THE INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM
INTERVIEW WITH: Kathryn Roark and Nancy Olson
INTERVIEWERS: Walt and Janie Sargeant
DATE: 9 December 1986
PLACE: Willis, Texas
JS: Kathryn, I understand that you ' ve lived in Willis since
1971 - for 71 years. Is that right?
R: Not quite right, no. I've been here for- I was 10 years
old when I moved here and I'm 77 now. (laughter) So figure
that out.
WS: We won ' t ask you your age (laughter).
R: Well, that's all right. I used to mind, but now since
I ' ve retired I don't care .
JS: We 're glad to have those years to say we've lived that
number of years. Well, Kathryn, I see you have some notes.
And I think it would be your history that you have of Willis
and Montgomery County.
R: Thank you. I ' l l go right ahead if that's all the
questions you have right now.
I have in my hand here a map of Montgomery County that
was in 1937 and it- I mean l8l~, I'm sorry. And it was
created from Washington County on December 14, 1837 . Now in
1837 all of these other counties were formed out of
ROARK / OLSON 2
R: Montgomery County, which consists of Waller , Grimes,
Madison, Walker, and San Jacinto County. So we still are
about the largest county in that district, you see. And
then we have here the month, I mean the years, in which they
were carved out at different times. Madison was in February
1842, Grimes in April 1846, Walker County in April 1846, San
Jacinto County in January 1869 and Waller County in April
1873. And when Montgomery County was taken from a part of
Washington County, we were the third county created by the
representative of Texas, if you ' d like to see those.
R: Now, I 'm going to start out with the builder Sidney
Inglet.
JS: How do you spell that name?
R: Sidney, I-N-G-L-E-T.
And he came to this part of Texas from Augusta,
Georgia in 1844. He had lived there and he was an architect
and a builder and he stayed here from 1844 to 1854 and then
- no, he stayed here only a few years and then he moved to
Mexico f or 10 years and while he was there, he built homes
and churches all over Mexico. And then he came back to this
area, which was - he settled up at Danville, Texas, at that
time, which was a little community out from here that when
the railroad came through, that town moved to Willis.
But anyway, he started building homes and business in
Willis in 1872. Now, Willis was founded in 1870 and it was
named by the two brothers J.P. and R.S. Willis, who were big
land and timber owners. Before that they also came from
ROARK / OLSON 3
R: Galveston to Montgomery and then they came over here and
gave the townsite to Willis to build the town of Willis.
And then it wasn ' t long until the- well, actually he gave
that to the Houston and Great Northern Rai lroads which later
became I and G N.
JS : I've heard that name before- I G N?
R: I'm sorry, I can ' t tell what the I and G N is.
Nancy Olson: I didn't know that about the builder. I
hadn't read that.
R: So, anyway, they built - they gave this land and the
Willis brothers came over and they started their businesses
over here in this area, so since they gave the land, they
gave the name of the community - or it was just a beginning
place - it was kind of a " switch, " really. And they named
it Willis. And that ' s how Willis got it ' s name.
Now, then after the railroad came through, it would not
- Danville would not let it come through their community .
Now Danville , Nancy, is to the west of where ? is. Now,
do you know where Es Roundser is?
NO: No.
R: Well, that's across highway 45, is where Danville is.
Then the majority of the peopl e moved to Willis and they had
organized a church and had a church when they were in
Danville. And when they came here, there was no place for
them to have church and they had church in a little one-room
school house that was located here. It was one of the first
schools that they had. And then they got - Mr . Inglet ,
ROARK / OLSON 4
R: after he came back, he built that church in 1877 and he
did beautiful work. Now right now, we ' re still in the
Methodist Church - the one that was built here by Mr.
Inglet. It ' s a 125 years old. And just about a month ago,
we were awarded a plaque from the Archives of National
United Methodists organization that is in Madison, New
Jersey. And there are not too many churches that have
received this honor . Now we are - this i s all over the
United Stat es, and there ' s less than 300 churches that have
r eceived these plaques.
0: Is this for the age of the churc h?
