THE INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM
INTERVIEW WITH: Lawrence A Moon
DATE: 23 October 1990
PLACE: Marshall, Texas
INTERVIEWER: Marilyn Pistel
P: This is Marilyn Pistel from the Institute of Texan Cultures. This morning is October 23, Tuesday. I'll be interviewing Mr. L.A.Moon. And we're at the Historical Commission for Harrison County. It is now ten minutes to nine.
All right. Lawrence Alexander Moon. Mr. Moon, can we begin by getting a little bit of your background and perhaps finding out when you were born and your parents.
M: I was born April the 10th, 1910, on a farm partly in Harrison County, partly in Maryland County, about 2 and a half miles east of Ore City, Farm Market - State Farm Market 450. It starts out there.
P: Were you a member of a large family? A lot of brothers and sisters?
M: Yes, there were many people in my family, in my granddaddy's family and in all our families there were several people. I'm the 4th child of E.T.L. and Hester Moon.
P: And they were farmers - did you live on a farm?
M: We were farmers until we left the farm and came to M: Marshall.
P: And how old were you then?MOON
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M: I was 11 years old.
P: What do you remember about your youth on the farm up until the time you were 11 years old - anything sticks out in your memory?
M: Yes, it was very interesting and life was really nice on the farm because my dad was a farmer and he was a merchant. He was a carpenter and he was a head of the church. And as such we always had what we called the best of everything. Born of Christian parents and life was something very interesting.
If you were not a member of a family of 5, 6, 7, 8 or 9 children you've missed something.
P: Yes, I can believe that. I imagine you have good warm memories of your mother perhaps her cooking and the festivities and the holidays.
M: Yes. Mother was a good cook and we always went to church and at times - the winter times, nobody would go to church but us and my dad would put us in a wagon and carry us about 2 miles to church. And he was a little Methodist preacher, too. We had Sunday School, we had church, then we'd go back home.
I remember one Sunday, it had stormed - about a foot of snow and we went to church, all were frozen getting to church but once we got there we built a fire. We had church, we had Sunday School. On the way back we met a man M: on a horse who says, "Why, Moon, I'm sorry we can't have church today." And my dad said, "What are you talking about? We had a good MOON
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service." "Good service, today." And that's the way it was with my dad and mother. We came from a Christian environment. And I liked it all.
P: When you have a large family you almost have a small congregation right there. Was your father the pastor at that church?
M: He only preached when the creek got up and the pastor couldn't get there. See, if it rained hard and the preacher couldn't get to church then my dad took over and he'd preach. Not only would he preach, but he built the school. At first we had school in a Methodist Church and my dad talked to the superintendent of the school district and the school board, named Hudspeth, and asked him why we couldn't have a Black school.
So, he said, "Let me think and figure." And after figuring, he met with my dad and Ceaser and now said .... the black ...(?) The district don't own but one seventeenth of the property. So you all don't deserve too much. But I'll give you a thousand dollars to build a school.
My daddy was also a carpenter. He built the prettiest little bungalow school with that thousand dollars you ever want to see.
Last summer, we had a family reunion. There were members of the family from Houston, Dallas and California, M: Worcester, Kansas and Arkansas, that came back. But they MOON
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wanted to see that 4-room school that my dad built.
P: It's still here then? Is the little building still...
M: It wasn't there. So I had to take off (that was in August.) I had to take off and go out there and try to find out where the school was, because I hadn't been out there in several years. So I went down in what's called the "colored" town, or the Black town near the railroad track and I came on to a lady sitting on a porch combing her little girl's hair. And I says to her, "Lady, Moon is my name." She says, "Are you Kennedy's Moon from down here?" I says, "No, I'm not kin to them, I'm one of them! I'm trying to find out where that place was my daddy built that 4-room school in years ago in 1919." She says, "The school is gone, but you're standing on the land." I said, "Oh, my gee." Then I realized that I could carry all the ... woods ... and family reunion back to that place. So we met in Lanilye Building right there near Wilding. There must have been about 30 cars, and took the caravan and there was one of my first cousins from Worcester,Kansas. He wanted to see where he was born. He hadn't been back since he moved as a kid. I said, "Okay."
We started out. Having made a dry run, I knew exactly where everything was. I said, "Our first stop is going to be now at the Cedar Grove Cemetery where Grandpa is buried." We went to the cemetery, drove out through the woods to the M: cemetery. We all got out and took pictures; took pictures MOON
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of the tombstone where Grandpa Ed was buried and then we moved on. We went to the place where my granddaddy had a cotton gin and a commissary and a grocery store. His baby daughter still lives there though she's sick and old; she's in her eighties.
We all were over to her house. We got out and took pictures. We went just a few yards from her house where my granddaddy's gin was. His cotton gin. How he came into possession of this cotton gin is still part of the story. But we went back - we went back and had dinner, went to the Lake of the Pines, and took pictures and came back to Wiley. We had the family dinner there.
Grandpa is still another story.
P: How about your grandpa? Let's talk about him now.
M: See, I always - we always would go over after church to Grandpa's house. I was a little kid, five or six years old. My grandpa would sit me on his knee and says, "Son, let me tell you why I'm here." Says, "I was born in 1843 in the southern part of Georgia on a plantation. I grew up on this plantation. But the master started grooming me when I was 14 or 15 years old to run the plantation. As you know, one person ... vast ... plantation, he had to have help to run it. See, the plantation owner would usually pick out who he thought was an alert and intelligent Black and in ...... [with?] apprenticeships - and trained him how to do the M: things. How to be a blacksmith, how to be a carpenter, see. So after all the Blacks is going MOON
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to do the work.
My granddaddy took the apprenticeship, run the cotton gin, how to make new bearings for the cotton gin, how to keep up the cotton gin, how to operate the store. By the time he was grown, 20 years old, figuratively speaking, he was an old man.
