This week was the 159th Anniversary of the Battle of Sabine Pass, where 46ish Irishman defeated a Union flotilla of 5,000. They also had Kate Dorman in reserve just in case they couldn’t handle it themselves. A twenty-three-year-old lieutenant named Richard Dowling took out the flotilla by practice and planning. He was also at the Battle of Galveston. His history is fascinating because he arrived in New Orleans at around age four from a poor family, but if I remember correctly, he owned three bars in Houston by age twenty-one. The Bank of Bacchus is my favorite one of his establishments. He died of yellow fever at twenty-eight or twenty-nine (his birth records aren’t very clear.)
Dick Dowling Days 2013
In 2013, during the 150th anniversary of the battle, when it was alright to explain history’s sour past, there were many reenactments for each significant battle, and Sabine Pass was no different. This was the last reenactment battle and the 50th Anniversary of Dick Dowling Days, which was a thing since 1967. I was new to the Historical Commission, which I joined in 2012, and was wondering how I would take off three days of work for this, but I did, and it was worth it that year. Since it was the 150th anniversary, more reenactors were on the Union side, and many were dressed as Navy guys (300, actually!).
It was good to listen to some of them and their stories of past reenactments, letting the history and the hilarity flow. Past battles may or may not have included stuffing a beer can with concrete inside a cannon or firing blanks at a foreign tanker that didn’t know what was happening and swerved to miss the (blank) round. I have some videos from 2013 of some of the staged events; I’ll leave the links to them.
As I look back at the photos, I’m reminded that we’ve lost many of these guys in the past few years. Pictures are great, but their families would rather have them in their lives.
It seems the veil is thinning earlier than usual on the research front. I’ll get into more of this in October, but sometimes when you start researching someone with the hope of bringing their stories to light, and you know there are dead ends everywhere, you reach a point where you ask yourself: Why am I doing this? Then things get wibbly-wobbly, and people unexpectedly start to appear, and suddenly you have new, accurate information that you treasure. My Florence Stratton research was like this, and it is still ongoing; each year, we find more info to sift through for twenty hours over a weekend. I’m not complaining; I like doing this because it answers questions about our past. It is evident that I have a new research project for this winter, and hopefully, we will get more history on someone who I think deserves it.
Well, the Queen has died. This is not SETX related, but I’m going to ramble anyway. My interest in history spans different areas, and Rule Britannia is a big one. It is incredible to me that I have no interest in Dickens on the Strand in Galveston though—but I digress.
Growing up, my TV choices were limited to three channels, but thanks to Channel 39 out of Houston, the Benny Hill Show was available.
On PBS, Channel 8 out of Houston was also a window into different things. Toby Charles’s Soccer Made in Germany was a great program for Americans who couldn’t see a decent football match because the US soccer/football team was nonexistent. This is why I latched on to the English national team back in 1982. Rooting for the English national team is like rooting for the Astros (before they saw the sign) or the Oilers. After forty years of pain, I have switched to the Welsh team.
Queen Elizabeth ruled longer than any of her predecessors. As a princess during the war, she was a truck mechanic. Lilibeth, as her sister Margaret called Elizabeth because she couldn’t pronounce her name, was ultimately groomed by her father, King George, for a role in the monarchy. I can’t speak for Britannia, but in my opinion, she did as well as she could. God save the Queen!
As far as Charles goes, I side with Diana’s kids.
I once asked someone from the UK to explain to me the difference in how the US and Great Britain rally their people. He told me, “The US rallies around its flag while we rally around the Queen.”
After beginning my work week by ticking off both a bull and a five-foot rat snake on Monday, I think I’ve done alright so far. Thankfully, it wasn’t a Brahman bull, otherwise I wouldn’t be alive to write this. The rat snake was pretty annoyed that I woke him up, but I had a weapon; with his side eye, he saw some guy on a forklift coming for him. Note to self: rat snakes move pretty darn fast! I’ll have to start bringing my katana sword to work, but then the bull would probably laugh at me. Oh well, he’s not that swift anyway, or knowledgeable of anything except not wanting to move out of the way when I need him to. Maybe fireworks are a better option.
Well, I did some proper research this week. Some of it will be on the 2nd Annual Historic Magnolia Cemetery Tour in October. It involves the origins of Martha Mack (McFaddin) and the Martha Mack Cemetery located between what is now Marina Drive and the end of Elm St. This research is ongoing. I’ll have more material in October. Martha was born in Tennessee around 1842—a census states that she was thirty-eight in 1880. She worked as a laundress for the McFaddins. The cemetery was on land deeded to her by W. P. H. McFaddin.
Martha had five children, but Roxie Patillo and Basheba Simpson Plummer were the only ones I could find a bit more information on. According to the 1880 census, their father was Henry E. Simpson, Jefferson County clerk. If anyone has information on the Patillo or Simpson family, then I’m “all ears,” as Ross Perot, a businessman and 1992 Texas presidential candidate, said after he screwed up some of y’all’s high school football expectations. No Pass, No Play was brutal for people who cared.
Speaking of high school football, what was the last high school from Port Arthur to win a state title? Bishop Byrne Shamrocks 1952. Don’t give me that crap that they didn’t play anyone. They beat your Bum Phillips 34-13 at Nederland, and French High 26-0. Of course, they did it with Raymond Meyer. (Visit the Museum of the Gulf Coast for more on him.)
My father was on that team (#17), and he told me stories of Ray. Legend has it that they would chain him up to the entrance of the visiting teams’ locker room like a junkyard dog for effect. It worked that year. He would have gone pro, but he blew out his knee training for the 49ers. He and his dad went into the barber business and used to cut my hair. That was the nicest Goliath I’ve ever been around.
