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INTERVIEW WITH:
DATE:
PLACE:
INTERVIEWERS:
THE INSTITUE OF TEXAN CULTURES
ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM
Marion McGee
June 7, 1988
San Marcos, Texas
Marilyn Pistel (MP)
OTHERS PRESENT: Les Pistel (LP) and Frances Stoval (FS)
MM: Marion McGee, born November 29, 1895.
MP: Thank you. Now •.•
FS: Mr. McGee, since you were born in San Marcos, we would
like you to tell us about your father's business college
that your father brought here from Kyle.
MM: Yes maam.
FS: And also, we'd particularly like for you to tell us
about how you remember San Marcos when you were a very young
man. And how it was when the railroad was active in town
and if you can remember, tell us a little bit about the oil
mill industry that came in following the cotton industry.
MM: Well, my mother came to San Marcos in 1880 with a
covered wagon at the end of the Civil War. And she saw them
lay the railroad tracks from Austin to San Marcos. She saw
them lay the ties.
And my daddy came to San Marcos from Mississippi in
1887 and he settled in Kyle. At that time Kyle was a better
town than San Marcos. That's where he went to college.
There were private schools in those days •• , there weren't
MCGEE 2
MM: public schools. There was a seminary up there and an
institute he taught in. And he had his business college up
there and the reason he moved to San Marcos was because it
burned down (Kyle school). And then he moved to San Marcos
in 1890.
FS: 1890 'til about 1910 was a rather high point in the
history of San Marcos. More affluent then.
MM: That's right. Cut that off a minute.
FS: This is from the San Marcos Record of 1926. It says "A
beloved citizen passes away after months of illness.
Professor M.C.McGee, one of the most universally loved and
most prominent citizens of Hays County died at his home in
San Marcos on Sunday evening at 9 o'clock, May 12th, after
an illness of some months. During his last days all his
family, including his aged brother, the Reverend W.H.McGee
of Lampasas, were present with him. Professor McGee, as he
was familarily known throughtout this section of Texas, was
born in Winston County, Mississippi, August 13th, 1858.
(That's about the time San Marcos began to recover, being 68
years of age.) He came to Texas in 1887, settled in Kyle,
were he first established a business college. Later he
moved to San Marcos in 1890, and established the Lone Star
Business College which he conducted for 33 years. That
would be 1823 (should be 1923!). Many prominent business
and special men of this county and throughout the state
received training with Professor McGee. He was thorough in
his teaching and turned out some of the best accountants and
MCGEE 3
FS: most efficiently trained business men in the state.
Another of his achievements was the propagation of a
tomato, the famous McGee tomato which for many years was
extensively grown throughout Texas and the southern states.
In advertising this tomato, and placing it upon the market
after his business college, Professor did much to bring San
Marcos into prominence. As long as he lived, he ever
praised and boosted his home town and people.
A few years ago he gave up his teaching work and turned
his attention to cotton breeding until his health gave way
and he was forced to seek less active work. In his going,
San Marcos and Hays County loses one of its best citizens.
One that gave it the furtherance of every good cause and his
wise counsel and assistance will be greatly missed in the
community.
He was a member of the Baptist Church, having been
converted at 17 years of age. His religious life was very
devoted and consistent as he lived a victorious life of
faith in God and the Bible. He is survived by the one
brother, Reverend McGee, and by his wife who was formerly
the Mary May Simcock, three sons, Dewitt McGee of Corpus,
Marion McGee of Camden, N. Jersey,(the present interviewee) ,
and Frank M McGee of San Marcos, three daughters,
Mrs.A.M.Weir of Edinburgh, Mrs. Mary Belle and Tressie McGee
of San Marcos, and three little grandchildren." I see - we
don't need the pall-bearers?
MM: No.
MCGEE 4
MP: You lived in Camden, N.J. for awhile?
MM: Yes maam.
MP: When did you leave San Marcos if you were born here,
how long were you here?
MM: You got that thing on?
MP: Uh huh.