R: Yes. It ' s for- we are one of the three in the Texas
Conference that has received one of these with onl y - and
we ' re the only one of ours that this one is more distinctive
than the others because we are on the - have the original
building on the original s ite.
JS: That ' s very unusual.
R: Then we - back to Mr. Inglet, then. In 1872, Captain
Smith, who was the grandfather - was the grandfather of
Arley Smith and Tom Smith, who are still - still live in
Conroe, wa s a businessman and owned lots of property up
here. And he asked him , then, to build a home for him and
they called that the "Manor" house .
0: Is that the one that ' s the restaurant?
R: No. It was right across the street from the res taurant
and it was a great big two- story home tha t he built and it
was
ROARK / OLSON 5
0: Did they just tear that down?
R: No, they didn ' t tear it down. A Mrs. Sides who was the
daughter of the Crawford ' s who fell heir t o that place , was
having the place remodeled and they had not remodeled -
redecorated. And all of that material that they had ln
that, with their paint and their rags and all that
spontaneous combustion, and that place burned to the ground,
and with it went history of this town, h i story of Texas,
everything.
JS: How do you spell that - M-a-y •••
R: No. Manor.
JS: Oh, manor. I thought maybe it was a name.
R: No. But, anyway, Mrs. Crawford, who was Lela Smith, and
she was the only daughter in the Smith family, inherited
that place. And then she married Mr. Essay Crawford and who
was a lawyer and a very prominent well-to-do man and they
reared their family there in that home. And then the
daughter is the one who was having the place fixed over .
And her intentions were to leave the furniture - the
original things that they had in that home - and have it
open to the public on occasions. And that was destroyed.
Now the place across the street , that you asked about
Nancy, belonged to Mr. Owen Smith, who was a son of this man
that asked them to build the place. Asked Mr. Inglet to
build that home.
Then Mr. Inglet, beside that place and the Crawford
home, he built , I mean the Methodist Church, he built the -
ROARK / OLSON 6
R: a college we had here in Willis, which was, the name of
that was The Male and Female College. It was built in two
and a half stories but we all called it 3 stories. But they
had, when they started out , they had, the City of Willis
supported them in building that thing. And although another
built it, I bel i eve his name - I don't know the names of the
men, really, that built that school, but anyway (that
college), they had children from beginning all through t hei r
school and college, too . And then in this half- story
upstairs, the one we called the third story, was where they
had - it was a dormitory there and people would - they had
boys and girls that came here and went to school. And they
had that fixed off where the boys on this side and the girls
on that side. And then the people that were around here
that went to college, of course, stayed at home . But every
evening at 7 :00 the bel l would ring. And t hat meant curfew.
And that meant that they came to the study hall . If it was
good weather, they came to the study hall. And they
studied, or they cal led the s tudy hall - they had a place to
study where they roomed, or they studied in their rooms and
a t t en , they got a signal that they were to go t o bed.
(laughter)
Well, when we moved to Willis in 1920 - 1921 , school
year 20-21, that old building was where sister and I started
to school. The city of Willis, that the college , when they
first had it , it was run by a Mr. and Mrs •••• Rev . S.N.
Barker and his wife. They were at that time , was a preacher
ROARK / OLSON 7
R: and his wife in the Methodist Church. They got them to
take that over and they took it over and they were the
administrators there until 1870. Now that was built in
1881.
0: That was something for such a little town.
WS: Went all the way from first grade through college?
R: Right through college, yes.
WS: How many years of college did they go then, do you
know?
R: Well, I don ' t know whether it was 2 or 4. I guess it
must have been 4 because the only people that we know of
that got degrees from there, was Mr.Hulon Anderson, who
used to be - moved from here - his people lived here - he
moved from here to Conroe and he was principal - a
superintendent - there for years and years and years. And
they have a school named for him, the Hulon N. Anderson
School, it's one of the elementary school s .
Well, anyway, he was a great man and a great
superintendent. But then there was Miss Weisinger from
Montgomery and she ••.
0: Was that Ann Weisinger ' s mother?