Also, a shout-out to Bobby Barras, who was also on that team. My father, Bobby, and I went to Rice Stadium in 1977 for the State Finals, where Bishop Byrne appeared again. They played St. Pius; Gary Kubiak, of Denver Bronco fame, was on that team. I know him as a quarterback who ignored his coach’s call for a field goal in his college days. The coach let him do his thing and, well, they lost. That sums up his playing days. I guess he may have had a better coaching role, but I don’t follow Danny White (Dallas Cowboy)-grade QBs. Anyway, the Green Machine lost 21-13, so to drown our sorrows, we went to Luby’s to indulge in tea and water-filled cups of vegetables. I ordered two or three versions of potatoes, which intrigued Bobby. He asked me why I was eating different kinds of potatoes. My reply was clear: “Because I’m honoring the little Irish heritage I have.” I don’t think he talked to me anymore. Thinking back, I wasn’t a good kid—but I digress.
The dates have been set for this year’s Historic Magnolia Cemetery Tour. They are on Thursday, October 20th, from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., and Saturday, October 22nd, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. It’s free to all who want to learn not only Beaumont history but also SETX history. There will be some new stories and some old ones. We like our volunteers, who research their topics to shine. My only regret is that I can’t take the tour because I’m on it.
All who volunteer on this tour do a great job to represent the history of our area, while adding their own stories to it. I hope to see you there, and I especially hope you enjoy it. Ciao, for now.
A few years back, I purchased some photos from an estate sale. They were taken by Don Larson, who worked at The Port Arthur News, in the early 1980s. I didn’t spend much on them, but to me, they are iconic. The first photo is from the Babe Zaharias Historical Marker dedication on 7th street in Port Arthur. (Yes, Babe was from Port Arthur, but Beaumont tries to claim her all for itself.) In my opinion, Babe was big enough for the universe to claim her.
In the photo, the lady trying to hold on to her hat is Sydalise Fredeman, who saved the Pompeiian Villa from Port Arthur’s gauntlet of destruction of its history. Back in the 1960s, both Port Arthur and Beaumont didn’t care about their history, so they decided to destroy many structures within their city limits. Still, Mrs. Fredeman took no crap in Port Arthur and saved this treasure along with the Port Arthur Historical Society. (At the time, she was the Port Arthur Historical Society)
Also in this photo are Bob Hope and Bum Phillips, and I’m almost sure that Wayne Newton is in there somewhere. The second photo is the groundbreaking of Bob Hope School/Hughen School. Of course, neither Bob nor Wayne are manning the shovel, but that’s alright when your philanthropy gives kids a much-needed boost.
Apropos of Hughen School, I remember Mr. Le (the last name might be misspelled because, at age 10, I wasn’t J. Edgar Hoover informed yet). He was my neighbor in the 1970s and ‘80s. He was a very nice man who always laughed and was just a great adult to us mongrels in the neighborhood. He rode his bike to work each morning; if I was on my bike, it would be a race. He had two sons who were good to us mongrels, but when mom found out her two kids were mongrels, usually each week, dad did the disciplining. I don’t know all their family history, but I know that Mr. Le was a captain in the South Vietnamese Army before relocating here. They were great people, and I am glad to have known them.
Another photo is of the Park Plaza Cinema sign. This is special to me because I believe I saw the first Star Wars movie there 12 times. (Of course, multiple viewings were had by not getting up and leaving after the movie ended.) Smokey and the Bandit was another one that I enjoyed while learning sign language from Sally Field in the movie. Jackie Gleason was the man.
The other day I watched again a movie called Joyeux Noel. It is loosely based on the Christmas truce during World War I. It had a great message: “Why the hell are we fighting out here in the trenches when we could be home with the wife and our newborn? Instead we are here, stuck in the mud with Felix the cat.” It’s a good movie and I’m sure that if you rent it or buy it on Amazon there are subtitles. But if you watch it on YouTube, someone from France has uploaded it and there are no subtitles. No problem, my Scottish is good (the movie says British, but this was a Scottish regiment, and the Scotts would tell you the same.) I can understand German passively because of an interest in German music and some French because I took a class in high school—but that was a long time ago, so my French sucks. There are many poignant moments throughout the movie, but I was really irritated when the French spoke. I can’t give a reason for it, but I got annoyed when the commander spoke.
This wasn’t a problem when I would listen to Johnny Janot’s Cajun Bandstand on Sunday mornings on KLVI in the 1980s. He was the best. That dog of his really got him into trouble. I don’t understand why Johnny named his dog Sex anyway. Please click on the link below, where Johnny tells the story himself.
And speaking of Johnny, before I get to my point, he had a song called the Woodpecker Song, and in my short-lived musical life, we did a cover of it, but metaled it up a bit. Cajun Metal, who thought.
The thing that really irritated me was not in the movie, but it’s connected to it. In a scene where all the soldiers begin to come out of the trenches and trade chocolate and alcohol, Felix the cat shows up. The German soldier acknowledges him as Felix, but the French soldiers insist that his name is Nestor. There is nothing more to this scene. But in real life, this story is based on a trial and verdict by a French commander/general. After the truce, someone in charge decided to put Felix on trial for treason. Not to get into the weeds per se, but cats were good pets in the trenches during the great war. Mud, toxic gases, and rats were a big part of soldiers’ suffering in those trenches.
Felix, the cat, was a cat. He cared nothing about Germany or France fighting a war. He ate well until this French commander learned that he was playing both sides. Felix was thus executed for treason. (This really happened! Link below.)
