VICTORIA PRESERVATION SOCIETY ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
INTERVIEW WITH: Eleanor Ann Gerrard (Mrs. Robert)(Susie)
DATE: April 14, 1993
PLACE: Victoria, Texas
INTERVIEWER: Betsy Kopecky
BK: ... April 14, 1993, interview with Eleanor Ann Gerrard, Betsy Kopecky, interviewer. This is part of the Victoria Preservation Society Oral History Project.
Now, Eleanor Ann, you began with ... when I was a little girl ....
EG: When I was a little girl and when I grew up here, my family, my mother and father and I lived in a house downtown on Juan Linn Street and my ... we had an ajoining yard with my grandparents. They lived on the corner, we lived on the inside. And St. Joseph's was on the other side. We had about a half a block and they had a half a block. There was only ... on Main Street there was ........... and Kubecka's Grocery Store and that was all there was on that block.
And we had a washwoman by the name of Lou Jones. Because in those days you didn't go to laundries, you had washwomen. And so she came every Monday and washed and on Tuesdays she ironed. And she had a big pot out in the backyard, because we had a tremendous yard. And well, she boiled the clothes, the white clothes, so they would be good and white. And of course, the boys at St. Joe had their basketball hoops out there and they played baseball back there and so consequently, quite often a baseball or a basketball would end up in her washpot. And this would really irritate her and my grandfather, who was a darling man, and who loved children, would go out and say, "Now, Lou, don't fuss at the boys, they're just kids and they're playing, just take the ball and throw it back over the fence." And so they'd throw it back over the fence.
And so, I always had, and of course, I went to the Nazareth Academy, for my first three years because all my friends were a little older than I and they were starting school and I was quite upset because I couldn't start too. But mother had been a kindergarten teacher, at least she had graduated from University of Cincinnati as a kindergarten teacher, and had taught me ... she had one year in Brownwood before she married ... and then she taught me a lot of stuff at home. And so she went over to see Sister George, who had been one of her teachers because she had gone to Nazareth Academy and my Aunt Annie had gone to Nazareth Academy and so she talked to Sister George and said that I wanted to go to school. And would she take me. I was five years old. And so Sister George said, "Why yes, they would." And mother said, "Well, now, if it gets to be too much I want you to tell me and we'll take her out." So I started the first grade over there.
And so I was very used to being across the street, you know, from St. Joe's School and Nazareth Academy and then I had them right across the fence from me and so that's the reason that I particularly wanted to go the 125th Anniversary. Because I felt like that I kind of grew up with St. Joe's too, you know! ELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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BK: You did.
EG: And it was fun. And I knew a lot of the Brothers in those days. And knew a lot of boys that went there. And it meant a great deal to Bob and me. Of course, Bob did not go to St. Joe because he was not a native of Victoria. But he's lived here long enough to like it and to understand it and I've taught a lot of student teachers at St. Joe's. And so we went and had a very great time. And the food was excellent and we enjoyed it. And now would you like for me to get to the hotel?
BK: That would be fine and we ...
EG: Okay.
BK: ... and we can come back to whatever ...
EG: We can come back because if you get me started on Victoria when I was a child I might just go on forever.
BK: Well, we can do that or we can make that another tape.
EG: So let's get to the hotel. In 1902 a man by the name of James Fitzgerald bought that building. It was on the site of the old William Wood residence. And he named it The Denver Hotel. Many people want to know why it was called The Denver.
BK: I would like to know.
EG: And there is a reason. He had been very ill and his doctor told him he wanted him to go to Denver, Colorado, to see if he couldn't regain his health. So he had gone to Colorado and ELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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I don't know what was wrong, I have a feeling it might have been TB. But at any rate, I don't know, but he went to Colorado, he went to Denver, and he regained his health. So he came back to Texas, to Victoria, he bought this old home and turned it into The Denver Hotel because this was the place he had regained his health and he wanted to name the hotel after that particular place.
BK: Um.
EG: And then in 1906 my aunt and her husband bought it from Mr. Fitzgerald and they left the name, The Denver Hotel, because they felt like it had been established as The Denver Hotel and they would just leave it as so. Now my aunt was Anna Diesbach, and she was the daughter of George Diesbach, and his wife Clara, and he was a druggist here. And had Diesbach's Pharamacy. And the first pharamacy was on Constitution Street in a building that's now part of The Bank and Trust, but at that day he had a building there and he had a drugstore. And I'd like to say, I think it's kinda interesting, that in those days, he kept two horses saddled and two riders, all night, every night, in case people out in the country had an emergency and needed a prescription. And he also had, there was always one druggist or pharmacist, as we call them now, on duty, and he took his turn too, to prepare those prescriptions to be sent out. Because when those people needed medicine, well, they had to get it! ELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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So he had ... then he bought a building on Main Street and it became known as the Diesbach Building, in fact, it had the Diesbach name on the building, and when he retired he sold that business to Mr. A.W. Krueger, and then it became Krueger's Drugstore. And it was Krueger's Drugstore for many years.
So she was the daughter. He had another daughter, my mother, Dorothea, that everybody called Dora or Doddy and he had a son, Frederick, whom they called Fritz. Everybody in town gave him a nickname of Fritz. And he ... my uncle also was a pharmacist, graduating from Galveston at the University of Texas. But he married, and this I thought was sort of unusual, he married my grandfather's best friend's daughter, who lived in Ohio. And when he father became ill, he had a factory there, and when he became ill there was no one to take over the factory. They were married and living here at the time and he was working for my grandfather in the drugstore as a pharmacist and they decided that someone had to go and take over the factory and so they moved to Ohio. And they have two boys who are still living and who are my first cousins and they've always been like brothers to me. The oldest one's named George and the younger one is named Ben. And George married a doctor's daughter, Alice Skinner, and Ben married a girl from Pennsylvania named Patricia Schock. So we still stay quite close and talk to each other quite often. But at any rate, this is the background of the hotel. ELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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And Aunt Annie, as I called her, and as most everybody called her Annie, married Ben Mathews. I never knew my Uncle Ben. I have been told a lot about him. I know that he was tall, very good looking and very pleasant and friendly and everybody liked him. He was a very congenial sort of man. And so he and Aunt Annie bought this building from Mr. Fitzgerald and continued to run it as The Denver Hotel. Now they did, when they took it over in 1906, they did remodel the building and they also added a two-story, 12 room annex which sat next to, it was not at that point connected to the hotel, they were two separate buildings. And Uncle Ben was called "Honey Ben" because he called everybody "honey," particularly the ladies and it meant nothing except he just was a friendly sort of person so he got the nickname "Honey Ben."
And of course, when they first started in the hotel business, they depended mostly on traveling men, who came regularly to display their wares because in those days they came and showed their wares to the merchants in Victoria who came in to the "sample room," as they called it, and ordered the stuff for the six months or the year or whatever, you know. So when the trains were to come in, Uncle Ben would go down in a hack to the station, and of course, everybody knew him and he'd say, "Okay, everybody, come on, get in the hack, we're all going to The Denver Hotel because "Honey Ben" needs the business!" And it became quite the place for the traveling ELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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men to stay. They had a couple of very big nice "sample rooms" that they could display their wares.
Then in 1909, Mr. Jules Leflon, and of course, that's an architectual name that's well known in Victoria, designed a new hotel building. And Railey Mills, another well known firm in Victoria, completed a concrete block annex to replace this first addition, this 12 room addition that they had put on there in 1906. The hotel building that was replaced, this annex that was replaced, was moved off the property and was bought by someone and later became a, you know, a home for someone.
In 1913, the old hotel building, it was not torn down, it was moved down a block and it became an apartment house on Williams Street. And they made up six apartments of it. It was finally bought by the Ernst, who owned the place, and it was called The Ernst Apartments. And on this spot from which they moved the building, they built a new four-story brick hotel. They even ... when they built this ... made a special ladies entrance on Constitution Street so that the ladies could come in to one of the dining rooms or to the parlors where they had parties, without having to go through the lobby and having to mix with the men and all the people that were, you know, the commercial people in the hotel!