MM: Well, after the War - I was in \~orld War I - after the
war I went to Teacher'S College here in San Marcos and got
to thinking, I was all alone, and I er, they wanted me over
at the Academy to be the business manager. And I told them
that I wasn't interested in that job over there because I
had been in the war and I wanted to finish my education. It
had been delayed, see. And the president of the college
convinced me that I'd make more money over there than if I
stayed in school and got a degree. Wanted me to take that
job over at the Academy as business manager, and which I
did. That was in 1919.
But I worked a year or two and saw that I wasn't
getting anywhere and then I began to get in business and
finance and I went to Philadelphia to the Wharton School of
Finance - part of the University of Pennsylvania. But
Camden was just across the river. But I stayed over there
and that is when I enrolled in the University. Went to the
School of Finance.
A bunch of farmers had moved in and organized a
cooperative and they wanted somebody to manage it, the
business end of it, and they went to the University of
MCGEE 5
MM: pennsylvania to get somebody, and they recommended me.
And I told them that I did not want the job - I had come up
to go to school. And that was in the spring of the year.
They told me to go over there and take it for the summer and
come back in the fall, and then go back to school. But I
went over there and took it for three months and stayed
there for nine years.
MP: You must have enjoyed it. You must have liked it.
Just as good as going to school?
MM: I never did finish.
MP: So then when did you come back to San Marcos?
MM: Well, I came back in the 30s, 1930. And the great
depression came on, you know, and things were hard. People
sold apples to get something to eat, and I had to come back
home and perhaps if the depression had never come I maybe
would have never come back to live. But I came back home in
the 30s and I went through t he 30s with a wife and two
babies.
MP: And what did you do when you got here? What was your
livelihood?
MM: I was unemployed for eleven months with the wife and
two babies, and no money. And then I went back to the
Academy where I worked before and I stayed there about 10
years as business manager. All during the 30s.
FS: That was in Carrol Hall, wasn't it?
MM: Yes, that's right. And we lived in Carrol Hall - we
had an apartment there.
•
MCGEE 6
FS: Carroll Hall blended itself with graduate students
living there today. Place where the faculty lived, a
dormitory, you know. The dormitory has since been torn
down.
MM: Yes.
MP: The same Carroll Hall?
MM: That's right. We are now talking about the San Marcos
Academy. The San Marcos Academy.
FS: Tell me this. When you were growing up, since you were
born in San Marcos, how was it downtown, how did it look
downtown?
MM: Well, to tel l you, see when I grew up, the square was
the only business section there was. It was only 5000
people here - 6000 people. And in those days I knew
everybody on the square. That was the only business section
they had. And people didn't scatter out like they are doing
now. In my opinion, it is being recorded I am sure, San
Marcos was a better town to live in with 6000 people than it
is today with, maybe 40,000.
FS: Let's see now. In 1918 you left here ...
MM: To join the navy, the United Sates Navy - May I, 1917.
FS: And when were you born?
MM: November 29, 1895.
FS: '95? OK, then you were about 12 years old when they
built the pretty new bank? Do you remember the new bank
when it went up there on the corner? When you grew up, the
First National Bank was new on that corner?
MM: Let me tell you this. The Chamber of Commerce gave a
"
MCGEE 7
MM: big breakfast here two or three weeks ago and the State
Bank was in charge of it. And they had me down there
because I'm the oldest and the longest continuous customer
they got. Before the State Bank was organized, it was a
Woods National Bank and I opened an account there in 1905 or
1906.
FS: In the Woods National Bank?
MM: In the Woods National Bank and I still have the depost
slips, the evidence that I had an account. I was about 11
years old at the time. And when the Chamber of Commerce had
this breakfast down here three or four weeks ago, they
wanted me down there and introduced me and related what
happened. And the State Bank absorbed the Woods National
Bank.
FS: At that time the Glover Bank and the Woods Bank was
right in the middle of the square
MM: Do you know where Bogess' Shoe Shop used to be? That
is where the Woods National Bank was. In that building down
there.
FS: Do you remember the roof, the pretty bank, the pretty
building of the First National Bank, do you remember how
pretty it was on the corner there?
MM: That was built years later.
FS: That was a grand bank.
MM: That was years later - it was the First National Bank.
FS: In 1907.
MM: Well, yeah.