Well, that’s it for this week. If you see me around town, don’t speak to me in French because I may scratch you if you do, but you could try singing. French singers are great. I bid you Meow (that’s cat speak for “bonjour”). Au revoir.
My taste in music has changed over 50+ years. I will say that I can listen to most things. In the 1970s, it was probably anything that my sisters listened to. Yeah, some Cliff Richard devil woman or Paul Revere and the Raiders. I remember a few things: taking a record player outside and listening to it while sitting in a lot, next to an ash tree that was struck by lightning twice within a year. History tells us that is odd, but that’s what happened. Not me sitting in a lot, but lightning striking a tree twice.
Blizzard of Oz
The first concert I attended was an English guy that had a band with a great guitarist named Randy Rhoads. He was a bit naughty and had a severe drug problem. In his stupor, he apparently enjoyed eating doves at the record label meetings. One time, one of his fans threw him a bat on stage, so in his element, he partook of this fowl delicacy. The publicity was enormous, but I’m sure that those rabies shots in the torso hurt. It was a great concert. There is footage of Randy Rhoads doing a sound check and an interview with the singer, Ozzy Osbourne, on YouTube. I’ll put the links for both videos below.
Randy died a month later in a plane crash, which I’ve always thought was a significant loss to music. Yes, Eddie Van Halen was doing similar things on the guitar, but Randy was classically trained and probably would have ventured further if he had had the chance. As far as Ozzy is concerned, he is still alive and remains healthy, while every other bandmate he has had is dying of some disease. I guess he’s well preserved.
Chambers House Museum
I started my journey through SETX history in 2012, and it’s been a treasure trove of information. I guess it started by clicking on a Chambers House Museum link on my computer. I will say that the Chambers House has always been my favorite museum in Beaumont, not because of the glorious richness in it, but for the simplicity it brings. This is the house where your grandma could have lived—not mine, because she was happy on 18th street in Port Arthur, near her church. But I’m sure that her five boys and one girl would have loved the room of a two-story house. Instead, they had to deal with a 600-sq. ft., two-bedroom one bath priced on Zillow at whoever knows nowadays. There are many unique sites to see there; if you know the stories, it’s even better.
Florence Stratton
I bring up the Chambers House because I need to shout out to Ginny, who used to work there. She was the one who introduced me to Florence Stratton in 2012, and boy, what an adventure it’s been. Florence intrigued me, so I spent ten years researching her. This is why I only post my Thoughts and Ramblings on Sunday mornings—as a tribute to her, because her Susie Spindletop Weekly Letter hit the pages of the Sunday Enterprise from February 28, 1926, to January 23, 1938. I’ve spent many hours (and dollars) researching her, and I can say that it’s been worth it for history on different fronts.
Another person who has intrigued me is Catherine Jeanette Stengele. I learned of her story from a friend while photographing headstones in Magnolia Cemetery. According to him, Catherina was a seamstress who saved all her money and who, upon her death, had paid for an impressive mausoleum as her final resting place. I found this story odd because a lowly seamstress would never make enough to afford a mausoleum that covers 12 plots. So, the research began.
Early Beaumont was home to an entrepreneur in the form of the Dutch-born youthful Miss Stengele. According to her naturalization form, she arrived in this country in 1884, spent a few years in Baltimore learning the millinery business, and then moved to Beaumont in the late 1880s. The form also shows that she was born on February 28, 1856, and not 1866, as stated on her mausoleum. (I suppose that some people need to hold on to their youth even in death.)
Miss Stengele was certainly competent in the world of business. As a single woman in the 1890s, she made a good living with her millinery business and other ventures in the financial and real estate sectors. She had the help of lawyers for living trust claims and property claims, which also seemed to work well for her. Miss Stengele was so successful in finance that she placed an ad in the Beaumont Journal in May 1899 stating that she was “Going to quit the business! I am going to quit the millinery business, and from the date will sell my entire stock at very low prices.”
Catherina Jeanette Stengele seemed to be a natural when it came to finance and the lending market. So much so that she quit her day job, so to speak. Her investments would even finance a return trip to Europe in 1901. See the article in the Beaumont Enterprise dated January 6, 1900.
You may notice the name Stengele Building highlighted in yellow above the article. Miss Stengele also owned a three-story brick building at 345 Pearl Street in Beaumont, which had housed her millinery shop as well as several of her tenants.
Although the records from 1900 until her death in 1909 tell the tale of a successful businesswoman, not every investment she made went according to plan. For instance, around 1905–1906, court proceedings show the bankruptcy of a rice farm in Langhorne in which she held a $20,000 stake.
In April 1909, Miss Stengele left Beaumont for Los Angeles because of an illness. An article from the Houston Post dated September 16, 1909, states that she “underwent two surgeries for appendicitis during the summer.” Unfortunately, Miss Catherina Jeanette Stengele passed away the day before the article was printed, on September 15, 1909.
I found a few articles from the Beaumont Journal that reviewed the highlights of her life and the aftermath of her death, but her will is undoubtedly of considerable interest. According to hearsay, she was at odds with one of her brothers and left him nothing, though technically that’s not true. Browsing through her will, I found that she did leave a detailed list of her heirs and her final wishes. Her wish for the St. Catherine of the Wheel statue was originally included in the first draft of her will in 1908, but the mausoleum was only added in May 1909. She had many family members, both locally and in Holland, to whom she bequeathed her wealth. Her assets were around $120,000. That’s the equivalent of $3.1 million today. Not too bad for a lowly seamstress—or should I say, a milliner?