In 1914, the hotel, the four-story brick building was completed and was ready for a grand opening and so the Mathews, Ben and Annie Mathews, had a very lovely party to which they ELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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invited 150 guests and you must remember that in 1914 150 guests was quite a crowd because Victoria was quite small. And they had the Paramount Orchestra. Now of course, I wasn't around in these days, but I understand that the Paramount Orchestra was quite THE orchestra at that time. And this was a party to dedicate the new hotel and to give the people a tour. And there were fifty rooms with bathrooms, they had steam radiators, there were two dining rooms, a ladies' parlor, a barber shop, a roof garden and on the fourth floor a very lovely large ballroom. And there were many lovely balls and parties given in that ballroom from that time on.
I remember one particularly. I was just a little bitty girl and my mother says I don't really remember it, I just heard about it. But I do remember it! I really do. It was in 1928 and it was my grandmother and grandfather Diesbach's 50th anniversary. And they had ... my uncle and aunt from Ohio and their two sons came down, and Aunt Annie and my mother and father gave their parents this lovely party, in the ballroom. They had the A&M orchestra. Texas A&M College Orchestra which in those days had become quite a good dance band and everybody liked it. And they had the orchestra and of course, they had, I'm sure, a few libations in the early part of the evening, and then they served a five course seated dinner. And after the dinner, they had dancing. First, the dancing was begun with a grand march and it just so happened that their best man ELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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and their matron of honor were still alive and those two led the grand march. And there was quite ... it made front page news on the Victoria Advocate. And I still have that Advocate with that write-up of the party. And I treasure it. I remember I had a special dress. I don't remember what it was but I'm sure it was ruffly and fluffy with a big bow in the back. (laughter) My two cousins and I really thought we were just something special to be at this party.
In 1915, they had another grand opening of the roof garden. The roof garden was, of course, at the top of the hotel and they had plants all around it. Now I don't remember the roof garden, but I have some pictures of it and I have a postcard that shows all the plants around it. And they would have, every Friday night, there would be a dance on the roof garden. And they would string Japanese lanterns over the lights and they would arrange furniture in little groupings. They would have refreshments, there would be an orchestra, people would come and dance and have refreshments and they could sit down and visit and all of this was 50 cents a person! That was the cover charge in 1915.
In 1918, Ben Mathews died a very early death and my Aunt Annie continued to run the hotel. By this time, of course, the traveling men and people all knew her, they all respected her and loved her and called her "Miss Annie." She never ... she had a little office in the hotel from which she transacted ELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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her business, but she was every bit the Southern gentlewoman during the whole thing. But she ran that hotel and she did a good job of it.
In 1923, she married Mr. Black, Mr. Elmo J. Black. Then the hotel ... she began to make some changes in the hotel and they began to travel. And they traveled a great deal in the 19 ... well, in the late ... middle to late 1920s and in the 1930s. They traveled all over the world. They bought these beautiful things - chandeliers and carpets and furniture and just all sorts of things all over the world that they brought to the hotel and made it quite a show place. It really, really was.
The Chinese Room had gorgeous teak furniture with mother-of-pearl inlay and also Limoge lamps that were bought in China, the dining room had a lot of Tiffany glass and it was just beautiful. And the chandeliers came from Italy and from Germany. The rugs, of course, came from Asia, they were Persian rugs. And they made quite a show place.
And also, during this late 1920s era they remodelled the hotel. They remodelled it with sort of a Spanish decor. They took the old building that, the annex that was still there, that was the concrete building, and they joined it to the main building with a corridor. So that ... and this corridor became the ... they called it the "Writing Room" but it was the "Chinese Room" because it had all these beautiful pieces from China and ELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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they did the woodwork in gold-leaf ... red lacquered paint and gold-leaf. It was really a very exquisite room. And they also had a hallway that they made a "Colonial Room" which was the room that was used by the Rotary and the Lions Club and the Service Clubs as a meeting room. People had teas and coffees there. They had bridge parties. It was used extensively as a party room.
And then they also connected the main building with the annex with a porch. A brick porch that was done with Spanish tile they had shipped form Spain.
BK: Where was the tile? I'm trying to remember what the building ... Was it on the floor or was it on the wall?
EG: It was on the floor.
BK: On the floor.
EG: And ... well, there was some on the wall, too. But it was mainly ... there was a long corridor from one building to another and it put the two buildings together and made a patio in-between. And they had a lovely fountain there that had come from Mexico in the middle of the patio. And at the same time they bought a ... Aunt Annie went down to Brownsville, to the Snake King, and someone had told her that he had these beautiful birds, Aunt Annie loved birds and she loved animals, and she bought this perfectly gorgeous red macaw. He was brillant red, had a little bit of gold and blue feathers at his neck. His name was Pedro. And he was ... the Snake King told her that ELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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he would talk, well, she couldn't get him to talk while they were in Brownsville, but anyway, they sent him up to Victoria and when he did begin to talk they found out that it was mostly ugly words in Spanish! (laughter) So then they wished he would not talk! But they kept ... he was never chained. His wing was clipped. He could hop around, he could get from the perch down on the ground and fly back to the perch. But he never left the patio. And so Aunt Annie decided that it would be nice for him to have a mate, that he probably was lonesome. So they went back and bought this perfectly gorgeous blue bird with the gold feather markings, it was a female. And Pedro hated her! (laughter) Just absolutely hated her! And didn't want her around him at all! And finally one day he chased her off into the street and she was run over. And that ended ...
BK: He really did hate her.
EG: He really did. He just didn't want anything to do with her! And so they didn't try again. They just figured he liked to be by himself and they left him that way. (laughter)
Then one day, we'd had a carnival here, you know where St. Joe's is now, was our District Fairgrounds.
BK: Right.
EG: And every October the Fair came. And they always had a big carnival with it. And this old man had some kind of an act at the carnival. He had a trained pig and a trained donkey and a trained monkey. And he was going to break up his act ELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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and go to live with his daughter. But his daughter didn't want any of these animals. So he wanted to sell them and someone had told him that Aunt Annie like animals. So he came to the hotel and she said, "Oh, I have no place for a pig or a donkey." And she said, "I really ... I don't know what I would do with the monkey." Well, the monkey had on little clothes and he was a Java monkey. His teeth had been filed and his growth had been stunted ... he was a beautifuly little animal ... and so, she told him no. Well, about 15 minutes later she decided she wanted that monkey. So she sent all the bellboys out, hunting all over town for this man, and they found him, brought him back. She bought the monkey, his name was Barney!
I was a little girl at the time and I loved Barney. And Barney loved me. I would come and get Barney and put him in my doll buggy and ride him all over town and he would lie in that buggy with the blanket up to his neck and just have a beautiful time! (laughter) And we ... he was like having a live doll, he really was. And I loved him and he loved me and he wore what we ... you remember Cab Calloway and those ... maybe you don't ... but he wore frocktail coats ...
BK: Oh, uh-huh.
EG: ... well, this is the costume that Barney wore. He had Cab Calloway suits, little pants and the coats ... Aunt Annie had a dressmaker make all these clothes for him.
BK: A dressmaker?ELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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EG: Uh-huh. And he had the trousers and the Cab Calloway coats. And then he had an overcoat when it was cold in the winter, he had pajamas that he slept in, lightweight ones in the summer and, you know, flannel ones in the winter.
BK: Pajamas!
EG: And he was quite a character. And everybody loved Barney. And the traveling men just had a fit over him. 'Cause he was a loveable, loveable monkey.
BK: Did he run loose in the hotel?