R: I don ' t know whether it is or not. I can 't- I ' ve heard
her name but I don • t remember it. Other Weisinger names are
coming to me and I can ' t - anyway, we'll call her Miss
Weisinger.
And then Mr. F.A. Franks and he came from in barefoot
from Peach Creek and went to school. He later became one of
ROARK / OLSON 8
R: the greatest civil lawyers that you- in Dallas. And he
came back here during the time that we were having - that
they were having the lawsuit, the Wi lson lawsuit, I belive
was the name of it - that lasted longer than any suit that
they'd ever had in Conroe. And it was about the oil
holdings and so forth in the County, because the oil boom
had come in.
He came - he was the lawyer that they hired and he ,
instead of staying in Conroe , and staying in a nice hotel ,
he stayed in one of the little hotels that was left here,
and it was run by some very nice people and it was real
clean, but it was just a bed and a dresser and a chair , and
that ' s all , in a room , and a wash basin and a pitcher , you
know. And I had an occasion to meet him and , well, he came
across the street every morning to get the mail as mother
and I were stopping the mail before we went to school. And
I said to him, I said , "Why are you staying here? " I said,
"Now, I know these people and they're wonderful people, but
you ' re used to more comforts than this." And he said, "Oh,
I just love it here." and says , "I tell you what I do. I go
back out to Peach Creek ," and says , " I go out there and go
swimming ." (laughter) Right out there they- anyway, while
he was here, he wrote me an article on the history of this
school. I don ' t (aside to Nancy Olson)
0: Well , did black kids and white kids go to school?
R: Oh, no, no, no. No not - we didn't have blacks here
until we were forced to have. And we still have some people
ROARK / OLSON 9
R: in Willis that are racists but I 'm not. Because I
worked with those kids. And they have souls like the rest
of us. And I just loved them. And I, well, I grew up here
and knew their parents you see. When Willis was just a
small town. But now, back to Mr. Sidney Inglet, I want to
tell you some more things. He built an opera house here and
we had about 8 great big stores. Well, he built - and Judge
Craven, who was a lawyer, built his home. One of the places
that had been - they bought that place and then made a
mistake, or didn ' t care, or something, I don ' t know , but
anyway they did so much remodeling to it that you couldn ' t
begin to get a historical marker for it. But it was the
original T.J. Paddock place. And they were prominent people
here in Willis.
Now a number of the Inglets that lived here - now
s e veral years ago we put a plaque up on the campus of where
the old Red School was - it ' s right on t he corner of
Thompson and Rog e r s Street - about The Male and Female
College. And then over near the Administration we put up
the bell -a nice little brick thing there.
We had two hotels, as I ' ve said. One was the King
Hotel and it wa s across the street from where the other one,
nearer up to the center part of the town. And it was a
great, big colonial-type building. And with lots of rooms
in it, you know. And the people that came here , the young
men and young ladies that they were just going to be maybe
to teach school or to - had a job here - they stayed at the
ROARK / OLSON 10
R: hotel. They served wonderful meals. When the train
came through right at noon, from Longview, it stopped here
and they announced that they would stop in and if you ' d like
t o have a hot meal, for 50~ they could come across over and
go in and get delicious food. We all used to eat there all
the time. But the - and they did that as long as the hotel
stood. They- I think they tore that down. I don ' t believe
that ' s burned. They - somewhere in our pictures of - that
the Historical Commission has, we have a picture of the King
Hotel.
0: Somebody told me that either Jenny Lind or Lily
Langtry, or somebody like that, had come to the Willis Opera
House . And I don ' t know if that ' s true. I don ' t remember
who t old me that or
R: Well, I don't k now who she is but now that Opera House
was gone when we came here.
0: Do you know when it was built? Do you •••
R: No, I don 't. I do not know. I i magine it was during
the early times that Willis was growing up.
JS: What type of industry did they have , that there were so
many people here?
R: Well, I was fixing to get into that. Thank you for
reminding me of it.
We have, let ' s see, it was a long in the late 18 and 18
and 90, I believe , that the tobacco came in here. We had
tobacco farms. And we had seven or eight factories here.