Last week, I decided to treat myself to lunch because no one else offered. I went to Billy Joe’s BBQ in Port Neches. I remember my father bringing home plate lunches from there, as Billy Joe’s catered all overtime plate lunches to Jefferson Chemical (Indorama nowadays), and I’ve been hooked ever since. While waiting, I couldn’t help but see the framed newspaper articles on the walls honoring Cleo Baltimore. Until a few years back, if you drove down Magnolia Ave. in Port Neches or MLK in Beaumont, near Lamar University, you might have noticed a guy waving at everyone that drove by—Cleo. It was a simple gesture that meant a lot to many people. Most people who saw him would wave back and honk, acknowledging him. I remember a news reporter who passed down MLK daily and saw Cleo always sitting in front of his apartment and waving to everyone. When Cleo missed a few days because he was out of town, the reporter tracked him down to find out where he was. Again, that simple gesture of waving made a difference to people’s lives.
Photo credit: Port Arthur News
Cleo passed in 2017. He is still remembered by Billy Joe’s BBQ, which has created a scholarship in his name for Port Neches-Groves seniors who enroll in college. In these times of social media, we need to be more like Cleo Baltimore and less like West End Wanda, spewing her venom on Facebook.
Every once in a while, I turn on the TV instead of a computer. Yes, it’s mostly to know what Bigfoot is up to on Dishscapes (people who don’t have Dish won’t get this), or those Cordray kids making history together while restoring Galveston one house at a time. Sometimes I come across other interesting shows, such as Mysteries at the Museum on the Travel Channel. I know they did an episode on the Lucas Gusher at Spindletop, but they should have stayed and done a little digging up north in Hardin County, to be exact, at the Hardin County Museum in Kountze.
Photo credit: www.sfasu.edu
Renee Hart Wells told me this story while I was visiting the Museum a few years back. I’ll put the link to her article at the bottom of this blog (you need to read it!). The mystery concerns a WWII Bataan Death March Medal that was found on a Sour Lake School bus. Rebecca Hill, director of the Bertha Terry Museum, searched for the medal’s Hardin County owner for years, but to no avail. The mystery was finally solved when she brought it to the Museum of Hardin County, where someone looked at it and knew exactly where it came from. It was Grover Lee Will’s medal. Click on the link for the whole story. Better yet, visit the Museum of Hardin County and let Renee tell you the story.
Speaking of museums, the Paul Cormier Museum in Orangefield is definitely worth a visit. There are many interesting things to see at the museum; one item I found particularly fascinating was a photograph. This photograph is also on display at http://hirasaki.net/, which is a website that shares the family histories of Japanese rice farmers who relocated to the United States. Prominent families, such as the Kishi’s, Kondo’s, and Mayumi’s, moved to SETX in 1906 to farm rice. The Kishi’s came to Orange County, while the Mayumi’s and Kondo’s arrived in Fannett. At first, these families were not greeted well. Eventually, though, the locals got to know their new neighbors and warmed up to them.
The Mayumi’s continued to farm here until 1924. However, due to their mismanagement of the land (they didn’t use fertilizer and depleted the minerals in the soil) and the low price of rice, they decided to return to Japan. The Kishi’s, in contrast, stayed and prospered with another “crop” that was unexpectedly found in the ground—oil. With the discovery of oil on his farm, the family’s head, Kichimatsu, became a millionaire overnight and paid off all his debts to the farm’s investors.
The Kishi Family Front row, left to right: Toki, Moto (wife of Hachitaro), Kichimatsu, Fuji, Taro; back row: a maid, Hachitaro, Tora, and a cousin. Photo credit: hirasaki.net
In 1923, a boy from his hometown of Nagaoka came calling to see Kichimatsu’s oil derricks. It was Commander Isoroku Yamamoto. Kichimatsu had fought in the Russo-Japanese War with Yamamoto’s brother, Kihachi. The commander was in town with Katsunori Wakasa (an engineer), Commander Kaku of the Japanese Imperial Navy, and Admiral Kenji Ide. The three men were here to oil the fleet, so to speak. Japan was an ally of this country in WWI, but it was not allowed the same tonnage to build battleships as the US or Great Britain. However, the Japanese disregarded this limit and secretly transformed heavy cruisers into aircraft carriers, along with building the two largest battleships ever: the Yamato and the Musashi.
Kichimatsu and his family lived as American citizens, but after Pearl Harbor, he knew that anti-Japanese sentiment would reach its peak. So, that Monday, he turned himself into the FBI in Port Arthur. I guess that’s what you do when you have no idea what just happened but you know how people will react. He spent two months in an internment camp but was released after his hearings because, according to his son Taro, he answered all the questions correctly.
Here is a question the authorities asked Kichimatsu: “If the Emperor ordered you to bomb the oil refinery in Port Arthur, would you do so?”.
Kichimatsu’s response: “First, I am a farmer and businessman and know nothing about explosives. Suppose I was adopted into another family and my biological parent ordered me to harm my adopted family. I could not do so.”
Mic drop!
I have a lot to rant about rounding up US citizens, but I will pass on it here. However, if you see me in person, just ask!
I doubt that Steve M. King, the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Texas who presided over Kichimatsu’s hearing, knew about the visit by the Imperial Japanese Navy’s representatives back in 1923 and 1924. To my knowledge, there were no more visits during the next 17 years.
I will also state that Taro Kishi’s initial plea to form an Asian-American regiment to show their patriotism in fighting the aggressors was a sign of this family’s loyalty to this country.
Well, that’s it for this week. Be more like Cleo, Kichimatsu, and Taro, and the world will be a better place. Ciao
I heard last week that the LNVA canal in Beaumont sprung a leak and flooded some homes. That would have never happened in Nederland because Dutch heritage runs deep in the families’ blood there. It’s summer, and the kids are out of school, and I know one of them would have plugged that hole in the levee without an afterthought, or maybe not.