EG: No, he had a long chain. He was by the elevator, but he could go all the way down to the basement on that chain, he could just run anywhere. But they just were afraid ... I don't think he would have gone anywhere, really, but people felt more comfortable if he were contained, you know.
BK: Right.
EG: And so, but the funny thing was, that one day a man had been playing with Barney and he came to the counter and he wanted to buy some stamps and he put his hands in his pocket and he didn't have any change. And he said, "I know I had change in my pocket when I left the room." Well, they said we just don't understand, where have you been? He said, "Nowhere, I was just playing with Barney." And so Barney had disappeared. He had gone down the steps towards the basement. And one of the bellboys called him and he didn't come. So, I think it was Tom Jackson, went down there and there he sat. He was counting ELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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out his money. (laughter) And we discovered that Barney had been trained to be a pickpocket!
BK: Oh, how wonderful!
EG: And we didn't know it, but monkeys have two pockets, one on either side of their mouth's.
BK: I didn't know that.
EG: And they store stuff ... food and other things. And he'd take this money out of the people's pockets and he'd put it in these pockets in his jaw and then he would take it out and count it, I guess. You know, he gave it ... I guess he used to give it to this old man. Because he'd been trained to pick-pocket. We had a terrible time breaking him of that! But we finally did and we'd tell him now ... we'd take the money ... we'd say, "No, you can't have that money. That's wrong!" And finally, he learned not to pick-pockets anymore. But we had to watch him pretty carefully for awhile, 'cause he was good at it. And nobody ever knew when he got in those pockets. But he was ... the traveling men would come and they'd go home and bring their wives and their children to come and play with Barney on the week-end because he was just a delightful animanl, he really was. And ... poor Barney ... and they'd take him out and put him on the patio and let him get fresh air and such ...
BK: How did he get along with the bird?
EG: He didn't bother the bird and the bird didn't bother him! ELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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They learned very quickly that they didn't want any part of each other. So they ignored one another and got along just fine. But Pedro just looked at him, you know, like, "Well, you're just too little for me to bother." He was little, he was a small monkey.
Oh, I have to tell you, one thing he did that was clever. He slept in one of the sample rooms and there was a phone in there that was on the wall. And Sim Hobbs was the bellboy that always took care of him. Went down every morning and bathed him and gave him a bayrum rub and put fresh clothes on him and brought him up. And one morning, they were very busy with people checking out and Sim didn't get down there. And so the switchboard began lighting up and Mr. Mc........, who had worked there for a long time, kept saying, "Well, that's the sample room that keeps lighting up." So he picked up the phone and he said, "Desk." And he heard this jabbering. It was Barney. And he said, "Sim, you'd better go get Barney, I guess he figures you'd forgotten him." And sure enough ...
BK: And he called.
EG: ... he found out ... see, he ran loose in the room ... he wasn't ... he had no chain ... had a little house with a bed in it that he slept in ... and then he ran loose the rest of the time. He had seen people use that phone on the wall, so he just took himself over and took the receiver down and hung on to the phone part of it and when he heard Mr. Mc....... ELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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say desk, he started talking ... (makes sounds). (laughter) And he did that from then on. If they didn't come soon enough, he'd phone!
BK: It worked.
EG: Yeah. (laughter) He'd phone to come and get him. He was tired of staying down there and wanted to get out and see people. But unfortunately he was out in the patio one day, it was a very warm summer day, and they were very, very busy and they didn't realize that he was in the sun. I think I was the one that went out there and found him lying in the grass. And I went in ... I was crying ... and I said, "Something's wrong with Barney. He's lying in the grass. He's just lying there, still." And so everybody came running. And I don't know who said, "Let's put an icepack." He was still alive, you could hear his heart beat. And we put icepacks on him and he was beginning to come out it. Well, we had one Vet in town, a very nice man, and he openly said he knew nothing about monkeys. But Aunt Annie called him because she was so upset about Barney. And he came over and Barney was coming out of it, he really was, but he said, "I'm going to give him a shot of adrenaline, I think maybe this will pull him out." Well, we found out monkeys are allergic to adrenaline and they cannot take it and it killed him immediately.
BK: Oh, how awful.
EG: And so that was the end of Barney and it was one of the ELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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saddest days of my life because I had lost an awfully good friend and playmate. And the people who came to the hotel, the traveling men and those who came through regularly, always ... they always ... they never came that they didn't say, "We miss Barney."
BK: I guess
EG: You know. So that was kind of bad day.
But I also forget to tell you that before they ... or about the time that they built this porch and connected the two buildings and made it one big hotel. There was this one part of the lot that was on ... it faced Williams and Santa Rosa ... it was on the corner of Santa Rosa and Williams ... had been a ......... what they called 'marble yard.' They made tombstones and monuments. And I know, 'cause when I was a kid, we always went to the hotel for Sunday dinner. That was a ritual, my grandmother and grandfather, mother and dad and I, always went there for Sunday lunch. And I would go out ... I loved to pick up those little pieces of marble when I was a little bitty kid ... I don't know what I did with 'em, but I just ... it was fun.
But they ... Aunt Annie bought that lot and turned it into a beautiful garden. One of the waiters at the hotel, Judge Dent, loved to garden and so when he found out that she was going to make this into a garden he asked if he could quit being a waiter and become a gardener. And everything he put in the ELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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ground grew and just grew beautifully! And so it was a formal garden and they had beds, you know, all laid out and there were flowers that bloomed all year long. Because he knew what flowers to plant where. And at one time they made ... they built an arbor of ... I think they were doric columns ... Greek columns ... and they had some peacocks that strolled around the garden, and they were beautiful. And then after the peacocks they built an aviary ... an apiary ... no, an aviary, excuse me, an aviary and they had lots of little small tropical birds. And that was there until ... well, for the rest of the time of the hotel. And they also put in a darling little gazebo. And people would to go out ... take each other's pictures in the gazebo with all the gorgeous flowers. And I remember when Bob and I first married, we had an apartment in the what was the old Knott Home on Santa Rosa, it's no longer there, but you know where the Agnes Murphy home is, it's that gray house, that big gray house that the man who's sister ... had Sister's Restuarant ...
BK: Oh, oh, uh-huh.
EG: ... I can't remember his name, but it was right next to it.
BK: Lee Kinsel.
EG: Kinsel. And we had an apartment in the old Knott home. And of course, the garden was right there and I knew Judge. I never would go and pick a flower though. I always went ... ELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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and I loved flowers and I liked to keep them in the apartment. And I'd go over there and I'd say, "Judge, I'd like to have some flowers for my apartment." "Yes'sum, I will get you some. Now what would you like to have?" And I would tell him and he would pick them for me and he was always very generous, don't misunderstand me, and he would hand them to me. But I was not to pick those flowers because I might do it wrong! (laugher) Or I might it from the wrong place. That garden was his castle! And he took care of it and it was always gorgeous.
Later it became, ... they put in a swimming pool there. They took out most of the garden, they left some of it. But they put in a swimming pool and that's when Bob was managing the hotel. And he put in a little house that had some dressing rooms in it and a snackbar. And they had ... the guests could use it and also there was a swimming club for Victoria people. And had lots of families that joined it and their children came and they'd go swimming there. And they'd have a hamburger or hotdog or a sandwich or something and if they wanted to change their clothes they could go in the dressing-room and do it. It was really a very beautiful place. In all of its phases, it went from one thing to a more beautiful thing. And it was, to me, a very sad, tragic day when it had to go.
BK: Yes.
EG: But, it was there for ... what? almost seventy years, if not seventy years. Because they took it in 1906, and I think ELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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we finally closed the doors to it in the 70s somewhere.
BK: .... like '73 ...
EG: Somewhere. I could look it up 'cause I it ... we have that all recorded here in papers. But it was there, almost, if not seventy years. And it was a center of wonderful balls and parties and luncheons and dinners and ... I mean, you know, it was quite the center of society in its heyday.