His master was getting ready to go to the Confederate Army. The War was going on in 1863. And he told him that, "You're going to have to take care of the plantation. My wife and everything, until I get back." So, okay. But before that happened, the Union Army swept down on the eastern side of Georgia and overrun the plantation. And he started west. He says he could have, he was invited to join the Union Army but he was only going to be serving in the Army, he wasn't going to be registered. He had no serial number. Nothing. If he got hurt, or got killed it was like another mule or horse was killed. No registration whatsoever. So he decided he'd go west.
So he started to moving west to Atlanta, working awhile, dodging awhile, trying to take up with another plantation. But it was the rule, not the law, that once a slave left his plantation after that he was not to be accepted on no plantation so he was out there just on the continuous drift. He worked awhile on a boat, worked awhile here and kept moving west. And when the War was over, he M: had been dumped. See, the War was in Louisiana; they were fighting in Louisiana, see. MOON
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The East Texas was probably the only place there wasn't any fighting. They were dumped over here in East Texas out what we call now the Lake of the Pines. The War was over, he only had the shirt on his back. So he went to a cotton gin because he was - that was the only thing he knew. And worked there for fifty cents a day. At this cotton gin, because he knew the cotton business. He knew how to keep it up, how to run it. When this man died, there was a need in the community for a cotton gin and he was the one who knew how to run the cotton gin. It wasn't too long before he owned the cotton gin!
It's hard to imagine a man making fifty cents a day owning a cotton gin. But once he got that cotton gin, he knew what to do then. He took that money and he started to buying land - two dollars an acre, three dollars an acre, five dollars an acre. He bought land all the way into Ore City. But his kids - at the same time he'd married. The family was coming up. But knew he would need somewhere to live. He'd just keep buying land. Buying land. Every kid that got grown, he'd gave them a hundred acres of land and a pair of mules. As you know, those mules are dead now. (laughter) But we still got that land.
P: Never go away! Now where was that land?
M: I was just a showing her where that land was on that map up there, see? It's right in the corner, northwest M: corner here.
P: I see, is that out by the Lake - Caddo Lake now?MOON
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M: Lake of the Pines. That's the Lake of the Pines there, see. See the Cedar Grove Church was our church. The cemetery is just across the line there. The hundred acres of land my granddaddy gave my daddy, which I own now. I bought the rest of the children out, see. In part of ... see, hundred acres of land, pair of mules, he gave every child, see. The Moons still own the land, see, but the mules are dead.
P: I imagine you're talking a good expanse of land up there that does belong to you and your family.
M: Yes, the Moons still own that land.
P: And the Cedar Grove Cemetery, is that a Black cemetery, or is that just a ...
M: The Cedar Grove community - that's an unusual thing that still happens. The Blacks still own that land around the church and in that community. The Cedar Grove cemetery is back in the woods, about a mile back in the woods there. The church was back in the woods there, but it's been built out on the highway, Highway 450.
P: That church is still functioning, isn't it?
M: It's still - it's a very, very active community and it's a very active church today. I go back out there. I belong to the church here in Marshall, but I go back out there frequently. I told the pastor last week, I said, "Now M: I'm going to start to make a regular contribution to this church, because this is my church, see, this is where I come up and this is MOON
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where I was born."
And my granddad he had been, I guess, I guess that master must have seen something in him because he was an unusual man. He was unusually smart. He had never been to school but he was an educated man.
P: He was resourceful and ...
M: Very, very resourceful. He wrote the first ... land he bought ... he only wrote ... on an ... see ... and that was all because he had never had any formal education. But sometimes because you don't have it, if it's in your head and your desire, you can still move forward.
P: It was probably not too unusual back in those days. When your grandfather came, how many people did he come with? Did a lot of people come with him when he came from Georgia?
M: No, it was a situation where you just were adrift. By the time he got to Alabama, he probably had lost most of the people that had started out from Georgia and he was picking up other people there, see. And he was still a-going. He worked awhile, still a-going and as he would tell me, they were trying to stay ahead of the Confederate Army.
In Louisiana, off from Shrevesport now they re-enact the War. It's re-enacted every year now. You read in the papers about it. Out from Shreveport. They re-enact the M: War there, see? That is as far as they got. Over in Texas you were free when you got in Texas. There was no fighting.MOON
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P: That's right.
M: So a good part of the Blacks from this northern part of Texas and northeast, came from Georgia, Alabama, on the drift. They are probably a little different from the Blacks that came in the Valley, see? The explorers - the Spanish explorers, them was Blacks but the Spanish explorers. There were settlements. If you look in the history there, whole settlements of Blacks they intermarried with Spanish and Mexicans down in south and southwestern Texas.
P: Yes, landowners and ...
M: Landowners. Landowners there, see? But we came through this upper cross ...
P: Yes. So when your grandfather came here he already, there was a Black community already? When he arrived.
M: Uh, some. Some that were settled there, see? But they were slaves, too. There weren't any free Blacks then. There weren't any free Blacks.
P: Would your grandfather become free then, after he got here, or was he free, would you say, after he left the plantation?
M: Well, now, as you know he knew that he wasn't really free. He wasn't really free. The Blacks in Texas weren't really free until the 19th of June. See that was the second M: Emancipation, see. That was the second Emancipation.
P: What was the first?
M: Uh, first Emancipation is when Abraham Lincoln declared MOON
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them free, see? The Blacks in Texas were so far away from Washington they really didn't know it. So there was a ship landed in Galveston on the 19th of June that was the second Emancipation. Now why should you have the two? Because we were so far away from the capitol that nobody then realized it. Therefore, we still celebrate the 19th of June, not January the 1st.
P: So that was in 1865?
M: That was in 1865 when Abraham Lincoln declared the second Emancipation.
VOICE: Your grandfather was already in Cedar Grove?
M: Already in that community. Yeah, he was already there. He was already here.
VOICE: Was your father born then?
M: No, not then, see. Because my granddad had - one, two, three, or four families. His wife died, and he'd marry a young woman and start all over.
My dad was in the second - he called it crops ... see, but there were 2 more crops after him. Yeah. My dad was in the second crop.
P: So when your father was born at that point, your grandfather already had a cotton gin and he owned land, and ...