Dutch Windmill Museum
Speaking of the Dutch, I brought up Arthur Stilwell and his antics last week and, well, the reason many Dutch came to SETX was to “Come to Paradise.” Let’s face it, this area is paradise only to fishermen and mosquitos, especially in 1895, but they came and stayed anyway. In 1895, the Port Arthur Land Company was formed by Dutch bankers/investors who initially financed the construction of the Kansas City Railroad (Arthur’s baby before John Bet-a-million Gates did a hostile takeover and kicked him to the curb). Those bankers advertised a good game, but their palm trees, beaches, and paradise approach were inaccurate. The families that came here endured many hardships. Still, with hard work, they prospered.
This reminds me of another story a blog reader sent me. Blanche Morgan’s journey to this area was sparked by Mr. Stilwell. I’ll put a link to the original article below, but I do want to add her own words here.
It was the first of October, before father had sold all his rent property and our lovely home. Finally, the day came for he and brother to leave. He kissed us good bye and held mother close to him and said, “Now don’t you worry, I am going to find a place where the sun shines all the time.”
We were lonely without father and brother. Grace and I went to school and finally one day mother received a letter from father which said, “I am on my way south to Port Arthur, Texas. While I was in the depot in Kansas City, Missouri on my way to sell the apple orchard I met a man named Gates and another named Stillwell. I got to talking to them, and what do you know – right across the ticket room hung a canvas which said, “Port Arthur, Texas – the Flower of the South.” Mr. Gates said the town was close to the sea and was built on Lake Sabine, that it was sunshiny and warm. He was taking several other men with him to Port Arthur. He bought my father and brother a ticket and said to come on this excursion with him to Port Arthur. My father gladly accepted the offer and traveled with them. Port Arthur was not much of a place to live in.
The Journey:
I took along a note book to write down events and things which I saw out of the train car window. Laura, my oldest sister had her pet canary in his cage to take care of. Mother sat back in the car with her eyes closed, and I noticed tears rolling down her cheeks. My youngest sister, Grace, saw them too, and she said, “What are you crying about, we are going to see Daddy.” I kept up with the stations we stopped at, and watched the people get off and on the train. We reached Albia, Iowa, and changed cars to the Wabash. It was so dark now you could not see anything out of the windows.
Time passed and everyone was sleeping, or lying quiet. I just couldn’t sleep but somewhere between midnight and 8 a.m. in the morning of the next day mother was shaking me and saying, “Gather up your things, we are in Kansas City, Missouri.” We climbed on a bus drawn by horses and sat up on top, and it was awful cold. The bus took us to the Kansas City Southern Railway station. We went inside, and there was people from everywhere. We were pretty hungry and mother opened her basket of food and spread out a tablecloth on the bench, and she gave thanks for the food, and for getting this far safely. We were about halfway now, on the road to our new home, a place of excitement, awe and disappointment. If mother had of just known what kind of place we were coming to, she never would have come.
At 12 noon we boarded the Kansas City Southern train for Port Arthur, Texas. We were 2 days and nights on this train, all of us growing tireder all the time. After we left Kansas City, Mo. the snow left and finally the last day, all we could see was farms, hill sides all green, flowers blooming, the sun shining, and it was unbelievable to us, at this time of the year to not see snow and see green trees and flowers blooming. When the conductor would come through, we would ask him, what kind of place was Port Arthur, Texas. He just grinned, and said, “Oh, I can’t tell you anything, just let it be a surprise.” And believe me, it was a surprise.
On the third night we arrived in Port Arthur, Texas. It was dark and hot for we had on our winter woolens for Iowa weather. The Kansas City station still stands and looks like it did when we first came here. Father and my brother came and helped us off of the train.
Entering of Port Arthur, Texas
As I stepped off the train into the darkness, I was afraid for in those days there was very few electric lights. My brother walked with me, we was going to a hotel to stay all night. In the dim light I could see one story wood frame buildings, dim lights shining out of the doors and windows. One block away from the station, on Proctor Street on each corner was a saloon. I heard my mother say, “What kind of place is this, for you to bring your family to.”
In those days there was saloons on every corner. Procter Street was the main street, it ended at Greensport. The streets was shelled and nothing but board sidewalks, with most of the board being loose or gone. As we walked along father warned to watch our step, and not fall on a loose board. We arrived at the hotel – a one story framed building, were given our rooms. We three girls together, father and mother, a room and brother one by his self. The air was filled with the odor of the refineries, and we could hardly stand it. We girls finally got bathed and into bed, for we had not slept in a bed for three nights. It felt good and I am sure we never turned over, for all three of us were worn out.
We were awakened by our father who rapped on the door and said, “Come to breakfast.” That is one thing our family always did was have breakfast, and supper together. If one was late from school, the supper was held up until all could sit down together. You talk about a surprise, we were used to creamery butter on our toast and what we had was so rancid we could not eat it. The bacon was all right, but the milk was canned, and nobody in Iowa ever used canned milk. Well, our meal was not eaten. We found out later, that everything had to be shipped in and by the time it arrived here it was too old. As you know there was no refrigeration in those days. You got your ice from the icehouse and had those old ice boxes, that by night fall, the ice had already melted.
The drinking water was tanks of rain water. Every home had a large galvanized cistern attached to pipes from the roof of the house where it was caught and ran into the cistern. All drinking water had to be boiled and all milk had to be brought to a boil. There was very little sewage. All toilets had a galvanized container in them, that was emptied by negroes who pulled a large tank on a wagon drawn by two horses, down the alley and emptied them into the tank. The odor was sickening, when this was being done.
