THE INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM
INTERVIEW WITH: Irene Gish Kirkwood
Janie and Walt Sargeant
October 31, 1986
Nederland, Texas
INTERVIEWERS:
DATE:
PLACE:
K: I was born in Louisiana in a little town that is no
longer in existence. It ' s called Almadane. It was near
Leesville, Louisiana. My father was a timber inspector for
Lutcher Lumber Company in Orange. He was a Louisiana
inspector. I grew up there and graduated De Ridder, La.,
High School. I came to Port Arthur in 1919. I went to
work ... well , I was really too young to go to work ••• I
was going to go off to college •.• I ' d been going several
months and they put up on the board that the Gulf Oil
Company needed two girls. So my girl friend and I said, "Oh
well, we can go to college at night. Let ' s go out and see
if we can get the job." Well , we did. So I went to work
and worked 40 years for Gulf Oil.
JS: Is that so.
K: When I retired in 19 •••• This is my sister.
WS: You and your sister sent to work then ••• ?
K: No,my girl friend, went to work delivering mail in a six
story building. Gulf Oil had their own little post office
KIRKWOOD 2
K: on the first floor . So I de livered mail there duri ng
the war. Then, I worked part time in the ••• what they call
I worked under accounting all right. It was shift work.
During the war, every ••• the office stayed open 24 hours
during the war. Everyone, well not everyone, not any of the
supervisors, but we had one night supervisor. And when the
war was over, I was promoted to supervisor of all
communications. So I did that then until 1968. I retired
October fi rst, 1968. I really spent a little more than 40
years. I took off five years and had my two girls. And
then the company called me to come back to work. And on my
return they gave me those five years which was very
generous . You don 't get things like that very often. They
were a lways very, very good to me. I love the Gulf Oil
Company.
I lost my first husband. He was mayor at the time. He died
in 1961. And the n in ' 62 I went t o Europe and the Company
~0
gave me the whole summer off~that I could go to the Holy
Land and study. As I said , they ' ve been very good t o me .
But at that time, when I first moved to Nederland, I don't
suppose there were over 1,000 people in this whole area
here . I moved out on the highway here ••• you know where
our place was on the highway? The old Gish home . I sold it
to the girl that lived down the street. Now she had sold it
and they ' ve torn the house down. The g irl that worked
what is that gir l ' s name? When you get to be 83 years old
you can forget names quicker than anything.
JS : You don't have to be that age, I found that out.
(l aughe r)
KIRKWOOD 3
K: Anyway, we moved in, that was 1938, I guess •.• you know
where the Farrises lived in that white house? not very far,
just a block. Then in '41, the Ingrams were transferred to
Houston or went to Houston, I don't know whether he was
transferred or just quit and went with another company.
Anyway, he was one of the big shots out at Union Oil. We
bought this house and been living there ever since.
JS: When were you married to Mr. Gish?
K: 1921.
JS: What type of business was he in?
K: He was a refrigeration engineer at the Refinery. My
second husband was the mayor of Port Neches. I worked for
him out at Union Oil in the office. I knew the people; I
knew Edith, I 'm sure, Mrs. Kirkwood. She was a lovely,
lovely lady. My husband died in 1961 with a heart attack in
Los Angeles. He was on County business, he and Dr. Meyer
were on County business and he passed away on the airplane
coming home. I was sitting there waiting to take off when
he died on the plane. And then four years later, I married
Mr. Kirkwood. I knew Mrs. Kirkwood very well but I didn ' t
know him. She and her family are still my closest friends.
Her family in Houston. She died the next year with a heart
attack. I didn't see him or anything for about three years,
four years actually, I married Mr. Kirkwood. And he was
mayor of Port Neches. And he had finished up his term so he
left Port Neches and moved over here and we were married 19
years, but he died two years ago last month.
JS: How long had Mr. Gish been mayor?
K: He had been mayor two times. I don't remember the first
KIRKWOOD 4
K: time but the last time, he was mayor when he died, 1969.
He had been mayor ten months then, the second time.
JS: I understand you 've been active in all kinds of
activities here in Nederland.
K: Well, yes, to pass away the time. My daughters have
finished college, married and left home so I spend my time
heading most all organizations I guess. I 'm still a charter
member of the Nederland Business and Professional Women ,
which, we ' re the oldest women's organization , I guess, in
this area.