And then, of course, in the 1940s when the airbases came in here ...
BK: Uh-huh.
EG: ... it was a very popular spot. And the people that would come to visit their sons or you know, their families here at the airbase, would all stay there, and in those days it was, of course, the food was always excellent. They began when they first put the dinning-rooms in, when the hotel was the brick building was built, they had a wonderful French chef, they always had an excellent chef. And they had a superb pastry cook. The pastries were always ... they didn't just look good, they were good, you know. These cream pies and these wonderful cheesecakes and that kind of stuff. And they had what was known as the Denver Ring Steak. It was the heart of the tenderloin and it was put in a ring that had a top on it ... I still have some of those rings ... and it had a special sauce that was put on it. You didn't even need a knife, you'd cut it with a fork. And it was famous for the Denver Ring Steaks and people ELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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came from everywhere for those Denver Ring Steaks and as I recall the whole dinner with the Denver Ring Steak was a $1.50.
BK: $1.50.
EG: Uh-huh. And now, you know, you couldn't afford to just buy that tenderloin and use that and charge $1.50 for it, you know.
BK: Uh-huh, no.
EG: And that was, of course, with an appetizer, and the entree and a salad, a dessert and a beverage and you name it! $1.50.
And, of course, on Sundays the dining-room was always crowded because people would go to church and then they'd come and have dinner. And they would serve you breakfast if you wanted it, too, so some people that went to 11:00 o'clock or 12:00 o'clock mass, would come and have breakfast. They'd have omlets or whatever, you know, because the kitchen was available. And so you could have dinner, you could order from the menu, it was a wonderful place, it really was.
I'm sorry that we couldn't, and Bob and I really did, we tried to save it every way we knew how. But it was at the wrong time.
We tried to ... we had beautiful plans for an apartment house, but the estate lawyers said no because we would have to charge more than people would pay for their apartments, at that time, in order to pay off the expenses. ELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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And I probably shouldn't say this on a tape, but, the sad thing of it is that my aunt was a very, very wealthy woman and unfortunately this second husband went through everything and when ... she lived to be 93, but she was not a very well woman toward the end. She had a lot of illnesses and she ... she was not irrational but she had moments that she was not herself.
BK: Uh-huh.
EG: And unfortunately he just went through everything. And so there wasn't anything left to work with.
BK: Uh-huh.
EG: And the bank told ... one of the banks here told Bob if he would take over the managment again they'd let him have whatever he needed, because he had done an excellent job. But we had decided at that point that we ... probably ... we knew how much it was going to take to get it back and we decided that we had sorta passed that stage. He hadn't been well and so we decided well, we'd probably never see it get out of the red. If we'd had a son maybe that would have made it different because he might have wanted to go into it.
BK: Uh-huh.
EG: But we didn't, we had daughters and they had husbands ... well, Ann had a husband that didn't ... wasn't interested and of course, the other two didn't have husbands at that time and don't yet. So, consequently we just said, "No, we don't want to spend the rest of our lives just ..." you know, trying to ELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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put this thing back in shape. And so we just had to let it go.
But I will say one thing, we had an auction because we needed to have one. Because one of the banks here was kind of pushing us and we got a man who was supposed to be the top-notch auctioneer in the country and he later became president of the International Auctioneers Society and he was a thief.
BK: A thief?
EG: And there were things he took out of the auction that never appeared in the auction. And we said, "Where is this so and so?" And he said, "Oh, we're fixing it up and we'll bring it later." Never showed. And he planted people in the audience and he close off ... I shouldn't say this because I might get sued ... so we might cut this out. But anyway, it was not a very good auction.
BK: I was there that day.
EG: And he'd cut it off ...
BK: But of course, not aware of anything ...
EG: ... and he would let his own people get these things. I had a friend that was trying to bid on something and he cut her off, he wouldn't even accept the bid, he let this other person take it and we found out that was one of his employees.
BK: But some of the things are still here in town. ...
EG: Oh, yeah, a lot of 'em are still here in town.
BK: Many pieces were bought by local people.ELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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EG: But a lot of 'em didn't bring what they should have. And a lot of 'em went to other places. To other shops.
BK: That's a shame.
EG: But you know, it's water under the bridge, Betsy, I mean, you know, you can't sit and cry over what was in the past, you have to go forward.
BK: That's true.
EG: And ...
BK: I'm just very fortunate that I was here ...
EG: I just have wonderful, wonderful memories ...
BK: ... before it was gone.
EG: ... of the hotel and of my aunt. Of course, we were very close. She lost a little girl, the only child she had with Ben Matthews. And so when I was born, she sort of took me on ... she was like my second mother and the hotel was like my second home. And I grew up there, I really did. I grew up at home and at my grandparents, but I also grew up at the hotel.
We had such wonderful help there. You may have heard about Bill Simpson. Bill Simpson was a negro porter there. He had come to the hotel when he about 12 years old as a shoe-shine boy and Aunt Annie took a liking to him, he was a hard-working, nice kid and she helped him. Put him, eventually, in the hotel as a porter. And he always felt the hotel ... he spoke of "our hotel." And it really was. Because he had grown up there too.ELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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BK: Uh-huh.
EG: And he knew every salesman, everybody that ... if you went to that hotel once and you ever came back, he'd call you by name. He had that kind of a memory. And of course, you know, people like that.
BK: Oh, yeah.
EG: And then there was Frank White and Tom Jackson and oh, Leslie Littles and Judge Dent and oh, you know the Lytle Funeral Home?
BK: Yes.
EG: Well, this is his son, now, but his father was a waiter there and he made enough money as waiter at the hotel to open Lytle's Funeral Home. And Isaac ... I mean, not Isaac ... oh, Odom ... Israel, Israel Odom was there and then ... the men always wore dark pants with a black bowtie and a white coat ... originally they wore black coats and black pants and black tie. Like they do at .......... in New Orleans.
BK: Uh-huh.
EG: But then they went to the white coats in the summer, you know. And it was always ... it was an elegant place. It wasn't just a small town hotel, it was an elegant hotel. Everybody in the hotel business knew "Miss Annie." And respected her because she was an excellent hotel woman. It was a beautiful hotel, a beautiful hotel.
BK: Weren't there some celebraties that came? Seems like I've ELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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heard stories ...
EG: Oh, yeah, lots of 'em. Tyrone Power and John Wayne and Lyndon Johnson and Mrs. Pennypacker, oh, I don't know, just a whole slew of 'em. Came through there all the time.
BK: What were they doing in Victoria?
EG: Well, Lyndon Johnson would come down on political business.
BK: Uh-huh.
EG: And Tyrone Power was stationed at Corpus Christi Air Base.
BK: Oh.
EG: And John Wayne was down making a film, and just came down, I mean, you know, they'd hear about ... Victoria had a good reputation as being an old historic town and they'd get this close, you know, they'd get close to it and they'd come down and see what it was like. Mrs. Pennypacker came on Federated Club business. (laughter)
BK: Right.
EG: You know, and all that kind of stuff. But there were a lot of people, Eleanor Rooseveldt was here.
BK: I had heard that.
EG: Yes, yes, she was here. Had a big parade. I remember that. A big parade. And she rode in it and she was here. And oh, I only wished that we had kept the old books, but unfortunately when they went to that new card system of registration, we don't know what happened. The old registration books disappeared. Now whether they were ....ELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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END OF TAPE 1, SIDE 1, ABOUT .. MINUTES.
SIDE 2.
EG: ... we don't know. But when we broke up, you know, the business of the hotel, we looked for them and we could not find them. So they may have been destroyed ... but they were not there. You know, they have to have a cleaning out once in a while and in those days they didn't think those probably would be so important.
BK: Didn't have a sense of history.
EG: Uh-huh. But that's pretty much the story of the hotel. BK: When did your aunt die?