MCGEE 8
FS: In 1909. How was it around the square when there was
activity around the railroad? When the railroad was
important to t he town, and it was across from Hofhein's
Hotel. Do you remember Hofhein's Hotel?
MM: The railroad was right across from the Hofhein's Hotel.
Hofhein's Hotel is where the old National Bank Building is
now.
FS: But I mean, there wasn't very much between it and the
railroad at that time.
MM: It was a big long block. You take the National Bank
Building on the corner of the square and it is way down to
the railroad t r ack and the depot was where the railroad
track is. That's a good long ways down there.
FS: It did face the hotel, did face the railroad station?
MM: The hotel can't face it because it is too far away.
FS: Well, I thought
MM:
(garbled conversation)
MP: I guess it was totally differe nt. We drove by that
are a .
FS: Yes
MP: Yeah.
that long block.
FS: Yes, he is right. I was wondering
MM: The idea is that the International Great Northern
Railroad was just across the street from the HEB store now.
There's an old brick building there, ove r there now. That's
where the depot was.
MCGEE 9
MP: What mostly went through here on the railroad - was it
passenger trains or freight?
MM: Passenger trains, freight trains, yeah.
MP: And are those tracks still in use by Amtrak?
MM: Amtrak. Oh yeah.
MP: Amtrak goes on there.
MM: Yes, you see we have a single railroad track from here
to Austin, but from San Marcos to San Antonio there is a
double track, the KATY-Missouri, Kansas and Texas. The
International Great Northern. They call it Missouri-Pacific
now.
MP: And when did the railroad go in here?
MM: Well, like I told you my mother was here when they laid
the tracks and she came here in 1880. And it was after
that
FS: In 1881.
MM: In 1881 ••• she saw them lay the ties.
FS: That's interesting. Your mother's name was Simcock.
MM: Simcock.
FS: And where did she come from?
MM: She came in here in 1880 from Virginia (and Missouri
for a couple of years) in a covered wagon. They had two
covered wagons. They went by Missouri for a year or two and
then came on to Texas.
FS: But that was after the Civil War.
MM: That was. They got here in 1880.
MCGEE 10
FS: When you were a boy did you go to school at Coronal
Institute* ?
MM: No. Well, I tell you public schools in those days, San
Marcos did not own any public schools. The Methodists,
Coronal School was a Methodist school and they contracted
with the city to educate the children. And Coronal Institute
operated the school and it was actually our guys made San
Marcos stand off from Coronal Institute and organized their
own school. My older brother and sister did go to Coronal
Institute but when I came along, I went to the public school
s o I never got to go t o Coronal Institute.
FS: I see.
MM: They contracted Coronal Institute to •. •
FS: To teach the public schools. When you were that young
man and went around the square, what they call the front of
the courthouse
MM: Yes.
FS: The front end is not where you come in from the •••
M: Yes.
FS: That at one time, earlier than your time, there was a
Kone livery stable.
MM: I well r emember that. You know where the Suttle
Furniture Co. is today, right below that was the Kone livery
* Coronal Institute - founded in San Marcos by
G.N.Hollingsworth in 1868 - co-ed and offered military
training to boys - in 1869-70 enrollment - 130. Handbook of
Texas 1952.
MCGEE 11
MM: stable. Right below that.
FS: Well, that would be on the present L B J.
MM: Yes.
FS: All right. Well, I thought that it was on San Antonio
St. Mr. Bales has a livery stable over there on San Antonio
St., what I have read.
MM: I don't know where you read it. There was another
livery stable on Broadway St. down there. That was Lindsey,
I think a man Lindsey had a livery stable there.
FS: Do you remember the Armstrong Hotel?
MM: Yes. Sure I do. I knew the Armstrongs.
FS: And is that the location where the old telephone
company building is?
MM: No. You know that new addition that the Building and
Loan - a drive-in down there that faces that San Antonio
St., that corner there was where the Armstrong Hotel was -
on the land that the Building and Loan developed.
FS: I understand that it was a hotel here for 100 years.
MM: Well, there was another hotel here about where the
Suttle Furniture Co. is now. Called the Goforth Hotel.