0 : Where were those things?
ROARK / OLSON ll
R: Well, we're now just fixing to dedicate one. We that
have- it ' s in the making right now. It ' s being cast- of
the - to be put on the site of where the factory was. And
it ' s on Bell Street, two blocks north of the City Hall. And
we - Ruth Castleshoudt and Jerry Walker and I worked on
getting that plaque . You know, we made the applications and
got the papers all together, and everything. And we started
right after we heard about the Sesquicentennial because we
were going to have this on our program. And we had it for
November of this year . But everybody else had the same
idea. And they had so many applications and so many plaques
to make, that it ' ll be three or four months now before we
get ours. But anyway, we wa nted to have a formal dedication
and you ' ll hear about it.
0 : Well , did the people in Willis work on the tobacco
farms? Did they have big tobacco farms?
R: They had plantations. And now one of the largest ones
that I know of was the one that was out west of the farm on
1097 and it was built there by Gen. Lewis. And they had a
two and a half story place and the - Sam Houston used to
stop there and spend the night on his way . And when he came
over this way, he came back this way going to Houston . And
came by, and spent the night there. And they had a
ballroom, and they had dances. The bricks that went into
that house came from Holland . And a lot of the lumber was
imported in here. The name of it was "The Elms " and we have
a picture of that place, t oo . And it was just beautiful .
ROARK / OLSON 12
R: And that later became the home of the Kluxton 's. Mr.
and Mrs. Kluxton lived there and reared their family and
they had an uncle that lived with them. And it was two boys
and one daughter - Charles Kluxton and Mary Irving Legg
Kluxton - Kluxton- Legg. And she lives in Conroe now. And
Charles Kluxton, Sr., who is deceased and Russell Kluxton,
who is deceased. And they had a brother that lived with
them. Mr. Kluxton, the father, Mr. Ben Kluxton, and I don ' t
know what his name was but we all called him "Wunk'', because
somebody in the family couldn ' t say "Uncle" and that ' s all
•••. but anyway, they took over the rearing of those- that
family after their mother died when the youngest boy was
r eal small. And they did a wonde rful job. But they were
the ones - they had big plantations out around Danville.
Anyway, ••••
WS: Was t his all prior to the Civil War where they had
slaves? Was this developed during •••
R: It was during the Civil War, Uh-huh.
WS: And they had slaves •••
R: And they had slaves and they also, now - in interviewing
Tom Smith on our plaque that we gave for the tobacco factory
- the Smith Tobacco Factory - he said that he had been told
as a youngster, that they hired convicts. From Huntsville.
To come down and work them, you know, I don ' t know how they
got here that distance. I guess maybe they- and I don't
know whether they g uarded them and kept them there or - but
the criminals that were in the penitentiary then are not
ROARK / OLSON 13
R: like the criminals , the ones we have now.
So, anyway , he told that for a fact , that they did have
that. Now, after - I want to go into t he school d istrict a
little bit .
You we r e talking about - you asked me about the blacks
go ing to school here . Let me go back to The Male and Female
Col lege. In 19 and 01 , they sold tha t . After these - Rev .
Barker and his family left, and incidentally, t he reason
they left , they had an opportunity and did take it, to be
admin istrators of an exclusivwe school for girls in Chevy
Chase , Maryland. So, they had other people t here and after
their administration , it kind of dwindled down. So in 1901
the col l ege sold the building to the Willis c ommunity and
t hen they used that as the school. It was no longer a
college . And, as I said, that ' s where we started to school
there. Well , we started the winter of ' 11, a nd t hen in
' ll- ' 12, they built the red building that ' s on the campus
now. And it was - that was 2 - story . It had , I don 't guess
over 10 rooms . I could stop and count it , but anyway , the
entire population of school kids went to Willis - went to
that bui l di ng. They had grades 1 - 11 then . And it ' s just
unbelievable to know how times have changed and how many
ch ildren go to school now.
0 : Did you have to pay to go? Or was i t free?