EG: In 1971.
BK: Oh, so just before the closing of the hotel. But Bob had been running it before that.
EG: He left in ...
BK: You said she was 93.
EG: She was 93. He left in ... well, Mr. Black got to the point he didn't want anybody to do anything for the hotel. He didn't want to improve it, he didn't want to really keep it up. And he didn't like the way ... I mean Bob wanted to keep it going and do for it and keep it ... a good hotel. And so, he told Bobby ... "just thought he didn't need him anymore because he just wanted to do too many things that cost too much money."
BK: And that was the beginning of the end, I guess.ELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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EG: That was the beginning of the end. So that's when Bob left and went with Devereux, as a personnel director and later business manager as well. And that was, I think, in '63.
BK: What did your parents do?
EG: My father originally had Van Zandt Hardware here.
BK: Oh.
EG: And then he became the Conoco agent. Conoco Oil agent here.
BK: So he had nothing to do with the hotel.
EG: No, he had nothing to do with the hotel, he was in business for himself. His business was ... his hardware store was orignally on the corner of Liberty and Santa Rosa in the old, what we call the Haller Building, which was the Haller Dry Goods in those days and now the Hallers have moved to Houston and so he ... his hardware store was there.
And see, that's why, as I said, I can ... I sometimes at night when I can't sleep I sort of reminiscence and I go back to the days and I go down Main Street and I go up Main Street 'cause I'm going north on it. And remember all the stores and then how the stores changed. And who went into where, and what, you know. And it's fun for me because I remember all those things.
BK: Well, you said that everybody lived downtown.
EG: Yeah, everybody lived ... right around the town. One of my mother's dearest friends was Mrs. Vivian O'Connor, Mrs. ELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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Lawence O'Connor and see, when ... after my father died, mother decided she did not want to live in this house that was too big, and I think it had too many memories. And I said, "No, Mother, you're not going to ..." She said, "I want you all to take the house." When we had come back from the service, we had bought the old Jim Carroll home on ... it's not there ... the bank took it over. I mean, they wanted a parking lot and they bought all the property on that side of the block and so, I mean, we could have stayed there but we'd been in the middle of the parking lot. (laughter) So we sold it to the bank. But anyway, we were there, and she said, "I'd rather take your house. I'll move into your house and we'll make an apartment of the downstairs." 'Cause mother had broken her hip ... both hips and then one leg. But believe it or not, she was still driving her car and still walking and going great guns and she was 80.
BK: Um.
EG: And did real well, but she had a heart problem. And so she said, "I'll take it." And I said, "No, you're going to have to stay in this house a year and be sure you want to leave it. And then if you really want to go then we'll do something about it. But I don't want you to move and then wish you hadn't. That would make me very unhappy." So she did and she still wanted to go.
So we made a downstairs apartment 'cause we had a big living ELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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room and a dining room and a big family room and a big kitchen, with a big breakfast room, and a music room and a bathroom downstairs. And then we had the upstairs. Well, she didn't ... our steps were like going up to heaven ... and I didn't want her to do those stairs too much, I think she did go up there once in a while, but she never let on tht she did, and so she ... we made an apartment. We took the dining room and made a ... she wanted that to be her bedroom, she had plenty of room and was very comfortable and we came up then. But ...
BK: Here, you mean to this house?
EG: To this house, 'cause this was our home. And that was in ... when ... '63 ... and we lost her ... Aunt Annie died in ... on Christmas Eve of '71 and we lost mother right after Mother's Day ...
BK: Um.
EG: ... in that May that followed in '72.
BK: '72.
EG: And we didn't realize that she was supposed to come ... to be taken out to the hospital for some tests and she was doing just really well and we were supposed to bring her home, like on the Tuesday after Mother's Day on Sunday and on Monday, she ... no, it was on Sunday, that night, that she ... her kidneys just failed and she never regained consciousness, she was dead on Tuesday morning.
BK: Was she in the old Victoria Hospital or ... ?ELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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EG: No, she was at Citizen's.
BK: At Citizen's, it was ...
EG: It was here.
BK: Oh, yes, it here then. 'Cause I was trying to think whether the old Victoria Hospital was closed by then.
EG: The old Victoria Hospital, now, all three of our children were born in the old Victoria Hospital.
BK: Um-huh. I just barely remember ...
EG: I lost my appendix in the old Victoria Hospital! (laughter)
BK: I don't even know if the building is still there.
EG: No, it's been torn down. It's been torn down. But it was quite a nice hospital in its day.
BK: Oh, yeah. Well, if ... you could walk anywhere.
EG: Yes, and that's one reason ....
BK: From the hotel to your house to the school ...
EG: ... why mother liked living down there at our place where we were because she was only a block away from Ms. Vivian and they were constantly on the phone or together. And then, Jim ....... lived across the street and of course, dad and Mr. Jim had been very ... , Mr. Jim was older than dad but they'd been big friends, always. And of course, mother was a very good friend of Mr. Jim and Ms. Sally. That's Jamie Dean's mother ... that was Jamie Dean's mother and father ....
BK: Oh, okay.ELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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EG: ... Sue McCann's mother and father. And they were right across the street from us. And she could call Symon's and they'd send her what ever she needed, she could call Harney and Paker, they were still on Main Street at the time, they'd send her what she ... and she got her groceries brought to her and it was very ... it was a very good arrangement.
BK: Um-huh. So when you were very little, you could walk to ... you said you could walk to ...
EG: Oh, yes. Now see, on Saturdays when I was a little girl, we all went, Helen Lawrence and I were big buddies and neighbors, and she had ... I had no brothers and sisters 'cause mother couldn't have any more children, and mother was determined I was not going to grow up to be a spoiled, only child, brat. And so, she had kids come all the time. Well, Helen and her three brothers lived just down the block from us and this was at our old home before we moved up here. And so, on Saturdays we would take her three brothers, there were twins and a younger son, and we would go to the old Victoria Theater. I would stand out by the back gate and my grandfather would always come out there and we had in those days ... we got in the show for a nickel. And so he would give us each a dime so we could get ... of course, you couldn't get cold drinks in those days, but you could get a candy bar and a bag of popcorn. So he would stand at the gate and give us each a dime and he'd say, "Now this for your popcorn." So we would walk to the theater. And ELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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then we would ... we called them "the brothers" ... one brother here and I would sit here with Helen and then another brother and the other one on the other side ... (laughter) ...
BK: (laughter) To keep them separated!
EG: Yeah. And we'd say, "You misbehave, we're going to tell your mother, and you won't go next week!" So they were always pretty good kids. (laughter) It started at one o'clock, we were always there and we stayed until five. We saw two complete runs of shows. We saw the movie, which was always a western, and we saw the serial, and we saw the comedy, the newsreel we weren't that fond of, but we'd sit through it, you know. And then we'd see the whole thing all over again. And then we'd go home.
BK: You'd see the whole thing over?
EG: Twice. We'd sit through it twice. And then we'd go home. About 5 o'clock we were home. And I remember that the serial, the one serial that I can really remember was Tim McCoy in The Indians Are Coming. And grandfather just loved kids, so he'd watch for us. And when he'd see us coming he'd meet us at the gate, he'd say, "Well, did the Indians come today?" (laughter)
BK: Was it continued from week to week?
EG: Oh yes, oh yes. They always had a cliff-hanger, you know, somebody fell off the cliff, or something blew up, there was always some terrible thing that you didn't know how they were going to get out of this. ELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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And then all week long, after school, we could play for so long or we would do our homework when it got spring and we'd do our homework and have our supper. 'Cause in those days you had dinner, it was at noon, and supper was at night.
BK: Uh-huh.