FS: Near the railroad station?
MM: Yeah.
FS: When you were a young man, you left as a young man to
go to war, and then when you came back but left again, for
that period there when young people were looking for
something to do, were there any good places in San Marcos to
eat?
MCGEE 12
MM: There was only one place in San Marcos to eat and that
was Bond's Cafe. And it was so rough that women couldn't go
in there to eat. It was years later that it got decent
enough that women could go in there and eat.
FS: So there was a place to eat out?
MM: No. No. There were no eating out like this day and
time. No, it was impossible.
MP: What kind of folks frequented that ••• uh ...
MM: A bunch of rough men.
MP: Cowboys coming in from
MM: Rough people. It wasn't decent to take a lady in to
eat.
MP: Roustabouts from the railroad?
MM: Yeah.
FS: Since you were here and you were a young man from 1915
and less than 1918 •••
MM: I left in 1917 to join the Navy.
FS: Then at that time wasn't one of the big industries oil
milling?
MM: They had an oil mill here. I could try to tell you
where it was - it was down there where the Smith's J & L
they have a cafe back in - it was behind that. That's where
the oil mill was.
FS: Was there just one?
MM: One oil mill? Yes, just one oil mill.
MP: When was this now? About the time you left?
MM: The oil mill was here when I was born.
MCGEE 13
MP: Oh.
MM: It finally ended up the cotton raised here and they
closed it down. Moved the machinery out. No evidence of it
there now.
FS: Yes, the cotton was the big .•. and then when the
economy slumped - it was either over-produced or boll weevil
got a problem - when it became the way they had the idea
that cotton seed oil milling and that all occurred between
1910 and 1920.
MP: It wasn't very long then; didn't last very long?
FS: What do you attribute the progress of San Marcos to -
school, education or •.• tourism?
MM: Well, you know the Chamber of Commerce people, they
want the big city to grow and most facts, personally, I
don't go in for all that. The labor unions corning in and
dictating to you and telling you how to run your city and
everything like that. San Marcos don't need things like
that.
FS: I see now. You all were married here?
MM: Yes - in San Antonio.
FS: You want to tell us how it was ..•
MP: Oh, I wanted to find out a little bit more - you were
married when you were around 22, before you went into the
service?
MM: I was 27 years old when I got married.
MP: OK, you were back from the service and then you got
married.
MCGEE 14
MM: Yes.
MP: uh huh.
MM: Went back to New Jersey to get married.
MP: From here.
MM: I was working up there.
MP: OK. Did you just live here in San Marcos? You never
went back to New Jersey?
MM: I grew up in the middle of Texas (Mrs. McGee)
MP: Uh huh.
MM: He was working in New Jersey. (Mrs. McGee)
MP: I see.
MM: In my 64 years.
MP: For heaven's sake. Where was your home here in San
Marcos?
MM: Well, I tell you. Do you know where Academy and
Lindsey Streets meet? You turn right on Lindsey to go up to
the Academy. The big square -
FS: Oh, the Academy.
MM: You turn right going up Academy Street, the big
two-story house on the corner, on the left, that's our home.
501 Academy Street.
FS: I'll drive you by.
MP: OK.
MM: It's now a fraternity house. We lived there for many,
many, many years.
FS: ••• worked at the Academy.
LP: The Southwest Texas University, has that helped or
MCGEE 15
LP:
MM:
hindered the growth of San Marcos?
They got 20,000 students up there now. It is bound to
have helped. To talk of the population gained, it has
helped. Some people may think not, but other people think
that it is.
LP: I am thinking from the economy standpoint. Evidently
it has helped San Marcos.
MM: I am sure that it has. It dominates San Marcos now.
LP: It is akin to our tourism in San Antonio.
MM: Yeah. It dominates San Marcos.
MP: You have tourism here, too, with Wonder World and
Acquarena Springs.
FS: College may be the first industry.
education an industry.
If you can call
MP: About tourism. OK. That's primarily it, right?
FS: We have several small industries.
MP: You have some manufacturing.
FS: Small industries.
MP: Clean, small industries.
FS: Mensor and Thermon from Houston.