M: He might have been working at this cotton gin.
P: He didn't own it?
M: Yeah, see. Because he was on the way because he knew how MOON
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to operate a cotton gin.
VOICE: The man who had the cotton gin before your grandfather, was he White or Black?
M: He was White. No, he was White. He was White, see. When my daddy and his two brothers moved the cotton gin from down there on the Lake of the Pines to Ore City, see, they moved it in 1914. I was born in 1910. I remember a long caravan of wagons with some kind of machinery on it moving towards Ore City. The movers are there, and when we moved there it was my dad's job to operate the cotton gin and to see that everything was in order.
We did not ever have time. My dad had 10 children, we never did have time to rest. After we laid by our crops like the rest of the people in the neighborhood - older brothers went to the field and went out in the woods and cut cordwood for the gin. My brother next one to me, we went out into the woods and we cut wood to use at home. My dad would carry the cotton gin's saws - saws that separate the lint from the seed to - over to Daingerfield to have them sharpened. We took 2 days to be away from home. There was only one person in this whole East Texas that knew how to sharpen saws. And I always wanted to go with my dad. "Daddy, let me go with you."
M: We would start out no farther than Daingerfield was, we'd start out at twelve o'clock at night to go over there to get the - and we had to stay one or two days in Daingerfield to MOON
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the man who was sharpening the saws and then bring them back.
But when I got back and went to school, the other kids couldn't tell me anything. "You all haven't been anywhere. I've been 'round the world!" (laughter) And been nowhere.
P: And you had!
M: Yeah. I've been all around the world. You all can't tell me anything.
P: So your family was good to you then, because of the ...
M: My daddy knew how to take and babbitt them times and we build the gin, take that babbitt and make dowelings. A babbitt is sort of a soft metal. And to use, you pour - you take some cotton sacks or something and you pour on each side of the ... , heat that babbitt red hot and pour it over - in there, see? That's how you made the ...
I got to smell the steam and boilers so when I moved to Marshall, I always wanted to cotton gin, cotton, everything, was playing out. I always wanted to smell steam.
I ended up in the cleaning business. Now I'm still smelling steam.
P: Is that right? Well, what businesses then, did you go into? You went to school here in Marshall.
M: Yes, I graduated from Wiley with an AB Degree in Economics but times got hard with my dad.
P: What year did you graduate?
M: In '32. In '29 my dad was in the grocery business and MOON
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times had got hard and he went out of the grocery business because people got all these groceries and didn't pay for them.
Still my dad called us all in. We had family prayer every night. After family prayer, my dad said, "Now, let me tell you something. I'm not working, I'm broke, I've got 10 children and a wife. You older boys has got to go." How you think I felt? Eighteen or nineteen years old. I'd never thought about leaving home.
So I was the fourth kid. There was a girl, third one, 2 boys, my sister and then me. Say, I've got to be listed among the younger ones. I don't have to go. I said, "Papa." I kept looking around and I was on the boderline! I said, "Papa." "Yeah." "How are you classifying me?" Said, "You're one of the older ones." I say, - but he did sofen up - "I don't mean you're going to have to leave home. But get out of here and go to work and help bring us some meat and bread in here."
P:: Now had you - you had just graduated from high school at that point?
M: Well, I was - I had graduated from high school, see, I was 18-19. But then it was no problem because I had helped M: my daddy keep books in the grocery store and I knew what was happening. I knew he was telling the truth.
So I got up next morning at six o'clock and went over on West Ross to Nat Matterson's house. Jack Mann married Nat Matterson's daughter. I worked there.MOON
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P: What kind of business was that?
M: Doctor Pepper. Dr. Pepper, see? And I would work for this lady, this Nat Matterson, and she would always tell her cook, Irene Batts Campbell ...
VOICE: Irene Campbell?
M: Yeah. "Give Lawrence something to eat." See, Irene and I were close. "Give something to Lawrence, something to eat before he leaves." So whether there was any work, it was snow on the ground and I went there under the flowerpot in the back she would leave a check for a dollar and a quarter when I eat dinner. A dollar and a quarter I had more money than anybody.
When I worked ...
VOICE: Tell them who Irene is.
P: I don't know. Who is Irene?
M: She worked for Nat Matterson. She graduated from Bishop and now she is retired. She and her husband is living out on the Port Caddo road. But I never - when I see one I always say, "Tell Irene I say hello." And we still meet up and we're just as close as we ever were.
VOICE: Is this the same lady that I'm thinking about that VOICE: the song "Goodnight Irene" was written about?
M: That's the lady right there! Her uncle wrote a song and played it "Goodnight Irene."
VOICE: Who was her uncle?
M: This man ...MOON
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VOICE: Guy Joplin.
M: No, this man out of Shreveport - what's his name? He wrote "Goodnight Irene." He stayed in Louisiana all the time. But that was the Irene.
VOICE: She was the inspiration?
M: Inspiration.
VOICE: I remember who she was.
P: That should have been in the 1950s I would guess.
VOICE: It was written and then came back. It was popular in the 1950s.
M: Yes, it went way back. But let me tell you the story there. Annette Matterson, I helped to - I worked around Mrs. Matterson's house when Jack Mann met Mrs. Mann which was Mrs. Nat Matterson's daughter, out in West Texas school. They decided to wed so I had to - Irene and I had to prepare the house for the wedding, see? So I always stayed close to Jack Mann, see? And I'm a trustee at Wiley and when we have our Founders' Day at Wiley I always would go to Jack Mann and say, "Jack, Mr. Mann, I was in the family before you. I helped prepare for your wedding." So we would laugh about it. Now, see, I want a donation from you for the Founders' M: Day at Wiley. He did that over all these years. But one year Jack died. And then I wondered what I was going to do during Wiley's Founders' Day. So I went to young Jack and say, "Young Mr. Mann, after that Mr. Mann, he still owns Medwright [sp?] Pond MOON
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and Company that moved from here to Longview.