WS: When did you form this ... ?
K: Back in 1947. I was president ' 48 and '49 . When
Nederland, the main street , Boston, was just a dirt street
and my term as president, Mr. Chester was mayor and they
were paving the street and he asked me if the Bu si ness
Womens ' group would like to open it up with a celebration
and a big street dance and everything , which we did. I was
just looking at the paper ; I found it today. It was the
first •• I thought you might •.•• I have an edition of parts
of it at least of the first paper ever put out in Nederland.
Volume 1 , Number 1. And it tells of the paving. And the
reason I kept it was because I was president of the Club at
that time and we were going t o have the opening of the
street . That was back in 1949. Then on April the lOth,
' 55, we voted in our Home Charter which we are still under.
I was very interested in that, trying to help with that,
too, to put that through. We 're s till under the same Home
Charter, 4 different areas , councilmen from 4 different
areas .
KIRKWOOD 5
JS: How about school activities? I understand •.•
K: Well, yes. When my girls were in school, they graduated
in 1941. One of them went to Lamar and the other to TSCW ,
which was TSCW at that time, it is now Texas Womens'
University at Denton. She taught in Midland; she retired
this year from teaching in Midland, Texas. My youngest
daughter graduated from Lamar and went to work at Union Oil.
She now lives in Lincoln, Nebraska. I have three grandsons
and eight great grandchildren. Six of those are adopted but
they're mine anyway.
JS: What school activities were you II
K: Well, I was president of the PTA at one time. And then
I was home room mother several times. Worked with the
teachers every way that I could . My closest friends were the
teachers that ran the school at that time . I tried to stay
very close to the school . We always , I mean always, had a
good school system . In 1929, my husband, I was working, my
husband took the girls to register in Port Arthur. And they
were put down in the basement at DeQueen school. I came
home from work, he happened to be off that day to register
the children. He said, "I'll tell you mother , we aren ' t
going to put up with this. They put them in the basement,
right next to the lavatory. I can ' t take that. We 're going
to Nederland. " His mother and dad had bought a place out on
the highway in Nederland so he said , " Let ' s go talk to
Mother and Dad and see if Mother will keep the kids so you
can work. We 'll just drive back and forth to work, I hear
there ' s a good school system in Nederland ." At that time the
old Langham school was there. That ' s where
KIRKWOOD 6
K: they started. I t ' s been torn down now. This new school
i s in its place~ has been there many years . And then they
graduated , they never went anywhere else except the
Nederland school. They graduated in 19 41 . They both started
school the same time~ my oldest daughter was sick and
coul dn ' t start when she was six so they both started t he
same year and both finished the same year and both went to
college the same year. At times I felt I had t o get out on
the corner with a cup, having two in college. Takes two of
you working. I said I didn ' t work because I wanted to~ I
worked because I had t o .
WS: Was school just 11 years at that time?
K: Yes.
WS: When did this change over to 12 years?
K: I don't know when they c hanged . (voice : I s hould
remember I used to teach) You dri ft away when your children
are out of school. You just lose interest more or less .
Our interest was in the college . We spent a lot of t ime
going back and forth to Denton and then I was interested in
••• well a t the time it was Southpark College~ it wasn ' t
Lamar then, Southpark Col l ege , junior college . Now it's
Lamar Un i versity .
JS: When did it change to Lamar Un iversity?
K: I don ' t remember the dat e . (voice: it was a junior
college and then it was a college before and then ••• ) It ' s
been an accredited college now for 12 or 1 5 years. It was a
junior college , it was Southpark when my daughter went .
John Gray was president of the jun ior college at Southpark
when my daughter went . Then he was l ater pres i dent of Lamar
KIRKWOOD 7
K: for many years. But I don ' t remember the year when they
changed over to Lamar. As I said, my daughter was teaching
in New Mexico. I just lost track of colleges, too.
JS: How about social activities? I understand you were
active in those, too.
K: Well, I guess I belonged to about everything they had.
Garden Club; I was active in the Garden Club. The B&PW , I'm
still charter member. At the church, all the things we had
at church.
JS: What church is that?