MP: I see.
FS: It wouldn't have gotten much larger except for
Mr. Rogers.
MM: Yeah ..• It was really enjoyable here. Bathing down by
the river.
MP: That's not the same Rogers -
FS: The same Rogers.
MCGEE 16
MP: The same Rogers that owns the funeral parlor?
MM: Yeah.
MP: Did you know members of that family when you were
growing up - Rogers?
MM: I grew up with them.
MP: And went to school with them?
MM: Sure, knew them forever. Everything good about them
and everything bad about them.
MP: That's what happens in a small town. When you grew up,
how many brothers and sisters did you •.. ?
MM: six in the family. Three boys and three girls.
MP: And you lived here in the city.
MM: I was born right behind the library, this side of the
Baptist church. Where the Pennington Funeral Home is now.
MP: Oh, yes.
MM: That's where I was born.
FS: That's where the business college was.
MM: Yes, where the business college was.
MP: Oh.
FS: You had the business college at your home.
MP: Yes. Describe the college and your home to us.
MM: I don't know how to describe it.
MP: Yes
FS: Was it two story? Was the home in the front?
MM: I had some pictures of it, but I don't know if I could
find them.
MP: Oh, you mean it was all in one unit? One building?
MCGEE
MM: It was one building. We lived downstairs and the
business college was upstairs.
17
MP: And how big was the college when it started? How many
students?
MM: Oh, that was before I was born. I wouldn't know that.
MP: It started out small and then it kept growing?
FS: When it was brought in here it was quite THE thing.
MM: Oh, yes.
FS: When they moved the Lone Star Business College here
from Kyle, it was quite a plum to San Marcos.
MM: Oh, yes, it was a big deal.
MP: That was your father that did that?
MM: That's right.
MP: And it was called the Lone Star?
FS: Yes, the Lone Star Business College. And it did help
the economy of San Marcos.
MM: I have a diploma from it.
FS: And that was quite a plum for San Marcos to get it.
And when it burned, Mr. Green went over there and enticed
him to.
MM: It burned in Kyle - never did burn here.
MP: She said the bankers went over.
MM: Yes. The courthouse here burned in the early days too.
About 1904 or 'OS, about in there someplace. Burned one
night - cold as it could be. We all went down and watched
it burn.
FS: That was 1907.
MCGEE 18
MM: Was it 1907? We remember it burned; freezing night.
FS: You must have been about 12 years old.
MM: That's right.
MP: Did they have the old fire wagon, those with the
buckets?
MM: It was drawn by horses, you know.
MP: Horses.
MM: They didn't have anything else.
FS: Wasn't the fire station at that time across from the
Armstrong Hotel?
MM: No.
FS: No?
MM: You know the old city hall, there across from the bank.
FS: Yes.
MM: That's where the fire station was.
FS: I meant the earlier one.
MM: That's where the fire station was.
FS: Earlier than that. One when they had horses and they
could react to the sound of the bell across from right down
there on San Antonio Street, before they moved to the
Guadaloupe Station.
MM: I don't remember that.
FS: No, you wouldn't remember that - this was in 18 •• .••
MM: One time, the stable where they kept the horses burned
and it burned the horses up. Yes.
FS: Tell us what you can remember about your mother's family
- Simcock.
MCGEE 19
MM: Well, he was a dentist.
FS: Her father was a dentist?
MM: A dentist. And he started in the Civil War and after
he got out of the war, he went to a dental school and then
came by West Virginia and by Missouri into Texas. And he
practiced in Kyle for a few years ·and then he moved to
Austin.
FS: It is interesting really, how little note is made of
this. Many people came from Missouri to San Marcos. It is
all a big deal coming from the south. A lot of people came
in to San Marcos after the Civil ..• really Edward
Burleson, before he was General Burleson, he was in Missouri
when he had the idea of coming to Texas and bringing his
family to Texas.
Mrs. M: He is always telling me a story about going on a
vacation with his grandfather in the summer. As a dentist,
he was a travelling dentist. He went all over- tell about
how you camped out and •.•
MM: He ran a dental office in Austin, on Congress Ave., but
a lot of patients that called him and they lived up in the
country by the Colorado River. And he had a camp wagon, a
covered wagon, and he would go up there and camp. Maybe two
or three weeks and do their dental work on the side.