But I went over there to talk to him and I said, "Now you don't know me, but I knew your dad. I always joked with your dad and told your dad that I was in the Nat Matterson family before him!" (laughter) He said, "Wait a minute Moon, let me tell you one thing. You think I don't know you, but you don't know how much I know you. The last thing my daddy told me before he died, to give Wiley some money on Founders' Day. Now, what do you want?"
P: Now, how about that?
M: What a lovely situation that developed over the years. What a lovely situation.
P: Well, with you going back to him when you were 18, you worked for Dr. Pepper and Mann, what happened then?
M: During my junior year, I got a scholarship because from high school, I got a scholarship. I finished high school as valedictorian of high school. I got a full scholarship at Wiley, I paid nothing, see? But the second year I started having problems, see. So I worked for Southwestern Gas and Electric Company in the ice department. We sold ice. But then the manager of the ice company in 1929, said, "Moon?" M: "Yeah." "Don't you come back down here next year because we're not selling any ice now. People's got refrigerators." So I was out of a job.
But during that summer, I saved $125. The tuition to Wiley MOON
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was $125. I told my dad, "I don't have enough money to go to school, that you and the family's got to eat. I'm going in business."
He says, "What?" I says, "I'm going in business." "What kind of business?" "The dry cleaning business." He says, "Okay." Says, "This place where we have the grocery store, says, nobody's using it. You can set up here."
That I did. But how did I take a hundred twenty-five dollars and go in business? I was working down to Southwestern Gas and Electric Company. Clyde Fed, who was ultimately ... had come the mayor of Shreveport. Remember Clyde's name?
VOICE: I've heard the name.
M: He was the appliance saalesman and repairman. So I went to him and I said, "Listen, I'd like to learn this business of repairing irons, and washers and dryers and things. So he said, "Moon, I don't mind you learning it. But I'm not making any money just like you." Say, "The company ain't paying anybody."
So I would get off the ice wagon at 11:30 or 12:00 and go back and stay there until he done left after 5:30-6:00. And he taught me how to pull motors down, how to put new M: braces in them. How to wash them and clean them. How to inventory them and put them in inventory. How to list them and stack them. He learned me that trade.
So one day I said, "Listen, let me tell you one thing. MOON
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This building is 1929-30. This place is getting full. What're we going to do with this stuff?" He said, "Anybody just comes along, has to keep up these payments."
They were repossessing things. Says, "I let 'em have it." I say, "Well, could I get this dry cleaning rig that has been repossessed?" It had been repossessed in Gilmer, Texas. A guy couldn't pay twelve dollars. That was in August. He said, "You want it, you can keep it until January the first without paying anything." That was my first break, see?
There was a fellow who had gone out of the cleaning business who had a pressing machine and a boiler. I gave him ten dollars for the pressing machine and twenty-five dollars for the boiler. I had a place to operate because my dad said you can operate free.
But I didn't have any way to dry them. I went to Applebaum down there and got some circle coils, circled like that, and built my drying room. And then I was in business. I got everything hooked up and ready. I got ready for my utilities and needed $125 - needed a hundred dollars to pay for my water, my electric, my gas meter. Well, I didn't have it. My uncle who was in the grocery business there - M: all of these Moons after my granddaddy went in business. You'll find them in Worcester, Kansas, in Oklahoma, California and Arkansas and Houston. But they're still in business, see? We're still in business.MOON
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I went to my uncle, I said,"Uncle?" "Yeah?" "I'm going in business. I can't go to school. I got everything set up."
"What kind business you talking about, boy?" I said, "Cleaning business." He say, "Yeah? Have you ever been around the cleaning business?" "No, sir." I need a hundred dollars to pay for my deposit on my meters - utility meters."
Well, he was very successful. I knew he had it. Well, he sat there and he smoked his pipe. After 2:00 one evening, he smoked his pipe and he set there and people come in, he'd wait on them and come back and set down. I set there from 2:00 until 5:00. He never said, a word. I say, "Uncle?" "Yeah." "I need to go, you haven't told me whether you'se going to let me have the hundred dollars or not. I need the hundred dollars to get set up and start a business."
Without saying a word, he got up, he went in the back and opened his safe and he turned this way and hand me the hundred dollars and looked off.
P: Didn't look at you?
M: Oh, that hurt me! But I got the hundred dollars. Then M: I teamed up with people. I was right there at Wiley. I teamed up with the captain of the football team, who was also my fraternity brother, to go in business with me and do the soliciting on the campus and we do the cleaning.
P: You were going to draw your business from the college MOON
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students, then?
M: Yeah. That was the key point of it, see? I say, "Now listen, Busby ..." Busby was a millionaire - real estate business in Houston right now, see? But he got his experience with me. I say, "Let's go to Dr. Dogan who's a ... prayer man and tell him our story and have him to make an announcement in chapel. We're going to clean his clothes free."
Well, he - Dr. Dogan, the president of the college, swallowed the whole hook, line, everything. He got up in chapel and had us to stand up and said, "I don't want no trucks, no cleaning trucks coming on this campus any more." So we did it. We sewed it up. One month, I'm not even out of school, I'd agreed to lay out of school. Mama cried because I couldn't go to school. I took my hundred twenty-five dollars and went in business.
One morning after then, I went to the president of the college and says, "I'm ready to go to school." He said, "Well, you know the rules, Moon, and you ... a whole month late. You can't go to school." I said, "Yes I can. I can make it up." "No, the rules and regulations, I cannot do M: that for you." I said, "Yes, you can."
I wouldn't even leave out of the office. He said, "I tell you what. Let's go to the dean's office. If you've got a B average, I'll let you go." I knew I had A minus average, so we went down to the dean and he said, "Hi, come right in." MOON
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So he told the dean, "Yeah, I don't have to look, he's got an A minus average."
So they had to let me start to school. Then I wasn't missing something. But I made that time up and I still made honor roll and still in the business.
So then I started out to not only helping people pay utilities bills and loaned them money there. I loaned kids money in between there and we'd go on and so, everything just blossomed then. I started out in the real estate business and buying and selling and investing.
