,
no children.
The only one there was Bessie Bush.
She wouldn't go.
She wouldn't go, but the rest of us all went
and had a good time.
We came back and brought all of our children
back home, but it was April Fool's.
And that's all.
It was fun.
It was pretty weather then.
Oh, it was beautiful weather.
It'd be a pretty day.
The kids had a good time, so did we.
Is that J.O. Casey?
There's a man in our church named J.O. Casey,
or what, I don't think he's living.
Is that the same Casey you're talking about?
My bad.
Mrs. White was one of, was his sister, and
then, I can't think if there's a third one.
Mrs. White. Uh-huh.
I don't know her.
And she, I know she was a Casey.
I just wondered if that was the same.
Well, these cases were, well, Mrs. Casey was a
widow when I came here, but
her husband had had a brickyard right down,
right down this way, and one of, her mother
and, and lived right where the, do you know
where this brick home is down here on Cedar
Bay Road with where all the palm trees are?
I see.
Pulled her hose. Uh-huh.
Well, that was the, her mother's place then,
and Elton, her oldest son, when he came back
from the war, stayed with his grandmother till
she died, and then he, she willed that
all to him, Elton and Casey.
Well, he's dead then, of course, his wife and I
are close, close friends.
And let's see, there was a Basil Casey, and
Elton, Elton was older, and then Basil, and
anyway, she had six children, and they're all
gone now.
It doesn't sound like the same thing. Uh-uh-uh.
Now, this, uh, Casey Roy, that, uh, Gwen Casey,
is that the question?
Uh-huh, uh-huh.
The veterinary? Yeah.
That's grand.
That, okay, that's the family.
Uh-huh, uh-huh.
That's grand, so that's the family. Uh-huh.
Well, mosquitoes, I understand mosquitoes were bad.
Oh, yes.
Mosquitoes are bad.
We all had mosquito bars.
You know what a mosquito bar is?
Why not? Well.
I guess it's something with net on it. Yes.
You put it up over your bed, and put the, put
it, put the net down, and tuck it in around,
so the mosquitoes can't get to you.
Goodness gracious.
But they didn't carry malaria, I understand,
but that was not.
Yes, they did.
Yes, I had malaria when we lived out on the bay.