FS: He would have his equipment with him.
MM: He would take everything with him. Now I've been with
him several times on these trips. He would be gone two or
three weeks. Man, that was mighty nice •
. ,
MCGEE 20
FS: What's your background? You can tell you are a
Southern Texan.
Mrs. M: Well, not that .,.
MP: Where did your family come from? East Texas?
Mrs. M: East Texas, near College Station. Was there right
after the Civil War. Close to Mississippi and I grew up
there and came down here to school and was in school when I
married him.
MP: You came here to go to school? Your family didn't
come?
Mrs. M: Oh, no.
MP: You came to go to school?
Mrs. M: Went to a boarding house.
MP: And that is where you met Mr. McGee.
Mrs. M: They had these boarding houses then. I lived at
the Atkinson Boarding House - a fried chicken on that place
now on the street that goes by there ••• At that time Ed
Darby ran a taxi and we walked from school to the college.
We stayed up there lunch time and we walked back to our
boarding house and ate our meal, then back up the hill and
stayed until about 4 or 5 o'clock in the afternoon and then
went back home. They don't do that now - they have to have
cars.
MP: So how big was the campus at that time, compared to
now?
Mrs. M: There was Old Main and I graduated from Horne
Economics. I guess it was Horne Economics - I don't know if
MCGEE 21
Mrs. M: they still have Home Economics or not. And they
had a library right over here. Old Main was the library.
And then they built a little building below the cafeteria
and the Home Economics building was called the cafeteria.
That's where they fed them. And all that next street down
at the lower bend was rooming houses. For boys and girls in
those rooming houses. And there were no dormitories.
FS: You recall Commanche Street as having nice residences
at that time?
Mrs. M: Well, yes. They were nice residential: there were
big two story buildings. I expect we still have pictures of
them. We would have pictures but in the 70s, the flood came
in the Clear Springs Apartments, we lost all our pictures
that were on the floor. All messed up and we threw them
away.
FS: I tell you. Cotulla is not ... it bothers me
MP: That some pictures from your scrapbook?
MP: I wanted to ask you - I understood that you were
auditor after you left the Academy and then you were auditor
for Hays County?
MM: Thirty years.
MP: Thirty years?
MM: That's right. Thirty years. That's the placque
there.
MP: Yes, that is what he is looking at.
"
MCGEE 22
FS: So he has about 150 schools that he has grown ••• ?
MP: Yes. "I submit my resignation as county auditor as of
Feb 28, 1965. I have audited the county records for 30
years." Very good. When did you totally retire then?
That's it, you retired totally? Then you have been retired
twenty My!
MM: You know in World War I, I kept a diary and it was very
complete and very nice. And somebody at the end of the war
wanted it worse that I, you know, and they took it. And I
lost my diary. But I have written down a lot of my
observations through the years and I thought that maybe you
would like to look at a few of them.
MP: Why don't you pick some and read them aloud and I'll
tape them.
MM: Well, I'll let you look at some and let you folks look
at them.
MP: OK.
MM: And give him a bunch of them.
MP: Oh, these are one-liners.
MM: Yes, one-liners. The first one I wrote for the day I
joined the Navy.
MP: And which one was that one? Do you remember?
MM: It was one of these.
LP: "Do you win a trip very often?" Boy, you must have had
a lot of faith to say that.
MM: On Sunday morning.
MCGEE 23
LP: On Sunday morning?
MM: We ate bacon on Sunday morning.
FS: This is good. Sounds good for you to say.
MP: Go ahead.
(pause)
FS: OK. He calls all these "Observations" and he says "I
cannot write a book of my life; it would be called
fiction."
MP: I like that.
FS: "Observations after taking notice - mine are nothing
more, nothing less intended."
MP: "The first step to being financially independent is to
learn to live within your income."
FS: Boy, my husband believes in that one. Thinks that his
kids should, too. Don't borrow money, don't have charge
accounts.
MM: We have already done it.