P: So from this cleaning business you spread out into the real estate, it grew and ...
M: That's right. And grew ... so I have retired.
P: What year did you get married.
M: I got married in '56.
P: Now, okay '56. Where did you meet your wife?
M: Wait a minute.
P: You want to back up?
M: I want to back up. That was my second marriage.
P: Okay.
M: Yeah, it was my second marriage. I've been married M: twice and ...
P: While you were in college, you were busy with your dry cleaning business and real estate and you weren't married at that time.MOON
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M: That's right. Well, I married, oh, about 2 or 3 years after I got started and so I have enjoyed the business. My business I turned over to a nephew about 10 years ago. He's got a family, and I says, "Carlos," that's my nephew, "I don't need this business any longer. You've got a family coming on. Do you want it?" He said, "Yes." I said, "Well, let me tell you this. I'm not going to give you this business. Let's go down and get a lawyer draw up the papers. I'll stay here and work it until you pay me out." So he owns that business.
P: That dry cleaning business is still flourishing?
M: It's still going. And, naw, at the same time I had two or three other businesses - I had one coin laundry, another coin laundry, three coin landries and so the dry cleaning business - I sold him one of the coin laundries and the dry cleaning business. So I still had two. I sold one, the other one so, I only have one now.
And all the other things I have to do. And I get up at 6:30 in the morning.
P: You know, that reminds me of when your grandfather gave every child the land and, you know, and here you're doing the same thing with your businesses. Carrying on the P: tradition. That's wonderful.
M: Yeah. And so, one of my uncles left and went to Bowley, Oklahoma. He says, "I just don't like Texas." He was an odd kind of person. And he went to a city where there weren't any MOON
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white people. But they had a city, ... I don't know where you're going to live if you don't like white people. (laughter)
P: Most of your relatives then, the Moon family, still live in this general area? Did most of you stay here?
M: Well, I had a brother that went to Tyler. He worked for my uncle who was in the grocery business. And he got ready to go to Tyler and he finished Wiley. And he had saved two hundred dollars and he went to Tyler and went into business. My uncle, my uncle rang to Moore Grocery Company in Tyler which is a wholesale grocery, I'm saying my nephew, he just finished Wiley, I'm sending him over there, let him have anything he wants up to a thousand dollars. But my brother went over there and he didn't buy but two hundred dollars worth of groceries. And Sledge Company, old man Sledge, the president of ...Moore Grocery Company Wholesale, they fell out because my brother wouldn't buy but two hundred dollars worth of groceries.
But the next week he bought four hundred dollars worth. He still paid for that but he never would get nothing - never would use that credit for a thousand dollars. He never did use. it. But we're all in business.
P: What happened with your dad during the depression - you had to go out to work ... the other children ... Tell me about your parents. What happened to them?
M: That's interesting. Let me tell you. My dad wasn't working. He did work for an oil company during the oil boom, MOON
26
East Texas oil boom, see. He was what you would call a runner for the oil company of Richard Blaylock, lawyer Blaylock, that was around here, do you remember him there?
VOICE: I've heard the name.
M: Yeah, well, he worked for him and Harmond Rundale over to Longview. He was - searched leases there. He went out for Richard Blaylock, out in West Texas, to get some signatures and the car broke down - old car broke down. Took him almost a week to get back. He said, "Why's you gone so long?" "My car broke down." "You go down at Niles Chevrolet Company and tell them to let you have a brand new car. I don't never want you to have to suffer from that."
So he worked in the - for them, see. And to and from - but at the same time, there, back to my mother. It wasn't too long for he's out of a job there. But we had - we were in and out of school up to Wiley.
At one time, 5 of my daddy's children were up to Wiley to one time while he was unemployed. My dad would go up when an examination come and told Dr.Dogan, "Well, it's examination time again." He'd write a little script and let them take the examination. When these first ones would get M: out, they're going to pay this bill and then the rest would come on.
Well, what happens, though, the older ones got out of school. All of us finished either Wiley or Prairie View but MOON
27
when the older ones got out of school, the young ones that came along, my baby sister came along she went to Wiley. We paid her tuition. She worked at the cleaning shop as a tailor. I showed her how to tailor. She's a good tailor, she developed into a good tailor. But she was still in high school, and she went to Wiley and came to the cleaning shop and worked.
She left and went to Houston, the whole family - sister's family is down at Houston. They went to the University of Denver and got their master's in their particular phase and back down there. They're retired down there now.
But, I always took care of Mama. See? Mama, when I finished college, I went down in Louisiana to Logan Port, Louisiana, to get a job. It was forty dollars a month for six months. And I came back and said, "No, I'm not going to take that job." I told my daddy, "I'm going to Dallas and buy me some brand new cleaning equipment." So that's what I did.
But Mama cried all day and all night. And all this time going to school and wasted yourself away. And she held that all along. But when daddy died, then it's me to take M: care of the whole load, the rest of the kids.
So one day she says, "I have forgot it, boy. Lawrence," I says, "Yeah." "Do you remember when you went to Louisiana after this job? I told you, you and Douglas done wasted all your time away." Says, "I take that back. I take that back. I didn't know what you were trying to do. I don't know what MOON
28
I'd do, if it wasn't for you." Says, "You're my darling."
P: That must have meant a lot to you.
M: Says, "You're my darling."
VOICE: Can I ask a question?
M: Yes.
VOICE: You're on the hospital board? As well as the Wiley Board?
M: Wiley Board.
VOICE: Haven't you been on the hospital board a long time?
M: I helped to bring Jim Pearce here about 12 years ago. And we also established a credit bureau. Now in Harrison County Progressive Federal Credit Union, there are no whites in this credit union. But they could become a member of the credit union because anybody in Harrison County that can vote, the Harrison County Progressive Voters' League is the father - the godfather of this credit union.
They've got a credit union, myself and ten more people, put in a hundred dollars apiece in this credit union and started it. We are well above a half a million dollars. M: We've begun a drive now to go up to a million dollars.