R: No , it was free. You had to - now when t he little kids
were going , I think they, I think maybe t hey paid the
elementary school and high school pai d just a very meager
ROARK / OLSON 14
R: fee, you might say. And they were not connected in any
way with the college, but anyway, then it became a public
school then, in 1901. And we started this red building in
1922-23 and they finished it in ' 23, I believe.
Then the next school they had was the white building
now that ' s the administration building. Then after that,
they disbanded the red building and built the Roark - the
Jenny C. Roark School, which was built in memory of our
Mother. She was principal here for 26 years. And then at
the same time they built one across - over in "Negro Town"
that was for the black children to go to and it was the A.R.
Turner School. Prior to that, they had lived - they had had
a school that was made out of the old lumber that carne out
of The Male and Female College building, over there. So
they had a nice new building just like ours.
But - then we're building a new elementary school now.
We have a C.C. Harding Jr. High School that came after the
great big high school was built. I do not know what the
enrollment, but I don ' t imagine that we had over 200
altogether when we went to school.
WS: How many were in your graduating class?
K: There were 27 in my class.
WS: You beat me by 19. There were 9 in mine.
R: Now in 1925, the Willis people decided that we had a man
that carne in here and was our superintendent that was about
50 years ahead of the times . He was one of the most
progressive people I've ever known. He had a testing program
ROARK / OLSON 15
R: -gave intelligence tests, he put in a - he had visual
aids that we'd neve r heard of , he was really a nd truly on
the ball , and we were real f ortunate to have a man like J . P .
DeWald. Now his son works down at one of the banks . His
youngest son, who was born here. Sister , what is that
chi l d ' s name? He's at the First Federal and Savings, and
what ' s his name- Guy . Guy DeWald. Anyway , he hit upon the
idea of consolidating all these little schools that were
around, the one teacher schools. And there was about 7 of
them, I think. And it was the - there was the Lone Oak
School that was out i n the Wire Creek area that ' s northwest
of here. And then there was 2 - no , that was northwest of
here, and then over to the southwest they had the White Oak
School and the Dowdy School . And then, they had the Li berty
School that was east of Willis that was out here on the
4- Mile Caney Road a nd the 4- Mile Caney Road is a county
road . And it was near that;the 7- Mile , it was down past
where , what is that - the Airport Road , what is that? Well ,
anyway , it' s down here near 4-Mi l e and 7-Mile Caney, is
where they had that school.
And then they had the Ce nter Hil l School, that was off
of 1097 and the Spring Hill Road that was out east there .
And then they had the Danvi lle School that was north of
Wi ll is, so all of these community schools , you see , had just
a few chi ldren that went to school there . But when they
consolidated they all came into our school and t hat ' s when
it begun to grow. And then after Lake Conroe came in, is
ROARK / OLSON 16
R: when we got the boom on the growth that we've had here.
0: Can I ask you one thing?
R: You may.
0: What was the depression like in Willis? I know that's a
broad - but when the oil boom hit Conroe during the
depression, did people from Willis leave Willis and go to
Conroe to work with Mr. Shregg, or did .•.
R: Well, I think there were a number of people that went to
work in the oil field. Now we had had a little wild-cat
dr illing around in this area for a long, long - for a number
of years, but never did hit anything. So we had young men
that grew up working around here that went to Conroe, but
most of our population stayed here . Now, there used to be a
real rivalry between Willis and Conroe. See , Willis was the
second county school - town - in the county. Montgomery was
the first, and Conroe was the third. And , of course , at one
time Montgomery had the court house , and then Willis won it,
and they had a row about it and finally it settled off to
Conroe and Conroe got it then. But anyway, there ' s been
some competition that was- it wasn't too bad. We ' re all
friends.
0: I t hink so. We're trying to pull it all together.
R: There ' s been less, I might say, the people in this part
of the County , I believe we 're called the North Montgomery
County - over in the East Montgomery County never have been
as close to- well, they ' re so far away from where we are,
that they ' ve never visited and we ' ve neve known them like
ROARK / OLSON 17
R: we have the people over here. I like it still
Montgomery County. I don 't like it north and south and east
and west Montgomery County.
family.