FS: "I'm past ninety years of age, and longevity on both my
father's and mother's family." (Mr. McGee talking.) In
speaking of the war, "at Dunkirk, during enemy air raids, we
stayed in underground shelters and played black-jack during
the time."
MP: Did you find it to read? Do you have one to read?
MM: No.
FS: Ha, ha. I think that he liked the cook. "A green apple
pie can be the pie by which all other pies are judged." "And
one of America's most popular dinner meals - corned beef and
MCGEE 24
FS: cabbage, boiled potatoe, raw onions, jalapeno cornbread
and buttermilk." That's a good meal - my husband would like
that, too. Not speaking for the corned beef and cabbage,
but he loves that buttermilk, jalapeno cornbread and raw
onions.
MP: Observation number 78. "I could not grow up under a 40
hour work week ••. " "The United States could put a man on
the moon but they have not wiped out poverty. The question
is how much does it cost if it's free."
FS: I like this •.. "Why does a young lady smoke a
cancerous weed to her detriment and foul up the air for
others? Perhaps it makes her feel sophisticated. I think
that is why they do it. I am sure it is to begin with."
MP: "We are not over the effect of the u.s. Civil War. It
is too bad that it was ever fought."
FS: We were talking about it the other day. We don't think
that Savannah or Charleston will ever get over it.
MP: "Every person should live within his income. This is
true of government; otherwise you are doomed to utter
failure."
LP: Of course, when you went to school you didn't have a
bus to bus you to school.
MM: Oh, no, we walked.
LP: You walked. Rain or shine.
MM: Rain or shine.
Never been on one.
I never rode a school bus in my life.
FS: Here's another thing. "Coffee shop gossip is that the
MCGEE 25
FS: state of Texas slipped up on the blind side of the
Baptists when they bought the Academy school back in San
Marcos and here they are going to tear down Old Main." And
that school's Old Main. (Carroll Hall now SWT's)
MM: Uh, huh.
FS: Designed in the dark, out in ,the cold. We are trying
to save that building if we can. They had us up there two
weeks ago.
MM: I was at the laying of the cornerstone of the Old Main
at the Teacher's College. Both of them. I was at the . ..
FS: You were at the laying of the cornerstone ... you were
there when they were laying the cornerstone?
MM: Each - of Old Main and the Academy.
FS: When all that building ..•
MM: That building is Carroll Hall - now SWT's San Marcos
Hall as strong and as safe today as when it was built. And
those architects said they are weak and stuff like that.
FS: But THC architects proved that it was structurally
sound.
MM: It is brick and mortar. It is a good building.
MM: (Mrs.): When we lived in New Jersey, we •.. buildings
were over 200 years old. Great big, thick walls, and they
didn't think of tearing them down.
FS: You should write a two paragraph letter to the Editor
about that. I keep asking people to do it. •.• We need to
start •.. why don't you write a letter sign his name to it?
MP: Is this about your father? About you? (Looking at a
paper article.) "McGee makes his mark." I have it here.
LP: What have you been doing since you retired?
•
MCGEE 26
MM: I don't do anything. Go to town and have coffee with
orange juice and read and sleep and in fact, I don't have
anything to do.
LP: Go to football games?
MM: Oh, I like baseball, bowling and stuff like that, but I
am too feeble to have any energy or strength. I can hardly
walk. Now I can't drive the car anymore so I sold it. I
don't have any endurance. I can't see.
LP: When you were growing up, like in school, what kinds of
games did you play there?
MM: Well, I went in more for swimming than anything else.
LP: At San Marcos here, did they swim in the river? or?
MM: Well, I tell you. When I went to public school and
there were two railroad bridges, the North Pacific and the
KATY, and down below that, when I was at school, seventy
years ago, that was a wilderness down there on the river.
And no civilization - we went in naked. I never had a
bathing suit until I was grown. I'd see 40 or 50 boys from
high school go in swimming every day.
MP: You must have been a pretty good swimmer.
lot of time down there?
MM: Yes. I saved my life by being able to swim.
You spent a
MP: Well, you were in the Navy and is that why you chose
the Navy? Because you were an expert in the water?