K: That was the Methodist , First Methodist. Later years,
my husband had his first heart attack •. He couldn ' t walk
very far and the Methodist church had gotten pretty big.
And then we didn ' t have the parking l ot you have across the
street. So he couldn ' t walk, I ' d have to let him out at the
door. He could get in. By the time I found a place to
park, I was going to church by myself so I said, "Look,
Brother Duran," I just talked to Brother Duran, "If they
,,
form a new church out here on Helena I but they formed it
out by the airport then they bought this property . Said
~
we ' re going to transfer out to the Wesley Church. I 'm tired
of going to church by myself:' Time I got parked, I found my
seat the best I could . So I stayed in the Wesley Church
until I married Mr. Kirkwood in 1965. He went a few times
but you can ' t make a Methodist out of the Church of Christ .
No way. So I said, if anyone is going to change, I guess
I ' ll change but I couldn ' t think that way so we settled on
the Christian Chur ch . My grandfather and three of my uncles
were Chr i stian Church ministers . But they were Di sc i ples .
KIRKWOOD 8
K: Our church is an independent. Christian Church is a
disciple church, is in Port Arthur. A fine church. It's
out there on the highway now. My grandfather and three of
my uncles were disciples, ministers.
WS: You spoke of the Garden club. What did you have for
projects?
K: We looked for information and we did try to beautify the
town. We did try to do that. Get people i nterested in
yards and in garden work. Then the Business & Professional
Women kind of picked up with us on that and then we ~d plant
flowers along the railroads you know, like, just really
trying to make it a better town.
JS: More or less the starter of beautification •••.
K: Yes, a starter like doing the railroad. Mrs. Kelley
took it over. And that wa s the Chamber of Commerce. She
does that and she ' s doing a beautiful job . For people
corning through it makes it nice to see the pretty flowers.
JS: I t makes a nice impression.
K: It sure does. And that was really the main thing of the
Garden Club, keep people interested ; keep up t heir yards
nice; making the town look better.
WS: I was talking earlier and they said your jail was
non-existent. You don ' t have a need for one. Everyone
behaves himself here. How about it? As mayor did he have
any problems?
K: No. Earl never did , the times that he was mayor . No big
problems. Of course they didn't always agree. I ' ll never
forget the night he wanted to lay this 30 inch line out and
there was only one house out in that area, on Nederland
KIRKWOOD 9
K: avenue, out where JD and Chester live, and he wanted to
lay a 30 inch line out there and he had to fight like the
dickens. Even the engineer, Charles Haille and Associates
in Houston , said, ''Oh, you ' re crazy." He said, "No . In ten
years there won ' t be a vacant lot out there." He said "Oh,
I think you ' re crazy but I ' ll go along with you. " . .. • and
he said , "Well , you ' r e a more far-seeing man than I was . "
Ten years. He was right , there was not but a few vacant
lots out there. And he said , " It saved the city having to
tear all that up and lay a big line. " But half the people
thought he was crazy.
WS: Are you speaking about a water line?
K: Water line . The big one ; the big 30 inch one. Now they
could even use a bigger one. As far as having a l ot of
problems •• • any city council has disagreements. They ' re
not always going to agree on everything . But they just
didn ' t have any down right fights about it. Earl was very
outspoken. I think that was one thing that was a detriment
to him. Sometimes you can ' t be as outspoken as you want to
be. But if he thought something , really thought it , he said
it. You didn ' t have to wonder how he felt about anyt hing;
he ' d tell you.
JS : I think they appreciated it ; they trusted him
probably.
K: He made no bones about it; he wasn ' t disagreeable and he
didn ' t get mad a t the people that disagreed with him. But
he said exactly what he thought. A lot of people don ' t like
that and some people do . Then a lot of people , you ' d be
surprised , that do not like that. He was not a yes man to
anyone.
KIRKWOOD 10
WS: The sewer system they say was pretty poor.
K: For a while, it was. I remember him staying up at night
holding flash lights working on the sewer at night. We had a
bad sewer system for a while but they finally got that
straightened out. They built this new sewer plant out here;
that helped a lot.
WS: When was that put in?