It's our own credit union. I've been the president of it for 22 years and it's still growing yet.
P: Did you play a large part ... in later years in the two colleges. Now besides Wiley. And there's another college, is there not a black ...
M: ...left and went to Dolly's so that only leaves Wiley in MOON
29
this immediate area, see? So we are struggling to see that Wiley survives to be a place where kids can go.
P: How large a college is Wiley right now, do you know?
M: Last count, last week, I believe the president said it's 483 students there now, see. Wiley has, as it's mission, something that sometimes you think might get us in trouble, but it's a necessary college.
Take black kids wherever you find them, whether it's in the ghetto, or they come out of a jailhouse, regardless of their background if they desire to go to school we take them and we give them remedial work and then send them on.
Sometimes you think that, "Well, maybe that should be what you do." But I know a kid there that couldn't - didn't know how to sign his check several years ago at Wiley. He'd get these work-study checks. I says, "Son, don't you sign this thing like this. Turn this thing and sign it right."
And he took the remedial work, and he stayed at Wiley MOON
30
M: for five years. He is going to Mahari Medical School; he's graduated there. He is a respectable doctor. See? So maybe so and maybe not.
Some of the kids that go to Wiley could not go over here to East Texas Baptist. They wouldn't take them, see. So sometimes we come up with problems that they don't have because it's the kids that we take.
But if you can take a kid, turn him around and save him, we feel like it's worth every bit of it.
P: You bet. Mr. Moon is still helping his daddy pay his tuition and his families' tuition. You're still helping, aren't you?
M: Yep, still helping. Still give to Wiley every year. I give to Wiley every year. I'm head of the Building and Grounds and Property Committee at Wiley. I've just given them three thousand dollars for some work out there. Last year I gave them five thousand dollars to do some renovation at the men's dorm, see.
I go there now. We had a burnout out to Dobie Hall out there. I go there, we tear them down, we're going to build an ultra modern 2-story building. Dogan Hall was there. I have to go there twice a day to check with the demoliton people. We're going to have a groundbreaking when we have our trustee meeting the tenth of November, which we're going to start out with this ultra modern building.MOON
31
So I get involved in a whole lot of community M: activities, yeah. I do this. My wife said, "Now, you're busier now than you were before you retired."
P: That's the story!
M: I like it. I like every bit of it. Yep. We try to teach people to save, Harrison County Progressive Federal Credit Union. If you're not making but $75.00 or fifty dollars a month, a week, put five dollars in the credit union. So the credit union is built up mostly of just common people that we have entrusted the entrusting of to save.
P: Too bad most of our institutions don't function that way, isn't it?
How many children do you have, Mr. Moon?
M: One and he has 2 children. Yeah, he got a football scholarship to West Michigan State and went there and stayed. He has 2 children, one daughter is Texas Southern in Houston. She's down there and she hangs out with my, both her aunties, which are my ... sisters. So she goes to Texas Southern.
P: Well, did you have any other questions?
Oh, Les was wondering whether Wiley College is still a black college, or do you have white students?
M: Last year, we had ... Latin American though we say whosoever will let him come, but they don't come. This year, I think we've got one Anglo, you see. But they could if they want to. It's just like our credit union, see, friends find out that MOON
32
we have a credit union and we'll get M: along fine there.
We do have applications from other people besides Black but I wonder if they're just hoping we turn them down or don't. But we don't turn them down. But nobody has ever joined.
P: Thank you. Have you any questions?
VOICE: I was wondering if you can tell us a little bit about when you went to school in Marshall. I think that ... Do you have any remembrances of your high school or elementary school days? Your teachers?
M: Yes, I can go all the way back to the time that ...
VOICE: You moved here when you were eleven.
M: Yes. I started school at a grade school which was New Town School then. Professor White was the principal of the school. His son, Ivan White there is retired - was also a principal there, see. And I probably - there's another ... something else way back at Ore City there. Can I go back and tell this?
P: Sure!
M: Interesting or not interesting.
After my daddy built this 4-room school, Hudspeth, see, who was the chairman of the Board of the Ore City School system and the superintendent there, says, "Moon?", "Yeah?", "You've built this school for a thousand dollars, now you go - I'm going to let you hire the teachers."
So he went and hired the teachers, see. And he hired 3 MOON
33
M: teachers. The teachers are supposed to start ... At this time there was 2 weeks difference between when the white school would start and a black school would start because most of the black picked the cotton. So they always started at least two weeks after the whites. But this particular summer, it rained all the summer and the cotton didn't open. It was late opening. So they set the whole dates back a month but my dad had hired Professor Sanford and his wife and another lady to teach and they were there. So what could they do? Send them back home?
My dad was a pretty prosperous farmer and he was ginning everything. And he said, "I'll tell you what. Since you're here you go on and start teaching. And I'll just take the money out of my pocket and pay you for a month and when you get your money, you can pay me."
That sounded like a good thing. But, oh, my gee, what did it create in the community! All the schools are set back. We started school. It meant that the white kids were out there picking the cotton and we were going to school.
My Dad never did realize the problems that that was going to create, see? The first thing the people did went to Hudspeth and say, "You're a damn nigger lover. Now you're going to have to leave here. And Moon's going to have to leave here."
So Hudspeth said, "Williams owns all that land 'round here." So he said, "Let me tell you all one thing. Soon's M: you get through picking this cotton, you all's going to MOON
34
leave here." See. Says, "You all's the one's going to leave here." see? Says, "You all's the one's going to leave 'cause you're going to get off my land, you all's going to leave." See?
We would come along every year, the white kids would gather up rocks and be ready for us and we'd come back on Compound [?]. Rock us all the way down the road. All the way down the road.
So my Dad always says, "Well, I'm going to move to Marshall so my kids can go to school." So when people always ask me from then on, see, why we moved to Marshall, we moved to Marshall for schools; no schools out there.
END OF TAPE I, SIDE 1, 45 MINUTES.
SIDE 2.