MM: I'll tell you why I joined the Navy. War was declared
April 6th, 1917 and I wanted to see service. I wanted to
~\CGEE 27
MM: to see something. I didn't think that the Army would
go to Europe. So on May 1st, 24 days after, I got up and
joined the Navy so I could get over to Europe. I wanted to
see something. And that's the reason I joined the Navy.
FS: Joined the Navy to see the world!
MM: Yes. I was stationed at Dunkirk, France, all the time.
FS: You stayed at Dunkirk, France.
MM: That's right. I styed at Dunkirk, France. You know
the Germans had the U-Boats coming out the canals up above
that, in Belgium. Zebrou (in Europe) Canal and preying on
the shipping in the channels. Submarines. They would come
out and bomb those ships. The United States Navy put a
station at Dunkirk to prey up and down the English channel
and drop bombs on those submarines. The further you get in
the air the deeper you can see in the ocean, to a certain
extent. And we went from the station to bomb those enemy
submarines. And that is where I spent a whole year.
MP: I notice in this clipping that you gave that you are
interested in gardening. You are an outdoors man? Gave
away thousands of seedlings?
MM: That's right.
MP: Where did you do a lot of your landscaping - at your
house down by the Academy?
MM: Yes.
MP: Did you do that yourself?
MM: Yes.
FS: He raised an •.• oak, too. He gave us one.
MCGEE 28
MP: Oh.
FS: Yes, my husband is raising them.
MP: Is there any evidence of your plants around San
Marcos?
MM: Right there, that's evidence isn't it?
MP: Right. How about any other place?
MM: I think that we have given away thousands, not just a
few, but thousands.
MP: Thousands of them.
MM: Different shades.
MP: You did it because you liked to.
MM: I never sold one. Always gave them away.
Mrs. M: At least five hundred people he gave a red bud
tree.
MP: For heaven's sake.
Mrs. M: Yes, you drive around San Marcos and see their red
buds ...
FS: Well, that's interesting. Did you take care of the
• ?
MM: No. I took care of them.
MP: The McGee tomato. That was on the back of the picture
too. Did your father initiate that or . .. ?.
MM: He propagated it. He used to get bushels of tomatoes
to the vine.
FS: Did he say anything about the cotton? You did have a
cotton •..
MM: Yes, he raised .•• he was in the tail ... he was in the
city, in the plant.
MCGEE 29
FS: To propagate it?
MP: Because of the water rising or what?
MM: No. It wasn't even paved. One time it didn't have any
gravel on it, the streets here in early days. The wagons
•.. they had water troughs around the court house, places to
drink the water, and I've seen wagons in the mud around the
court house sink up to their hubs before they graveled it.
And the first time they graveled it, the square, about the
time
General Pershing went down into Mexico to hunt Pancho
Villa, you heard about that, the county didn't have the big
trucks in those days, they had the cavalry and they sent the
cavalry from San Antonio and Austin to Camp Mabry, they
didn't have 35 highway and they had to go on these back
roads and they came through the square and the square had
just been tar paved and the horses' hooves had gone through
it and turned it to powder, the pavement, and it had been
down only a short time.
MP: What a thing to remember such as that. It is hard to
bring it all back to memory. What about this wild river? I
read in the book about the San Marcos River which floods
it's banks. Do you have many experiences of that?
MM: ••. does it. They built some dams up there. Don't
know if they will stop it or not.
MP: It is still unpredictable?
MM: A lot of the people think that it is. Every time that
MCGEE 30
MM: it rains, we have a big rain ••. they built the Canyon
Dam and Uvalde never flooded again. And it rained below the
dam and a man and his wife drowned and everything else.
They think that these dams stop it but, I don't know.
Mrs.M: I am scared of these floods. We got caught in 1970
and it came up to the second floor of our apartment.
the water came in just like we were in the ocean. Water was
as far as we could see.
MP: How long ago was this? 18 years.
MM: Another in '82.
MP: We live in San Antonio.
MM: Oh. Getting back to the business college, my father, I
had to actually to leave Texas.
Rest of tape is bad. This is almost end of first side.
TAPE I, END OF SIDE 1, ABOUT ••.
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