K: I can ' t remember that , either; the year they put that
in. That relieved the whole town a whole lot. They had bad
drainage for a long time. But we didn ' t pay much taxes. I
remember the first taxes I had to pay on this house; I went
and paid them myself. It was $12 and a half. And the
little old City Hall was across the track in a little old
tiny black one room building. And that was before Sandy
Rienstra went to work for the city. His name was ••• oh, he
was an old settler here .• • was the first one, then Mr.
Gibson took over. Back in the 40s, early 40s.
WS : This was your combined tax or just your ••• ?
K: No, it was just the city tax. $12 and a half on this
house. I don ' t remember what the school taxes were but they
weren ' t much either. Not like they are now. I watched the
town grow and I thoroughly enjoyed watching this little town
grow .
JS: I think the more involved you are, the more interested
you are in it.
K: The more you appreciate the people.
JS: That ' s right.
K: Because we do have fine people in this town. Our crime
rate , now these last years, Chief Neal, tells me it
KIRKWOOD 11
K: has risen considerably. But you know, used to be I ' d go
on vacation and leave my house unlocked; my neighbors might
need something they wanted to borrow . They 'd do the same
thing. No one locked their houses. Oh now , heavens , you ' re
scared to answer the door at night . It has changed
considerably. Even in t he last 25 years, the four years I
was a widow, I lived here by myself. I kept a school
teacher nine months but other than that, the other three
years. I lived here by myself and I was never afraid. My
neighbor across the street, if it was going to freeze, he
worked out at the plant where I did , he would call me from
the plant and say , "Now Mrs . Gish , it ' s going to freeze
tonight. If you hear someone in the house, that will be me .
I 'm going t o cut the water off and drain t he pipes. " You
never thought of that; being afraid. I wouldn ' t do that for
anything now .
JS: Can you think of anything we should •.. ?
K: We have a very , very good little town here.
JS : It seems that way. We ' ve enjoyed it .
K: It ' s growing; it ' s been growing ; and it ' s still growing.
When my husband was mayor , he took in, in a buffer zone, all
where Port Arthur is now1 across from our hospital, across
the highway 365, he took that in as a buffer zone fo r
Nederland to grow . He said that Nederland will grow that
way. So he took it all in . I guess he took in a whole
bunch more . They laughed and teased him "Well I guess we 'll
be the biggest city in the United States ." Someone put that
in the paper. But he did take in, just as a buffer zone.
Because Port Neches was coming this way;Beaumont was coming
KIRKWOOD 12
K: this way ; Port Art hu r was coming t his way. He said ,
"We're going to be hemmed in if we don't do something."
After he was out as mayor , Preston Cessac , bless his heart,
I don ' t know why he did it , Dr. Hall was mayor but Dr . Hall
was not at the meeting, he was sick or something. Dr. Hall
got sick right af t e r he went in as mayor, but Preston Cessac
took over. Well, he gave it up one night, all of that
buffer zone. Port Arthur called a meeting at 10 o 'clock the
next morning and took it all in. I t made me sick. Our
Central Mall and all that had built up ••• it ' s all the way
to Port Arthur now. I think that hurt my husband more than
anything else that could have possibly hurt him . He said,
"They ' re leaving us out and it has •• " (voice: We have the
a irport on that side.) and he took in al l around the
airport, just a buffer was all, but no one complained as
long as we had it in the buffer zone. Why Preston did that
••• There was an att orney in Port Arthur , he ' s dead now,
came out here. He happe ned t o be cit y attorney f or Port
Arthur. He came out here and when he left , my husband was
so mad. I sa i d, "What in the world ••• " I went out in the
back. I didn 1 t know what the man wanted . He was so mad .
He said , "That city a ttorney of Port Arthur wants me to
release this l a nd that I've taken in toward Port Arthur . He
must be crazy. I don ' t need money . He offered me money to
do i t ." He said , "I don't need money that bad ." We were
getti ng by. We weren' t people that had a lot o f money. But
we didn ' t need a l ot of money. Our girl s had finished
school . We didn't need the money , but he was offered . That
was wrong in the first place.