After we ate breakfast we went for a walk out to the peer. The sun was shining on those white shell streets and it was beautiful. I never saw so many yellow roses as was blooming here then. The peer was a wooden frame buildings, dance floors, band stands, restaurant, but on piling. We walked out there and looked at the lake, which was beautiful, a white sandy beach was all along Lake Shore. This was before the canal was cut through and ruined our beautiful bathing resort.
There were excursions every Sunday who came in to visit our peer, and bathing resort. Gates and Stillwell had did a good job of advertising of Port Arthur. Boats came in from Lake Charles, Orange, and Port Neches – all tied up at the peer, loaded with men and women in their Sunday best to eat or sit and listen to the Mexican Band who played all Sunday and way into the night.
On our way back from the peer I gathered up some of the shells and put them in a box and sent them to my school teacher I had left in Iowa. Oh – I thought to have streets covered with shells was the most wonderful thing I had ever seen. As you know people who live away inland never see boats and sea shells in large quantities, like they do when living near the Gulf or Sea.
Sunday finally arrived and we had always went to church. So father, mother, and all of us children went to the Methodist church. It was a 1 story framed building on fifth street. We had left a large brick building with pipe organs, plush seats, and when we entered this church it was quite a contrast. We sang the same hymns and the preaching sounded the same, he was reading God’s word from the same bible I knew, and it made no difference to father, when I heard him say to mother, “God is everywhere, Bless his Holy name.”
I love oral histories and I was thankful to receive this one. Well, that’s it for this week. Any family history stories would be appreciated! Afscheid!
I’m tired! Not Madeline-Kahn-Blazing-Saddles tired, but tired all the same. Work life and air-conditioned research life are at odds, but we will work through the dilemma, as work life pays for research life.
Remley-Hillbrand Cemetery
During the ongoing Texas Historical Commission cemetery inventory project, we’ve updated the names of known cemeteries in Jefferson County. One problem is when you know of a cemetery that has been bulldozed over the years, and there is no record of its removal. Frankly, there is no record because the bodies were never removed. In Port Neches, W.T. Block wrote of one, and I believe him. I’ll link his article at the bottom of this blog. In the article, you can tell he was ticked off. The Remley-Hillebrand cemetery, located on the Southeast corner of the Dearing and Rachford Streets intersection, was bulldozed and concreted in the ‘40s. W.T. noticed this after he returned from serving in the army during World War II.
This is more common than you think. Remember when I mentioned the fire station on College Street? It was built on land used as a burial ground during the Civil War and following yellow fever deaths. Also, let’s mention Le Blue Cemetery. You can pass over that on past Parkdale Mall, between Dupont Credit Union and Spell Cemetery. Most likely, Le Blue was a part of Spell Cemetery, but it was paved over with no record of removal of the residents. Now you know that when traveling over the LNVA canal toward Lumberton, you are driving through the hallowed ground; hold your breath and hope the residents don’t grab your feet!
One person that is a regular on our Magnolia Cemetery tour is Fatima Sing Hpoo. If you search this name on Google, you’ll see many photos of a Burmese woman who visited Beaumont in December of 1902 but passed away in the Crosby Hotel on December 30th. She was part of a team with her brother, Smaun, both of whom were involved in a show completing gymnastic feats, and the billing stated they were the perfect humans but smaller. Fatima was 22 years old, was 28 inches tall, and weighed in at 15 pounds, and Smaun wasn’t any different in height or weight. The day after, the advertisement in the Beaumont Journal read that Smaun would perform alone. We don’t know where Fatima is buried in Magnolia Cemetery, but we tell her story to keep her name alive.
Another story from inside Magnolia’s borders is that of Wong Shu. I will state that there is a headstone with a “roof” of Asian design near Brakes Bayou. It was always a mystery concerning to whom it belonged, because the writings are Chinese characters. Could it be Fatima? No, because the headstones are distinctly different between Myanmar (Burma) and China. The written characters are different as well. So, a few years back, Mr. Don Smart found an article in the Beaumont Enterprise about a Cantonese sailor who drowned in the Neches. He sailed on the Standard Oil Company tanker Santana. The ship had been docked in Beaumont for some time, on hiatus because of the volatility of the Mexican oil trade. I’ll put his story below. I am almost sure it’s his headstone, but we must do the rubbings and translate.
Thinking about Arthur Stilwell, he was a bit all hat and no cattle. He talked a good game, but if it wasn’t for Bet-A-Million Gates, Port Arthur would have never been built. I’m sure the Scottish Brownies would confirm this, but I’m certain they’re still mad at me for calling them English Faeries in my last blog on Arthur. I do know when I wrote the first draft of “Under the influence of Brownies,” it just disappeared from my computer. Now I know not to engage in politics, especially concerning Scottish and English spiritual entities.
Should I dare call the Brownies’ Mark Wiess, because that’s who tipped off Arthur about buying the land in Port Arthur instead of the Sabine Pass. Those Sabine Pass characters were greedy, and Arthur was a shyster who drafted his books after the fact, but I have no skin in the game, so I will post the links at the bottom of the page.
Like I said, I’m tired, so I’ll leave you fatigued from work life. I would rather be tired from research life, but that won’t happen. Cheerio!
I just finished a couple of books from Ray E. Boomhower—no, not Boomhauer, the guy from the King of the Hill tv show. I discovered him thanks to an interview on the World War II podcast. Both books are excellent and full of information on what a war correspondent and a soldier went through. Dispatches from the Pacific: The World War II reporting by Robert L. Sherrod and Richard Tregaskis: Reporting under fire from Guadalcanal to Vietnam are right in my wheelhouse of World War II history because they leave the John Wayne-style propaganda out of it. If you add Eugene Sledge’s books, With the old Breed and China Marine, you will truly learn what journalists and soldiers endured during and after the war.