EG: And then we had a vacant lot in our neighborhood and we'd all go out there a play a lot of times or they'd play in our ... 'cause we had a big yard ... and we ... oh, we .... I think about how our parents sat through all these shows and things. We'd put on circuses, and all kinds of shows and they had, poor things, had to come and sit through these things. (laughter) I'm sure they were horrible.
BK: No!
EG: Or boring, you know. But they did. Grandparents and mothers and fathers and everybody ... all the family would come sit through these shows. I think they paid a nickel or a penny or something to see 'em.
BK: (laughter)
EG: And we had a clubhouse in my yard, and we had a clubhouse over in Helen's yard. And we'd use that money to do things with, you know, in our clubhouse. And we'd have like a Hallowe'en supper or something. One year it would be at my clubhouse and one year it would be at theirs.
And then mother and Mrs. Lawrence would take us out spooking. We didn't call it trick or treating, we just went ELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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spooking. And they would wear a sheet with a pillowcase over their head and carry a broom 'cause if there were some bad boys that bothered us they'd just hit 'em with the broom! (laughter) And then we'd all end up at DeLeon Plaza. Now this was all the kids in town.
BK: Uh-huh.
EG: We'd end up at DeLeon Plaza and everybody would just walk around the plaza looking at everybody, trying to figure out who was who in those costumes. Big ... oh, it was a big deal! But I'm sure that by 9:00 o'clock or 9:30 we were all back home again. But we would, before we went to DeLeon Plaza, we'd stop at certain houses and we'd ring the doorbell and then hide in the shrubbery, and of course, the people knew what we were doing, they'd come to the door and they'd say, "Oh, who's here? Who's here?" And nobody'd say anything, they'd close the door and we'd laugh and run off to the next house, you know. But that was a big Hallowe'en!
BK: But that was before the trick or treating .... candy ... and so forth ...
EG: That was way before trick or treating, yeah. We just went spooking, as we called it.
BK: Uh-huh.
EG: And usually we had a special Hallowe'en meal beforehand and then we'd go spooking and then we'd go to the DeLeon Plaza and make three or four circles around the block, and we'd usually ELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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recognize other friends and we'd all kind of get together, you know, and talk about what we'd done and then we'd go home. But it was fun.
And I remember, too, we had a bus line here one time, Truman Belcher had a Victoria Bus ... or we running out? ...
BK: No, I was just checking.
EG: ... and I was in high shool at the time and we had dates. There was about five couples, or six couples of us, and so we parked the cars, I think we were all in three cars maybe, we parked the cars up on Main Street and we got on the bus and we took the whole ride. Wherever the bus went, we were going to go from the beginning all the way back ... that was what we were going to do for our evening's pleasure.
BK: And where all did the bus go?
EG: Oh, it went all over ... all over Victoria! It was about and hour and a half, I guess, ride.
BK: And hour and a half ride?
EG: Oh, yeah, we went everywhere. You can't imagine. We just went to the byways and hiways and everywhere else. Of course, it went slowly, you know, and we let people on and let people off. Well, one of our number, had hidden some firecrackers in his pocket, and he and his date, of course his date didn't know it, and he had them, and he had a backseat in the bus, and of course, there was no air conditioning in those days so the windows were open, this was summertime. And suddenly we ELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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began hearing all this ... pop, pop, pop, bang, bang, bang ... you know. The bus stopped, and he went back and caught our friend who had been throwing the firecrackers out as we rode along. And so we were told we had to leave the bus. Well, fortunately it wasn't too far from where we were going to be ... I think he timed ... he figured this would happen ... so he timed it so we wouldn't be too far, so we all had to get off the bus and walk to our cars. (laughter)
BK: Um.
EG: So, that, I think that was my only bus ride. It didn't last too long, the bus didn't work too well, it was not a ... you know, a well-paying thing for the company so they quit it. But we did that.
But you know, when we were growing up here we had a lot of fun. In the summer, even in high school, we would have, what we'd call "play-outs" and we'd go to someone's house. It was usually my mother's, they were here or Lock and Smith's mother's because they were the mothers that always seemed to kind of want us to come. And we'd play games out in the yard. All kinds of games, yard games, what-nots, you know. And then we'd have refreshments and we'd have dates, you know, we'd have a date and we'd go to this thing, and we'd all play, have a big time and I know the kids at school would ask me, "What did you do when you were growing up here, it was such a little bitty town, 'cause there's nothing to do here now?" And I said don't ELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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ask me because you are going to laugh! You know, I think it was the most boring thing you ever heard. No, tell us. So I would. And they'd say, "Well, that doesn't sound too bad." I said, "We had a good time. We played all kinds of games." And I said, "We had refreshments and we sat around and visited. We laughed and talked." And I said, "Then in the winter we'd play parlour games."
BK: Um-huh.
EG: Musical chairs, and charades and all sorts of things like that. We'd have maybe a taffy-pull or we'd make popcorn balls. I said, "We didn't ... we had to make our own fun!"
BK: Right. That's what they don't know how to do.
EG: Yeah. And then in the summer we'd go down to the bay. We'd always had to have a couple ... we had to have some parents with us. Had to have those chaperones. And mother and dad were always lots of fun to go with so they were always usually the ones that ... I'd just as soon they'd asked somebody else sometimes. (laughter) But they were always the ones ... but they were good Joes. They would go with us. And we'd take down a couple of watermelons, they were iced, and we would put them in the waters to stay cool, and then we'd take a blanket, and make a screen and have a dressing room, the girls would put on their swim suits and then the boys would go put on theirs and we'd go swimming. And then we'd come back and we'd change into our shorts or slacks or whatever we were going to wear ELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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and then we'd sit around, we'd build a fire, and we'd roast weiners and have hotdogs and have cold drinks, we'd bring a chest with cold drinks, and we'd roast marshmallows and eat our watermelon and it would be dark and then we'd come home.
BK: Where did you ... what bay did you go? Where ...
EG: We always went down to Miller's Point. Just beyond ... between Magnolia and Indianola.
BK: Oh!
EG: That was our ... sort of stomping grounds. 'Cause there was good swimming down there in those days.
BK: Good swimming and a good beach.
EG: Uh-huh. Nice beach. And good swimming. And we all knew that. I mean, we knew that area and we felt safe there and that's were ... and it wasn't too far. We'd go down there and have our picnic. And then sometimes we'd go to the Collette, here on the highway, you know, going to Goliad.
BK: Oh, uh-huh.
EG: And where there's ... I think there's still a little kind of park thing, but we'd go drive our cars down there and we'd picnic on the beach. Well, even when I started dating Bob, and the fellers from the Field, we'd go on picnics down there. The girls would have the food and the boys would bring the drinks and we'd go down and spread out big blankets and build a fire and have a picnic supper down there at ........ I laughedELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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at Bob because he doesn't particularly like picnics now and I said, "Well, you certainly liked picnics when we were dating!" Well, he said, "Well, that's 'cause I thought you liked picnics." And so he said, "I just thought I'd be very enthusiastic about picnics." (laughter) And now he says, "Well, let's just throw a little sand in our food and get on with it!" (laughter)
BK: Who all was in your gang that went on these outings? That played games with you?
EG: Well, there was Emily Crane, and Jane Jordan, and there was Celeste Hopkins and Helen Lawrence, and Geraldine Fly, and there was Bill Fly, and Floyd Harper Landa, his father was a famous surgeon, Dr. Landa here, Roy Landa was his father, and there was Walter Higgins, and Hal Howard Tom, and Larkin Smith, and Billy Froboese, oh, we had a really nice big crowd of kids. We really did.
BK: Were these all in your class or did you ...?