KIRKWOOD 13
K: And why that man did that , I don ' t know. I 'm not saying
whether Preston took that money or whether he just, I don ' t
know whether he did or just went ahead, the man talking him
into turning it loose . He let it go . But at 10 o ' clock the
next morning , Port Arthur called a special meeting and took
it all in. And they had all that. And it just makes you
sick when you think what it did to Nederland. It stopped us
right at highway 365. And Preston later died, too. He died
a couple of years ago, I believe. Preston passed away with
a heart attack. He quit his job and left here and went up
to Kerrville and went into some kind of shrimp business ,
trying to bring in fresh shrimp up there. Anyway, his wife
left him. He just had a sad life after that. I don ' t know
whether the boy took a dime or not, I do not know. But I do
know what the man had offered Earl .
JS : What would you say was your husband ' s greatest
accomplishment as mayor?
K: I think when he was mayor , the water line laying and as
far as I know, I don ' t know a lot, but getting sewer lines,
trying to straighten those out. I never really paid a lot of
attention because I just don ' t think wives out to be buttin '
in to that kind of stuff. I stayed out of everything like
that. I stayed out of his business . I did know he was very
interested in the sewer lines and the water line later, laid
out. He really expected Nederland to grow that way and to
grow all the way to Port Arthur. He really expected it to.
He said that eventually Nederland would go all the way to
Port Arthur. He said that it would be the focal of any
election . It would be the balance of power, which it is
today.
KIRKWOOD 14
K: How the country goes as a rule, is the way elections go.
And he always said that. If we could just keep going.
JS: Had he always been interested in politics?
K: No. He, and Mr. Farris was mayor at that time . We
lived just across the street from them. And I think, really
that Mr . Farris got him interested more than anyone else.
Trying to make Nederland grow. Before that, he was quite a
bowler. He would go to all the bowling conventions. He
bowled for the plant. He was more interested in the plant
and in the children . After he got interested in politics, I
didn ' t see much of him . (laughter) The telephone ri ng in '
all the time. I remember one woman telling , she said ,
"There ' s a dead cat out here in my yard. The mayor there?"
I said, "No roam, he isn ' t." She said , "I don ' t know what
to do with the cat.•• I said, "I know what I ' d have to do.
I'd have to dig a hole and bury it."
JS: And you ' re the mayor ' s wife.
K: I lm sure it wasn ' t a very good answer . She didn ' t know
what to do. You'd be surprised the calls t he mayors get.
And I 'm sure poor old mayors had a jillion of ' em.
WS: You had pretty much of a party system , didn 't you?
K: Yes. And I think we ' re still more or less more
Democratic; this a r ea. Now Texas may go Republican t his
time. I don ' t know. But in this area we 're more Democratic
than anything else. The way I see it. Of course , I could
be wrong. Clements may even carry this area. I don ' t think
he will. But then, that 's just my opinion .
WS: How about the segregation problem? Has that ever been
a • • . ?
KIRKWOOD 15
K: Never been a problem as far as I know. We have so few
blacks; very , very few. My children never went to school
with a black ch ild. All those years t hey were in school,
they never went to school with a black child. You see , it
didn ' t start 'ti l after ' 30. It was after Earl was dead, we
ever had a negro livin ' in the area . So we had no problem
with that. At least, I neve r did. Not that I had anything
against blacks. I think we ' re all created equal as far as
that ' s concerned . I think the thing we need to do , the
whole country, not just us , not just t he south . The north
is worse t han we are .
JS : I've heard t hat.
K: Earl was from Indiana. They were worse than we are down
here. So, I can ' t say that . •• I don ' t look to ever , really
••. maybe in 60 years, when they have probl ems . But I think
what we need to do , and we a r e doing it, it ' s happening all
over the United States , they ' re educating the people , which
before they did not . That was not fair. If we had started
out , many, many year s ago , e ducating the black people and
t he Hispanics the same . In fact any foreigner who comes
here , as we go back to al l foreigners. My family came from
Ireland . We ' re really all foreigners, as far as that ' s
concerned . But we needed ••• when they brought the blacks
over he re , they should have started educating them right
then. We ' d have had a different country all together , than
we have now. But it ' s just in recent years that we ' re
and some of 'em are very , very smart and fine people. I
have had my maid 13 years and there's not a finer , better
Chris tian p e r s on than the girl that works for me. She ' s a
woman of 58 , I think now .
KIRKWOOD 16
K: Very fine person. So I don ' t see segregation is going
to be any problem for us in many years to come. Now they
tell me that there ' s about three families that has bought
out in Port Arthur, a new addition out here, Stonegate.