Listen Closely Podcast
Speaking of podcasts, I’ve been enjoying one for the past few weeks, and it’s local. If you’re into podcasts and history, you need to Listen Closely. The Listen Closely podcast is based in Hardin County and is worth your time. Their latest episode is about Beaumont’s own Rita Ainsworth. Other episodes include Arthur Stilwell and my favorite, Olive Texas. I will put the link below.
The Tyrrell Historical Library has always been an excellent place for research. Originally, it was an old Baptist Church, but W.C. Tyrrell bought it and turned it into a library for the city of Beaumont—a true act of philanthropy.
W.C. Tyrrell photo credit: SFASU.edu
Some may recognize W.C. Tyrrell as a prominent name in Beaumont. Captain Tyrrell was born in Pennsylvania in 1847 but moved to Iowa with his family at the age of seven. During his youth, he worked on his family’s farm, which readied him for his business ventures. In 1867, he married Helen Rodrick and started his own farm. He accumulated land and led a prosperous life in Iowa. In 1898, Tyrrell came to Port Arthur to purchase more land. He eventually settled in Beaumont, becoming very wealthy through his investments in the oil industry and other ventures.
As I mentioned, Captain Tyrrell was known for his philanthropy. After Port Arthur was flooded in the 1915 hurricane, he sent 8,000 loaves of bread to the victims. In 1920, he donated 500 acres of land for a park. Tyrrell Park was born. In 1923, he bought the building vacated by the First Baptist Church and donated it to the city of Beaumont for a library in his wife’s memory. Captain Tyrrell also mandated that service be extended to black patrons, so a branch was opened in the Charlton-Pollard High School.
Over the years, I have accumulated many regional books about SETX history. The price varies from book to book, and I will add that most were not cheap, but they are a good source of information for my research. Some of my favorites are the pictorial editions. I can and do spend hours staring at old photos. The Port Arthur and Nederland Centennial history books were done very well, along with Beaumont: A Pictorial History by John Walker and Gwendolyn Wingate, Beaumont: A Chronicle of Promise by Judith Walker Linsley and Ellen Walker Rienstra, and Beaumont 175 presented by the Beaumont Enterprise. I also can’t leave out Hardin County: A Pictorial History by Renee Hart Wells and Hardin County Timeless Treasures by Renee Hart Wells and Nancy Brooks Thompson.
I believe the Port Arthur Centennial books are still available at the Museum of the Gulf Coast, and the Nederland Centennial book was at the Windmill on Boston Avenue. To get the others, you may have to go on eBay or an online vintage bookseller. I’ve put the links for the ones I’ve used at the end of this blog.
That’s it for this week, so I’ll leave you with this post from a 27-year-old guy I knew from Houston, whom I consider a rock star just for being himself. He hated Facebook and was strictly on Google+. He posted this a couple of weeks before he had a cardiac arrest and passed away. After ten years, he is still missed because his words are still relevant. RIP Dave, and sorry for posting this on Facebook.
“If there’s something you’ve been meaning to do for a while, start planning to get it done. If there’s something you don’t want to do – find an honorable way to stop doing it. If someone needs something and you like them and you can more than afford it (and they’re not a needy do-nothing)… give it to them. And for gods’ sake – don’t forget to tell people how much you value them before they keel over and die. Funerals are not a particularly useful time to tell someone how much they meant to you. I notice most people’s fears about death have more to do with regrets than anything else.” – Dave Grega
Watching the Kate Dorman Scenario video that I uploaded to YouTube from the 150th Anniversary of the Battle of Sabine Pass brought back many memories last week. I hadn’t watched it in ages. The year in question (2013) was special because of many people who planned the event behind the scenes. It was a big deal as most battles were recognized and promoted. At the time, I was learning photography and filming. I was not an expert, but I did what I could for those who would be interested in the future.
Ron Strybos and Darlene Mott Dick Dowling Days 2012
One thing I will say about reenactors is that if you want to know the reality and life of a period, you need to talk to a reenactor and not a historian. I know many reenactors, and I am blown away by how much research these men and women do. They also volunteer their time to teach us about interesting stuff.
A few weeks ago, I mentioned Earl Keith, who passed in September 2021. Ron Strybos, who portrayed Colonel Crocker in the video, was a great reenactor, actor, and all-around good guy. He also reenacted at the Battle of San Jacinto in April. This is one event that I wanted to see him in, but I couldn’t; either I was working or the grounds were flooded that year. Ron passed in June of 2021. I wasn’t close to these men, but dammit, it hurts when you lose two people who gave everything for historic preservation and education. Many other reenactors have left us over the past year, and we will miss them all.
The Historic Magnolia Cemetery Tour Part Deux is in the works. I can’t help but recall the planning of a Cemetery Tour in 2017 that never happened because of Hurricane Harvey. Things were getting a little like Game of Thrones. He killed this guy by accident but was murdered 13 years later by his incompetent friend. Some of this research will be on display on our next tour, but I do want to say that our tour is educational; it is not a ghost tour, as the Beaumont CVB put it. I’m glad that the Beaumont CVB has since updated their website and does not mention us at all. I find things like this hilarious because I make zero dollars from this blog, but some of the people at these local websites have a salary and they haven’t updated the sites in four years. And now, with the rant done, I want to get into the weeds.
Orlo G. Greeves
Someone once asked me who these people were and how they could afford these big mausoleums. They were looking at the Greeves Mausoleum, not too far from Rush B. and Aurelia Norvell’s Mausoleum near the office. I have researched both Rush B.and his wife, Aurelia. In 2017, I looked into Orlo G. Greeves and found that this impressive mausoleum was erected after his death in December of 1920.