I think we're all one big
0: That 's right. We ' re going to New Caney this afternoon.
R: Oh, are you?
0: To see Alice Shook . And Blanche Bigby.
is sick. Alice said that she •.•
I think Blanche
R: Poor thing, she hasn ' t been well for a long time. Well ,
you all will enjoy that. You really will.
Well, is there anything - I just rambled, I don ' t know
that
JS: No , you haven't.
R: Since we were a small town, we ••• the group that I grew
up with , we had j ust a few girls and boys in the immediate
part of town that went to the churches in our c ommunit y and
the school in our community and we were the ones, I gue ss
you would call our gang.
There wa s a bout 7 or 8 girls and about that many boys .
All of the friends of families were close friends. We had
very little entertainment except in the - when we were
growing up , we 'd meet at somebody ' s - everybody would come
by and s ay, "Come on ." People would come by - boys and
girls - " Come on, we ' re going to play over to the Paddock ' s
house tonight," or "Come on, we ' r e going to go down to the
Car r's " o r somewhere like tha t and we ' d just play running
games, you know, Wolf over the River , and Hide and Go Seek
ROARK / OLSON 18
R: and all those th ings and then as we grew up, we had
parties and we played games like Spin the Bottle and, oh, I
can ' t even think o f them, it ' s been so long. We learned to
dance. Mrs. Love taught the girls to dance . Mrs. Lillian
Love, who was the mother of Mrs. Cleo McClain. Lived here
in Willis and she was a Huntsville girl and my mother was
from Huntsville and we had several of the older ladies that
lived here, grew up in Huntsville and they always spoke of
themselves as the "Huntsville Girls" and they were kind of
cliquish, I guess.
But, anyway, we had a picture show here for awhile.
And we went to the picture show.
0: How much did it cost to get in?
R: I think it was about twenty-five cents, I think. Maybe,
I think it was something like that. Now the first picture
shows we had, we had in the high school. Mr. DeWald had a
projector and he got films for us, they were cowboys and
tha t ' s the way we- we had one every Friday night.
0: Were they free?
R: No, you had to pay. And that's the way they made their
money for their extra-curricular acivities. (laughter)
And we of course, went up there and went to the picture
show there . And then it came to social graces, I guess, you
might say our mothers became conscious of the fact that we
were growing up and that we needed to dress up and have
dinner. So we had progressive house parties and every
mother tried to outdo the other one on how much they'd cook
ROARK / OLSON 19
R: for us and we would go in the evening - have 6:00
o ' clock dinner and the hostess would wait on us with their
help. And serve us, and they saw to it that we used the
right knife and fork, and all of that , and of course , we
were taught that at home, but when you get into a place with
the china and silver and the crystal and the linens, you
really had to "fly right." And then, at the end of this ,
we ' d have that for one week, and the last night then we
could bring our dates.
0: Did you do this all week?
R: Yes. We went somewhere every - we had 2 or 3 times
during our time they had progressive house paties for us.
And our mothers did that for us. Now , of course, the boys
and girls that lived out o f town were not the clique that we
went with, because they had those little communities and
they had their cliques , you know. But we had, we thought , a
very spec i al group.
0: And then at the end you brought your dates?
R: Well, there wasn't too many of us that went to col l ege
at that time. Some of them went to business school , but
Sister and I went to col l ege. And -
JS: Where did you go to college?