EG: No, the boys were all ahead of us. They were all older than we were. And some of the girls were older. In a class higher. But we all ran together. And then there was some ... I was trying to think who else there was ... well, Patricia Pickering sometimes and sometimes her sister who was older than all of us, was Catherine Elizabeth Pickering, and we had a nice big crowd. But as I say, we made ... and of course, when I was in high school, Fredlene Snyder Krueger and she was in ... ELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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and Margaret Bower Lentz, and oh, we had quite a ... who else was in that bunch? Claudine Faust sometimes, not too often, 'cause Claudine didn't seem to run with us that much. But we had a nice big bunch of kids. Oh, Hugh Albert Turner was another one, we called him Son and he was here not very long ago to visit with us, he hasn't lived here in years, and I said something about, I said, "Now, listen, Son, .." He said, "You know, you are one of the few people that are allowed to call me Son." I said, "I know, but I'm not going to call you Hugh Albert because I never called you that in my life!" He said, "I know, that's why I let you call me Son!" (laughter) Because his mother called him Sonny. He hated that name. But she always called him ... and we shortened it to Son. And it was alright when he was in high school. Later he did not want to be called Son. And then we had people like the Stoner family, had some grandchildren. Mr. M.D. Stoner Sr., had some grandchildren that lived in Baytown, Mike Hackerdon and Dorothy King and they would come in the summer to visit and they would join us. And you know, there were kids that came from other towns that had relatives here that we knew and so we really had a nice crowd. And we just, as I said, we made our own fun. And we had lots of fun.
We'd go to the movies, of course, none of us were allowed to date, except on Fridays and Saturday nights. And sometimes, if there was a good movie on, we could go, maybe, to the movie ELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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on Sunday night. But we had to be in real early, 'cause that was a school night.
BK: Was the old Victoria Theater, is that where the Community Theater is now?
EG: Uh-huh.
BK: Because that's the only downtown theater ...
EG: Well, then we had the Uptown and the Rita. The Uptown and the Rita were right next to each other; there across from DeLeon Plaza, right behind the Victoria National Bank. And then we got the Rancho which was across the Plaza.
BK: Yeah, across ...
EG: Uh-huh. On Flores Street.
BK: ... where the Bank and Trust is now.
EG: No. Yeah, yeah. Where the Bank and Trust is now.
BK: So there were four theaters downtown?
EG: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
BK: That's a lot.
EG: Yeah.
BK: For a little town, 'cause how many people were here then?
EG: Well, I think by the time the war started in '41 we had about 10,000, maybe.
BK: 10,000.
EG: Maybe not quite that many. Because I know when they first started coming I was off at school. 'Cause I didn't come home ELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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until '42. But they had terrible time finding places to live. Because Victoria just didn't have a lot of apartments because they didn't have people that moved in like that, you know.
BK: And they didn't live on the Base?
EG: Well, the officers and the cadets did, because, you see, the officers could be married, but the cadets couldn't be, however, some of them were. And they had wives that had an apartment or something in town, but they tried not to let anybody know about it, you know. But the officers lived in the BOQ and then ... but I'm talking about the married officers that were here ... and there were a lot of married officers here.
BK: I can imagine there wouldn't be very many places to live.
EG: Because I came home ... I graduated when I was 19 from UT, and I was president of my sorority that year and I didn't ... wasn't to finish my term until April. And I also had a radio show ... I didn't ... I wasn't ... I didn't go to school from January to April 'cause I was all through and I wasn't supposed to live in the house but they let me because I was president of the chapter. So I got to stay in the house until my term was over. And I had a little radio show at KTBC at the same time.
BK: In Austin.
EG: Uh-huh, in Austin.
BK: What did you do in the radio show? ELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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EG: I had a Woman's Page of the Air.
BK: Woman's Page of the Air?
EG: Uh-huh.
BK: And what did you talk about?
EG: Oh, fashions, and receipes and food and news article, news things that were interesting to women. I had a lot of fun with it.
BK: And this was when you were a senior? Or had just finished.
EG: Yeah. It was during my senior year.
BK: During your senior year.
EG: During my senior year. And I didn't ... I wasn't going to finish it until April, too. Everything had to come to a close in April. So I went ... everyday, Monday through Friday, down to KTBC, it came on ... it was from 10 until 11. Every morning Monday through Friday. And I remember, my roommate was from San Antonio and Marion Anderson was having a concert in San Antonio. And so we drove over to San Antonio to the concert. And I said, "Becky, I've got to be back at the studio at 10 o'clock." And so we had to get up and get going and I was almost late and I was biting my nails because I got in just in time to say "good morning." (laughter) ....
BK: Did you ever do anything else in radio after that?
EG: I made ... in those days you made records, you know, if people wanted to advertise, ...
BK: Uh-huh.ELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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EG: ... you made, there was no such things as tapes, so you made records, demo records. And you did a program and took this record to them, how your program will sound, this is the way it will sound if you do this program. And I worked on some of those. I loved it, I really did. I had a great time with it.
BK: But you didn't pursue it?
EG: No, I ... well, when I came back I talked to Morris Roberts, he had KVIC at the time, and I talked to him about it, but I'd only been home about two weeks, I had talked to him about the program and we were talking about it and then they called me from the school, Mr. Bankston was the Superintendent of Schools, and he called me and one of the teachers at Victoria Junior High, Gardenia Marcheck, whom I knew, was ill and was not going to be able to finish out the year. And he called me and he said, "I want you to finish out the year for me." This was the best thing that could have happened to me. I walked into this 9th grade class, 'cause in those days it was 7th, 8th and 9th grade in junior high, and guess who I met as one of my classes? Ted Shields and Powell Tucker and Beverly Belle Dupree and Polly Simon and this whole ... and of course, when I walked in, they all began to grin, 'cause they all called me by my first name, I was only about 3 1/2 or 4 years older than they were, and I knew what was going to happen. And I said, "Now wait everybody," I knew they thought we're going to have a ELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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ball, you know. I said, "Now just wait, I'm going to be here until the end of the year and while I am in class you're going to have to call me Miss VanZandt." (laughter) I said, "Now when I'm out of this room and out of this building you can call me Susie, like you always have. But in this building and in this room, we can't have that." And I said, "You've got to remember that I'm here ... I'm your friend ... I'm still friend, but I'm also going to have to be your teacher. Now let's get that straight right now." Okay, that was fine, never had any problem. They went on ... and of course, the girls got kind of irked with me because at the end of school the boys in the class, in my classes, decided to have a stag picnic down at the park, and they invited me. And I said, "Well, you're not inviting any girls?" "I know, but we want to invite you. You're going to be our guest of honor. You don't have to bring any food, we're going to bring all the food." So I said, "Alright." So I went down to the picnic and had dinner with them at the park and the girls kept riding around trying to find us, to see where we were. And they would come by here at night, you know, having dates or just riding around, "Hey, Susie, how're you doing? You doing your homework? You're grading papers?" (laughter)
BK: And you were 19?
EG: (laughter) And so, anyway, it was ... I learned a lot in those few months. And I think that really helped me a lot ELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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when I got my own class later on. But anyway, it was an experience. And of course, then Ted delighted in going to a cocktail party and coming up to me with a group of people and saying, "Oh, and this is my old school teacher! And how are you doing?" (laughter) And I said, "Alright Ted, ... old school teacher and .." And I said, "And you want me to tell some of the things you did?" "No, we won't talk about that." I said, "Okay, we'll just forget this school teacher business then." (laughter) But they were good kids and they were fun and I really enjoyed being with them. And it was a wonderful experience because I immediately found out how you had to keep order. And you had to be, you know, the teacher. You couldn't be a buddy or a pal, you could be a friend, but you couldn't be a buddy or a pal, you had to be the teacher. And one night I came home with some papers and mother went through a few of them, and I threw them in the wastebasket. She said, "What are you doing with those papers?" I said, "Nobody, nobody should have to grade papers like this. They are absolutely, terribly ridiculous." She said, "What are you going to do?" I said, "We're going to do this work all over again tomorrow. I'm not accepting this kind of work." So I went back to class and they said, "Did you grade our papers?" I said, "I tried. But they were so bad that after about 10 of them, I quit, I threw them in the wastebasket." Ohhhh. I said, "Yes, and we're going to do them all over. And if they are not right this time ELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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and they are not legibly written and they are not done the way they are supposed to be, I'm going to throw them in the wastebasket, but there's going to be a difference - you're going to get a zero!" Ohhh. So I said, "I want you to get busy, I'm going to do these all over." They came back pretty good papers, you'd be surprised. I never had any more trouble with them.