That went on for years and years and years. I was ll years old. About l0 years ago, there was a Black man that came in the cleaning shop and we got to talking about Ore City. And he says, "Moon." "Yeah." "Why did you all leave Ore City?" I said, " My dad says we left Ore City because it was better education facilities in Marshall". "Naw". "No." And that's not the way he left.
I say, "Well, why then?" He says, "My Mama", he was a Black about my age. He say, "Now, listen, my mamma quit and worked for Williamson at Hudspeth and while she was a-cooking and a-washing and a-cleaning up she was listening M: and MOON
35
Hudspheth told his wife - Mamma was listening - "I'm going to let all these Crackers off my plantation - my land as soon as it's over".
And so there after, my friend Moon, and sooner or later he come out to Leesville. He say, "Now, you don't have to take this. It's the truth."
But that's what my mamma heard Hudspeth tell his wife. P: But you still own that land.
M: I still own that land.
P: Do the Hudspeths, or the Williamsons or any of the others still own their land?
M: Let me tell you something else. Ore City, Texas - do you know why they put that ore plant, a steel mill at Lone Star and not at Ore City? That's where the ore is.
Voice: ...
M: The main thing is, the Hudspeth's owned all the land.
P: And so they sent it away from there?
M: Yeah. That's what they say. I don't have......
P: You weren't there. But when you came to Marshall, do remember any teacher?
M: Yes.
P: Who were the teachers back then?
M: There was Professor White, there was Mrs. Vance, Miss Dorothy Montgomery were the ones that were ... She was a teacher then. Miss Ruby Frazier. She was teaching there. And, uh, MOON
36
some of the others. Some were in the grade school. M: I was in the grade school.
P: What kind of treatment did you receive when you came to Marshall? You didn't run into that kind of treatments when you came here...
M: Oh, no, no, no. No I didn't. I don't know how much truth of that is in Ore City. 'Cause I lived all my life, until l0 years ago, thinking that we came to Marshall for education, see? So, how much truth is there, I ... sometimes I think about that. Hudspeth and my dad was close friends. Hudspeth had a big ranch out there and he shipped cows to Ft. Worth. My dad had accumulated land and they being friends he also shipped his cows to Ft. Worth. He shipped it all in the same boxcar. There was a train run out to Ore City then. And they always remained close friends.
My wife taught out to Hallsville. And Hudspeth's son, who was a superintendent, took over the superintendent of Hallsville and he was meeting, calling names and leaving(?). When he came across the name, Lola Moon, he stopped in caucas there, all the Whites and the Blacks were gathered for the meeting. He says, "Lola". "Yeah". "Where did you come from?" She say, "I know what you're driving at. My husband, my husband's folks is close related - is close friends to your parents."
He says, "Yeah, that's it."MOON
37
So they were always close friends, there, see? His son M: was a pastor and he .....
Voice: Oh, is that the one?
M: Interface Council. I always give that Interface Council. That is the grandson of the Hudspeth from out to Ore City. When he came to the - hospital, he come to the hospital to a meeting,the meeting of the trustees, down at the hospital. And when he came across the name Moon, he stopped. He say, "L.A. where are you from"?
I say, "I know what you driving at." I say, "My daddy and your granddaddy used to ship cows to Ft. Worth together."
He says, "Yeah."
So he stopped the meeting and came over and shook my hand at that place then. He say, "I want you to know the Moons and the Hudspeths have been close together for generations".
So we met winter before last in the district superintendent's office in Longview - . I was sitting down there. Hudspeth, who is a retired superintendent and he come in and he come on and sit down beside me and we started talking. So she said, "Do you all know each other?"
So Hudspeth say, "Hi. We know each other from way back to Ore City." So we've always been close friends, see? It's nice.
P: That's a real treasure.
M: Yeah. It's a nice world.MOON
38
P: Mr. Moon, what would you say the percentage of Black population is in the town of Mashall at this point?
M: I think it's 55 percent White and 45 percent Black. It hasn't abeen that way always. As late as l930, 65 percent of the Blacks, 65 percent of the population of Harrison and Marion County was Black. There are very few people able to explain that. I explained it. My granddaddy explained it. When the War was going on, they'd drift them across the line and they settled in Harrison and Marion County. There's no other 2 counties in the State of Texas that was like that. Now the Blacks left during the War and after the War. They took to Dallas and California and Chicago, and what have you and you've got an inflow of Whites. Now it has 55 percent White and 55 percent Black.
P: Now, do you have any closing remarks that you might like to say before we close our interview off? Anything you'd like to say?
M: It's been an interesting and - a very interesting and a story I like to tell because I'm a Moon and not any Moons go to jail and go to the "pen", see? So we are part of the people - a set of people that mingles freely and with Whites and Blacks and other people. So, I'm - I end up getting on more committees and boards, see?
P: (laughter) You're still contributing a lot.
M: I enjoy living in Marshall and, by the way, my wife - M:MOON
39
her mother used to do laundry and wash for the Powell's.
Voice: Really? I didn't know that!
M: Yeah. Yeah. She ... daddy-in-law there, see?
Voice: What was her name?
M: She was a Downs.
Voice: A Downs?
M: She was a Downs. She always talked about coming - trading with Carol ... and she always reminds me of that. I used to wash and fix up the nicest shirts for Carol there and I got a Diamond Shirt. (laughter) So....
Voice: Well, I'll meet you in that.
P: Thank you, Mister Moon. I can tell you're very proud of your heritage and you should be.
M: I like to go back and tell it there. We go to Ore City now. We go out to church there now, see. They changed pastors out there 2 or 3 years ago and we always go to Ore City to church there. And the preacher got up and said, "Well, now we have some special guests, Mr. and Mrs. L.A. Moon".
Well everybody wanted to come and so he says, "What's the problem?"
He say, "Why, he's born right up the road there."
P: Thank you so much. It has been very, very interesting.
It's ten o'clock.