R: Well , I first started off at Mary Hard in and I followed
my homemaking teacher there in the summer that I graduated
END OF TAPE I , SIDE 1, 45 MINUTES
ROARK / OLSON 20
TAPE I , SIDE 2
R: that summer and I was go ing t o be a homemaking teacher,
too. She was one of the finest people I ' ve ever known , Miss
Clara Fratt. And I took homemaking that summer and then I
went back to there for the next year. And I took some more
homemaking and I did real well in cooking. But when I got
into the second t erm of sewing, I made a "D." Wasn ' t a
failure but it wasn't a very good grade. I made "A ' s" in
cooking. And " B ' s", you know, i n the other courses, but I
failed that. Well, anyway, I decided I ' d better change my
major and I thought, "Well, I 'l l go i nto elementary
educat ion. So then I started along about Thanksgiving
communicating with Mother and Daddy, begging to let me go to
Sam Houston . My Mother a lways thought when you started
something , you must fi nish something . So s he was not too
much in favor of me transferring and I wanted to transfer at
Chr i stmas time , in t he January term. Well , when I came home
Chr i stmas , I kind of had a way with my Daddy and I talked
him into , " Now , Daddy , you can talk to Mothe r. And you get
her to c h a nge her mind ." Well, I hadn ' t been back long
until I got the word that I could transfer. I wen t to Sam
Houston . And I had been in school, let ' s see , two years and
my father had a stroke. So I finished out that term , that
was in January , and I commuted and then I came home to help
take care of him. So then , I got a schoolJteaching in- the
f irst school I had was in Waverly Old Waverly , and I was
there one year , and then I transferred and I got a school
ROARK / OLSON 21
R: over in Cleveland. So I taught over there for 5 years
and then I - Daddy was an invalid all that time and Mother
was a 7th grade teacher and full-time principal. And so, I
had applied for a job at home because I felt like she needed
me. Sister was working in - was married and working in
Houston. And she and her husband came up every weekend and
they just did everything for us. And, anyway, they thought
then when I applied that it wasn ' t very good to have a
person who graduated from Willis teaching in school, that
soon, you see. That had been four years after I ' d been out
5 years then. But , anyway, I got the school and Daddy was
so happy. But he died while - before I finished my year.
Well, I got it the first week in April and then right around
Eastertime Daddy died. But, anyway, he knew that I was going
to come home.
0 : What did your Dad do? One last thing.
R: Well , he was a merchant in - before we moved here. He
had a big general merchandise store in Oakhurst, in San
Jacinto County. And when it came time for us to - Sister
was going to go into high school, Mo t her said , had been a
teacher, you see. So she , before s he married , she said
"This school is not affiliated and I am going - we are going
-to move and we ' re going to pu t our girls in an affiliated
school so they can go to college. " And Daddy says, "All
right. I 'll have to get rid of this business ." So he
started trying to sell his business and we moved here before
Daddy did because he had not got rid of the business and he
ROARK / OLSON 22
R: came home on the weekends and Mother carried him back on
early Monday morning.
After we had been here, I guess, about six months and
it was in the winter time, I know, and Daddy caught the
train and came in here and he had just got home , the train
didn ' t get here ' til about, I think , it was about twelve or
one o ' clock at night. And Mother met him. And he had come
home and we ' d all settled down, you know. 1 Course we were
all excited. Sister a nd I got up. We were all excited.
Daddy was here. And we had gone back to bed. And about
three o ' clock in the morning, the phone rang and it was the
man that worked for Daddy at the store . And he called , and
he said the store was burning. And we don 't know whether it
was some - what happened. You know, about the fire, or
anything about it. But anyway he had a big credit business
and people thought then, well, you know, he doesn ' t have the
store. He did save his books . They were in the safe. But
it was - he finally had to turn it over to a collecting
agency , and of course, half of it- more than half we didn 't
get -people just forgot it. And Daddy didn ' t pursue
anything. So he came on here and started working for Mr.
Watson Paddock in the Willis Merchantile. And he was
working there and Mother was teaching. When the year I went
into high school,Mother started teaching because Sister was
going to college and she started working, so she could help
with expenses.