Orlo George Greeves was born in Orange County in 1887, but most of his early years were spent in Beaumont. He attended the Peacock Military Academy in San Antonio for a short time, then left the city to go to the Texas Agricultural and Mechanical College (Texas A&M).
In 1905, Greeves returned to Beaumont and entered the business world with a job at the Lumber Machine and Equipment Company. In his obituary, it was noted that the company “has grown until it is one of the largest of its kind in the South.” He was also a director of the Texas Bank & Trust Company and the former president and vice-president of the Beaumont Baseball Association, along with many other civic and business interests.
Unfortunately, Mr. Greeves met his end while hunting near Raywood, in Liberty County, with his friend Hubert B. Oxford, who was married to Sibbie Van Wormer’s daughter Sadie. As the story goes, both men were walking back from a hunt to a friend’s home one Sunday evening when Hubert’s shotgun accidentally discharged, killing Greeves instantly. Oxford managed to carry Greeves’s body for a few feet, then summoned friends from the house to help. The sheriff and the coroner were called, and an inquest was held. The death was ruled an accident.
I believe this was true, not because all of his descendants are lawyers, but because accidents happen—I guess. Unfortunately for Hubert, thirteen years later, he was at the beach and a friend who always needed money shot him in cold blood. All the facts are available in Beaumont Enterprise records. A hundred people got subpoenaed for that trial, even Florence Stratton.
Well, I got through this blog without any references to Star Wars. I’ll give it a rest for this week, but I think that my other interests, including Kaiju (Godzilla) and anime (Sword Art Online) for the gen z’s, will trickle in. Sayonara.
The Texas Historical Commission is currently doing a cemetery inventory project. No, shovels are not involved at this time; what they want to do is clean up their database. On the THC website, there is an atlas that you can access to find information by county. I believe this is a good thing. It shows the names and locations of each county’s known or registered cemeteries. Once the project is done, it will be even better for the genealogy crew.
I wish someone would clean up Ancestry.com. I’ve spent many hours on the site only to sift through entries in which a West end Wanda from Missouri swears that her grandfather, also from Missouri, lived in Beaumont in 1910. The problem is he never set foot in Texas. Of course, my subject lived in Beaumont and could be verified in the census, but they had the same name. However, in true Wanda fashion, it didn’t matter—“that was him.” I guess the moral of this story is: don’t ever let an ex-wife of a cousin be the family historian.
Maybe one day I will do more research on my family. I’ve already discovered a few things and covered some of them, such as the tragedy of the Tugboat Chief. Thinking back, I also have a descendent who died in 1910 but was in the 1920 census. I guess we have vampires in the closet. Maybe this is why some of my family members hate garlic.
Saturday, I visited Sabine Pass Cemetery and ole Kate Dorman. Last week, I said that if there were a Princess Leia in SETX, it would be Sibbie Van Wormer. Well, if there were a General Leia Organa, it would be Kate Dorman. She was a firecracker. Kate took things into her own hands and dealt with obstacles on the fly. She once threatened a small Union Army invading force out to attack the rebel force’s stables and barracks. The invaders had a howitzer but needed a way to move it, so they commandeered Kate’s horse and cart. She told them she hoped the Confederate boys would kill every last one of them before they got back and, if she had 25 men, she could do it herself. I will link to W.T. Block’s article at the bottom of the blog. I have also attached a few videos of a reenactment portraying this event. One thing to note is that Mr. Dorman was also there, and after the federal troops were finished, they returned both horse and cart. Of course, Mr. Dorman was told that if he didn’t keep his wife’s mouth shut, they would hang him. I’m sure there were war crimes on both sides, but no one wanted to have the hanging of a 4-foot plus change firecracker on their books.
Image from the scrapbook of descendant Jessie Plummer. TSHA Online
I will always admire one thing about Kate for another story from the same time. In July of 1862, the yellow fever epidemic hit Sabine as a result of a vessel that ran the blockade put in place by the Federals. At least one thousand people deserted the area, afraid of what was known as the “Yellow Jack”. The fever killed a hundred people in Sabine and Beaumont combined, forty of whom were Confederate soldiers. With her tenants at the Catfish Hotel fleeing and nearly everyone else in Sabine escaping the dreaded disease, Kate stood strong. With no regard for her health, Kate, along with her two friends, Sarah Vosburg and Sarah Ann King, turned the hotel into a makeshift hospital to care for the sick and the dying. All three ladies should be given respect for this. Kate is buried in Sabine Pass. Sarah Ann King was buried in the Sparks Cemetery (where the Dupont refinery is today) but was moved with the rest of the 30 people at that cemetery to Forest Lawn in Beaumont. I haven’t found Sarah Vosburg. It seems she disappeared from the area. According to W.T. Block’s article, she was the key to detecting yellow fever because she had had it while living in New Orleans. Each year since 2013, I’ve placed a bow on the historical marker of Kate Dorman’s grave. It’s not political. It’s for Kate and the two Sarah’s who did their part in trying to save lives during an epidemic, while others ran away. Good on them.
I wish it were October and I could bring up Bragg and Sarah Jane Road and rant about ghost hunters and idiots that do EVP sessions in a trailer in Deweyville and say they recorded a grunt from an Indian spirit after speaking English to it. Why would an Attakapas be haunting a trailer in Deweyville anyway? But I digress. This does go on. Stay tuned.
Well, that’s it for this week. I hope all is well, and I also hope you can look after others. Kate would, except if you were Dutch Margaret.
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