END OF TAPE 1, SIDE 2 - ABOUT 25 MINUTES. INTERVIEW WITH; Lawrence A. Moon
PLACE: Marshall, Texas
DATE: 23 October, l990
INTERVIEWERS; Marilyn Pistel
SIDE 2:
M: That went on for years and years and years. I was ll years old About l0 years ago, there was a Black man that came in the cleaning shop and we got to talking about Ore City. And he says, "Moon". "Yeah". "Why did you all leave Ore City?" I said, " My dad says we left Ore City because it was better education facilities in Marshall". "Naw". "No." And that way he left.
I say, "Well, why then?" He says, "My Mama", he was a Black
about my age. He say, "Now, listen, my mamma quit and worked for Williamson at Hudspeth
and while she was acooking and awashing and acleaning up she was listening and Hudspheth told his wife. Mamma was listening. "I''m let all these Crackers off my plantation - my land as soon as it's over".
And so there after, my friend Moon, and sooner or later he come out to Leesville. He say, "Now, you don't have to take this. It's the truth."
But that's what my mamma heard Hudspeth tell his wife.
P : But you still own that land.
M": I still own that land.
P: Do the Hudspeth, or the Williamson or any of the others still own their land?
M: Let me tell you something else. Ore City, Texas - do you know why they put that ore plant, a steel mill at Lone Star and not at
Ore City? That's where the ore is.
Voice:
M: The main thing, is the Hudspeth's owned all the land.
P: And so they sent it away from there?
M: Yeah. That's what they say. I don't have......
P: You weren't there. But when you came to Marshall do remember any teacher?
M: Yes.
P: Who were the teachers back then.
M: There was Professor White, there was Mrs. Vance, Miss Dorothy Montgomery were the ones that were
She was a teacher then. Miss Ruby Frazier. She was teaching there. And, uh, some of the others. Some were in the grade school. I was in the grade school.
P: What kind of treatment did you receive when you came to Marshall. You didn't run into that kind of treatments when you came here...
M: Oh, no, no, no. No I didn't. I don't know how much truth of that is in Ore City. "Cause I lived all life, until l0 years ago, thinking that we came to Marshall for education, see? So, how much truth is there, I...sometimes I think about that. Hudspeth and my dad was close friends. Hudspeth had a big ranch out there and he ship cows to Ft. Worth. My dad had accumulated land and they being friends he also shipped his cows to Ft. Worth. He shipped it all in the same boxcar. There was a train run out to Ore City then! And they always remained close friends.
My wife taught out to Hallsville. And Hudspeth's son, who was a superintendent, took over the superintendent of Hallsville and he was meeting, calling names and leaving. When he came across the name, Lola Moon, he stopped in caucas there, all the whites and the Blacks were gathered for the meeting. He says, "Lola". "Yeah". "Where did you come from?" She say, "I know what you're driving at. My husband, my husband's folks is close related - is close friends to your parents."
He says, "Yeah, that's it."
So they were always close friends, there, see? His son was a pastor and he .....
Voice: Oh, is that the one?
M: Interface Council. I always give that Interface Council. That is the grandson of the Hudspeth from out to Ore City. When he came to the hospital, he come to the hospital to a meeting,the meeting of the trustees, down at the hospital. And when he came across the name Moon, he stopped. He say, "L.A. where are you from"?
I say, "I know what you driving at" I say, "My daddy and your grand daddy used to ship cows to Ft. Worth together."
He says, "Yeah."
So he stopped the ameeting and came over and shook my hand at that place then. He say, "I want you to know the Moons and the Hudspeths have been close together for generations".
So we met winter before last in the district superintendent's office in Longview - . I was sitting down there. Hudspeth, who is a retired superintendent and he come in and he come on and sit down beside me and we started talking. So she said,
"Do you all know each other?"
So Hudspeth say hi. "We know each other from way back to Ore City." So we've always been close friends, see? It's nice.
P: That's a real treasure.
M: Yeah. It's a nice world.
P: Mr. Moon, what would you say the percentage of Black population is in the town of Mashall at this point?
M: I think it's 55 percent white and 45 percent Black. It hasn't abeen that way all right. As late as l930, 65 percent of the Blacks, 65 percent of the population of Harrison and Marion County was Black. There are very few people are able to explain that.
I explained it. My granddaddy explained it. When the War was going on, they'd drift them across the line and they settled in Harrison and Marion County. There 's no other 2 counties in the State of Texas that was like that. Now the Blacks left during the War and after the War. They took Dallas and California and Chicago and what have you and you've got an inflow of Whites. Now it has 55 percent White and 55 percent Black.
P: Now, do you have any closing remarks that you might like to say before we close our interview off? Anything you'd like to say?
M: It's been an intereting and - a very interesting and a story I like to tell because I'm a Moon and not any Moons go to jail and go to the "pen", see? So we are part of the people - a set of people that mingles freely and with Whites and Blacks and other people. So, I'm - I end up getting on more committees and boards, see?
P: (laughter) You're still contributing a lot.
M: I enjoy living in Marshall and, by the way, my wife - her mother used to do laundry and wash for the Powell's.
Voice: Really? I didn't know that!
M: Yeah. Yeah. She daddy-in-law there, see?
Voice: What was her name?
M: She was a Downs.
Voice: A Downs?
M: She was a Downs. She always talk about coming - trading with Carol and she always remind me of that. I used to wash and fix up the nices shirts for the Carol there and I got a Diamond Shirt. (laughter) So....
Voice: Well, I'll meet you in that
P: Thank you, Mister Moon. I can tell you're very proud of your heritage and you should be.
M: I like to go back and tell it there. We go to Ore City now. We go out to church there now, see, they changed pastorsd out there 2 or 3 years ago and we always go to Ore City to church there. And the preacher got up and said, "Well, now we have some special guests, Mr. and Mrs. L.A. Moon".
Well everybody wanted to come and
so he says, "What's the problem?"
He say, "Why, he's born right up the road there."
P: Thank you so much. It has been very, very interesting.
It's ten o'clock.
END OF TAPE 1, side 2 - about 25 minutes.
she always remind me of that. I used to wash and fix up the nicest shirts for the there and I've got a diamond shirt. (laughter)So he met