And then I taught here for ten years with Mother. And
ROARK / OLSON 23
R: then after that, after Mother passed away - before
Mother passed away , I had been going t o school, taking
courses - I was interested in counseling - and I was taking
counseling subjects. I went during the week to - on
Wednesdays, I went in the evenings and went down and spent -
went to Houston, and spent the night with my cousin and took
a couple of courses there, and carne back early the next
morning and taught school. And then on the weekend, on
Saturdays, I went down and took courses. And so when Mother
passed away I,also,during that time, I - in the summers I
had started working on an administrator ' s certificate, at
that time. The certificate I got , I could have been a
principal of high school, a high school princ i pal, or an
elementary principal. So - but at the time that Mother
passed away, I was a counselor. I was the first counselor
in Montgomery County. And we didn't have - you had to have
60 teachers to qualify for a counselor . Well , it wasn ' t a
school in Montgomery County that had 60 teachers - not even
Conroe. And we asked Conroe to get in it . This was a - I
worked out of the county school superintendent office and we
asked the Conroe district to come in this program , too.
But , the superintendent they had down there didn ' t be lieve
in counseli ng, or he said, "If you can ' t learn," says , "give
them a hoe and kick ' e rn out. " And that was his policy. And
he was a good friend of mine. We disagreed on that, but he
was a school man and he was there for - and a very prominent
man - he was there for a very long time.
ROARK / OLSON 24
R: But, anyway, I - in this I spend one day in Willis , one
day in Montgomery, one in Magnolia, one day in Splendora and
one day in New Caney. That was the five days in the week.
As the school grew, we got - first we got one more counselor
and then we had - he took one part of the county and I took
the other. He took that part , and I took this part. I had
my pick of where I was going to go since I had seniority.
So then we finally got it down to where it was just two
schools. I had two schools then. And the other schools had
qualified to have their own counselors, you see. So , I had
Montgomery and Willis. Oh, and that was just great . And
then, the last six years of my working with public schools,
I was a counselor at the Willis School.
But in between there, when Mother died, Mr. Hardy asked
me to take the principalship and I said, " I wouldn 't have
it." I said, "I don ' t have what my Mother had," I said, "I
wouldn 't undertake teaching full time and being the
principal for anything." I said, "Now, if you talk my
language , I 'll talk with you. " It was a year and a half, he
took care of the whole school. Superintendent, and he ran
the -had a head teacher over the elementary schools. So
then in a year and a half he carne to me, and he says, " Name
it. Tell me what you want. I want you over there. " Well,
what had happened, each one of the teachers that was there -
none of them really wanted it. They didn ' t want the
principalship. They were not qualifed, but they were afraid
somebody else - one of the other teachers was going to get
it. And the way
ROARK / OLSON 25
R: he put it to me, was this, "Kathryn, I think that you
are the only person that I know that knows these teachers as
wel l as you do; that could come in there and act as
principal ." Says, "Now they will work with you, but they
won ' t work with anybody else in the school. I know they
won't." So I started then and for six years I was principal
- seven years I was principal .
So then I went back to counseling and after that they -
I was counselor fulltime, you see. I was the first
pr incipal , though, in the Roark Elementary.
0: I hate to cut this short. We've got--
R: I think I've talked too much. And it 's been two years.
The principal that they have down there now as - is- she ' s
now Mrs. Reeves- Dr. Reeves ' wife and she ' s just great.
But last year she inv ited Sist er and me to come down for
lunch. We went down there and it turned out - somehow or
other , I knew it was my birthday, but I didn ' t know they
knew though, that it was my birthday. They had the nicest
birthday party for me that you have ever heard of in your
life. Had invited the people in the school that I was the
closest to and Mr. Hardy came over and he was there, Dr.
Reeves was there, and she was there, and , oh just - well
there was twelve of us there around that table. but every
little child in that school made, or wrote a letter , made a
birthday card , or wrote a letter to me this high. They made
banners, one of them that we kept over there on the wall for
the longest time, it was fixed on - what do you call that
ROARK / OLSON 26
R: material that look like croaker sack, only it ' s not?
0: I don ' t know what croaker sack is. (laughter )
WS: Burlap.
R: Burlap. Yeah. She didn ' t even know what a croaker sack
is! And they had on - fixed with corn - different colors of
corn - says, "We are proud to belong - to go to Roark
Elementary." We had it hung right over there by our table.
And they had other little plaques. And they had georgeous
TAPE ENDS HERE.
END OF TAPE I, SIDE 2, ABOUT 17 OR 18 MINS .