There ' s about three families, I think one of them is a
doctor.
WS: How about your doctors? Are you fortunate to have good
doctors?
K: We have very good doctors. We have more doctors now
that I ever thought we would ever have. We do have many.
WS: How about in the past, have you always been fortunate
to have .•. ?
K: We ' ve been fortunate to have good doctors. In the last
five years, we have gotten so many, most of them are
foreigners that are coming in now. But they're good doctors
I understand.
WS: How about hospitals? I never thought to ask about •• ?
K: We have one very good hospital. Mid-Jefferson County
Hospital. It ' s a very good hospital.
WS: When was that built? Have you any idea?
K: Let ' s see. When was that hospital built? When my
husband died, he was trying to get a hospital going at the
time that he died.
WS: Where did you have to go to go to a hospital prior to
that?
K: He went to Houston to talk to people about a hospital.
I thing it was Humana, I'm not sure ••. is it a Humana out
here? I 'm sure it is. He first was talking, before he di ed,
KIRKWOOD 17
K: to Humana in Houston •.. trying to get a •.• and then I
think, our first hospital, didn ' t the doctors own it?
(voice: yes, at first, physicians and surgeons.) Then they
sold out to Medenco first, I don ' t know whether Humana or
what it is. But anyway, we have a very good hospital.
WS : Ever since you ' ve been here, you ' ve had a hospital?
K: No, we did not •• It 's just been in recent years
maybe 20 years; 18 to 20 years we 've had a hospital.
Otherwise, we used the one in Port Arthur.
WS: Port Arthur had one long before ••• ?
K: Oh yes. St. Mary 's. And Beaumont, too .•• had several
hospitals for many, many years.
WS: So if anyone was hospitalized you had to go either t o
Port Arthur or Beaumont .
K: But we do have a very good hospital. And we have
several clinics now. There ' s Mediquick Clinic ••. what do
they call ' em? You can go to the doctors at any hour. They
don ' t do regular hours. I think we have one like that on
365. I had to go one Saturday. I had an upper respiratory
and they were very good; very thorough . I couldn ' t get hold
of Dr. Walters; weekends sometimes you can ' t find •••
JS: Irene, you 've been so active in all phases in the
community. I'd like to ask you, put you on t he spot : Wha t
area would you like to see changed, if any? Do you see any
need for a change?
K: No , I r eal l y don ' t know of anything that could change .
I ' d like to see our downtown not die like most downtowns
KIRKWOOD 18
K: have. And I'm afraid that that's what ' s going to happen
if we ' re not careful ••. that our downtown area ... we have
several places that are closed now. And the little shopping
center across, is mostly vacant I think, over there. I
would like to see our downtown not go down; I 'd like to see
it built up more.
JS: And the sad thing is that every town is in the same
situation.
K: But we're so close to Nederland Avenue , I don ' t see t he
difference. Why Nederland Avenue has become the main part
of town when Boston is just one block away. {voice: Now
we ' re going out to 365)
K: We ' re going out to 365 now. I'd like to see our
downtown stay or built up, even . Even some of the buildings
need to be worked over; done over downtown. I think that
would help, if people that owned them might ••• I think it
would help.
WS: You have active lodges. I ' ve head you speak of the
Shriners. Was your husband a Shriner ?
K: My last husband was a 32nd degree. He was a Shriner.
WS: Did they have a Masonic Lodge here ? Did they have a
Masonic Lodge right here in Nederland ?
K: Yes , Nederland has a . .. we have a Temple over here on
27th street. I belong to Eastern Star; Daughters of the
Nile.
WS: Were they active when you came to the area ?
K: No. Well, they had a small one I think. I think in
' 63, the Masons and Eastern Star built out on 27th street.
I went in to the Eastern Star in '66, I guess and in ' 69 ,
KIRKWOOD 19
K: I went in to the Daughters of the Nile in Galveston ,
which is the temple for this area. I ' ve been active in both
of those.
JS: It's been interesting to talk to you. I don 't want to
take any more of your time. We do appreciate, Irene, taking
your time .
K: It's nice that you ' re doing this.
End of Tape I, Side 1, about 27 minutes.