BK: I'm not surprised.
EG: And then ... you can't do these things now. With ... what I'm going to say now ... I had a bunch of boys that just acted really bad. And they wouldn't keep quiet, they wouldn't ... So I said, when the class ... just before the class was over, I said, "So and so, so and so, I'd like to see you after class." So they stopped by and I said, "I want you to come in here when school is out today. I want to talk to you." And I said, "I'm going to keep you in." "Today?" I said, "Today." "Oh." So they came in and they sat down and started talking and I said, "Uh-huh. No, no, no." I said, "You've got this all wrong." I said, "Where are your notebooks?" "In our lockers." "Where are your pens?" "In our lockers." Well, I said, "I'll give you a few minutes to go get them." So they went and got them. And you're going to think I was probably a very hard teacher, but it worked.
BK: Certainly.
EG: And they came back and I said, "Now, I've put your ELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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assignment on the board." "Assignment!" I said, "Yes. I've put words on the board and I want each of you to get a dictionary and I want you to write down all the meanings of each word and write a correct sentence using each meaning." "Well," they said, "we'll be here until 7 o'clock." I said, "That's all right. Then we'll be here until 7 o'clock." "Don't you want to go home?" I said, "Oh, yes, I want to go home as much as you do." "But," I said, " I think this is more important. You've got to learn that we're just not going to have this in class." So I said, ".... I have plenty of things to do." And I said, "My supper will be put in the oven and I can get it later." They finished about 6:30. Do you know I never had to keep anybody else in. The word got quickly around school - "Don't stay in for her, she'll work the tail off of you!" (laughter)
BK: Oh, I love it! (laughter)
EG: And I never did ... never had to keep anybody else in.
BK: You said that the students called you "Susie?"
EG: Well, see, these were the kids that knew me.
BK: The ones before.
EG: We'd all grown up together!
BK: Where did ... it was, obviously, your nickname?
EG: Uh-huh.
BK: How did you get the nickname?
EG: Well, Bob Granger was manager at the hotel when I was a ELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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little bitty girl. And I was pretty, I was tall for my age, always, in fact, I'm as tall now as I was when I was 12 years old. I got my height early. And I was very thin. And my face was kind of long, and it made my eyes, you know, kind of prominent, and they're brown, and so he got to calling me "Black-eyed Susan." He say, "Oh, here comes old Black-eyed Susan." And that kept on and then finally he said ... he got it to "Black-eye Susie," and finally it got down to "Susie." Well, the kids would be at the hotel with me and they'd hear this and little by little it got picked up. And suddenly everybody was calling me Susie. I never really did like it. I liked my name, Eleanor, very much, but I got called Susie, so I got used to it.
BK: You've mentioned several people with nicknames. Where did you go to elementary school?
EG: Mitchell.
BK: At Mitchell.
EG: Mitchell School. I went the first three years to Nazareth Academy ...
BK: First three years.
EG: And then I went to Mitchell School in the first grade, and in those days we had North Heights Elementary, which is now Juan Linn ...
BK: Oh, okay.
EG: ... and there was Bronson over here. And Juan Linn and ELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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Bronson had the first to the third grades. Then when you got the the fourth grade ... everybody went to Mitchell.
BK: Everybody in town?
EG: Everybody in town. Everybody in town. And so I came from Nazareth Academy and they came ... some came from Bronson and some came from North Heights and we all went to Mitchell and we stayed there through the 7th grade. And then we had a little sort of graduation ceremony, we didn't wear caps and gowns, we just had little fluffy dresses and we got a certificate saying that we had graduated from 7th grade and were now going in to high school, which began with the 8th grade. And so then we went to Patti Welder High School, the 8th through the 12th grade.
BK: 8th through 12th at Patti Welder?
EG: Uh-huh.
BK: Okay.
EG: No, 8th through the 11th. Excuse me. 8th through the 11th.
BK: 'Cause that ... they would have had 11 then ... 8th through the 11th. But everybody in town went to .... ?
EG: Everybody in town. And we had the biggest graduating ... my class had the biggest graduating class that Victoria had ever had. We had 101. In our graduating class.
BK: Out of Mitchell?
EG: Uh-huh. Well, no, we picked up some at Patti Welder that moved in here.ELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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BK: Oh, you mean 101 out of your Patti Welder group?
EG: Out of Patti Welder, uh-huh. That was a lot. Oh, they thought that was just wonderful. Imagine, 101 graduates!
BK: That was pretty amazing.
EG: Yeah. Yeah. And mother went to Nazareth Academy until, I think it was her sophomore year in high school, and then her junior year, she moved to Central, they had opened Central High, which was in Mitchell School at the time. It was called Central High. And she did her last two years of high school at Central High.
BK: But it was in the building at Mitchell?
EG: It is what is Mitchell now. But in those days it was called Central High School. My Aunt Annie went through Nazareth Academy because there were no public high schools here at the time. And my uncle, of course, didn't go through public school here because there weren't any either, he went to a private school.
BK: Was St. Joe here then?
EG: Uh-huh.
BK: Well, of course it was, 'cause it was 68 ...
EG: Oh, yeah, yeah. So anyway, but then we all went to Patti Welder and we graduated and we are having, Friday ... no, Saturday night, out at the Country Club, we're having our 55th ...
BK: This Saturday night?ELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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EG: ... reunion. Uh-huh.
BK: How many are left out of your class? Do you know?
EG: Well, there's going to be 79 people, but that's going to include some spouses. But believe it or not, Betsy, when we had our 50th, we didn't have a reunion until we had our 25th.
BK: Uh-huh.
EG: And then, I guess, we thought we were all going to live forever because we said we weren't going to have another one until our 50th. And we didn't. But at our 50th reunion we had lost only 14 out of that 101 and we did not lose ... every boy in our class was in the service in World War II ...
BK: Oh, really?
EG: ... and not one ... we did not lose one of them.
BK: Everyone ... everyone of them ... ?
EG: Isn't that amazing.
BK: That is amazing.
EG: Everyone of them came back. But after our 50th we began losing them.
BK: Yeah, well ...
EG: We began losing them.
BK: This Saturday? That's wonderful.
EG: So ... and I laugh so because Nopie ... I call her Nopie ... Margaret Bower, but we all had nicknames ... I mean Fred Lentz is Freddie to me, or Fred ... (laughter) ...
BK: Uh-huh.ELEANOR ANN GERRARD
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EG: ... and Nopie was so worried, she said, "I just don't think we're going to have many people." I said, "Nopie, quit stewing. What we have, we have." "Well, we wanted to reserved the ballroom, we have to have 40 people." I said, "We'll have 40 people. Don't worry about it. We'll have 40 people." So sure enough, we're going to have 79.
BK: That's wonderful.
EG: So, I think that's really good, you know. And the funny thing is though, that we have some people that live right here in Victoria that will not come.
BK: That's typical!
EG: They don't want to come.
BK: That's typical!
EG: But I think it's because they really didn't go with us when we were in school. I mean they knew us and we were all friends and we all got along well together, but they didn't ... they went with a different crowd. And so, I guess they figure, you know, we've lived here all these years and we see them and we visit with them and we meet 'em somewhere, but I guess they figure ... well, ...
BK: I've heard other people say that about their reunions, that the closer people don't come.
EG: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
END OF TAPE 1, SIDE 2, ABOUT .. MINUTES.