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  Texas : Features : "You must remember this ..."

Texas Memories

"You must remember this ..."

Yogi Berra might've said
"Nostalgia ain't what it used to be,"
but it is "alive and well" and living in Texas.
Toyah Women's PTA Baseball Team  19302


The Toyah Women's
PTA Baseball Team
from the 1930s.


Photo courtesy Jesse L. Moore, Jr
It might be a place that was only special to one person, or it might've been the center of the town. Maybe it was your first bowl of chili on a bus ride through Texas or a favorite uncle who spoke like Ben Johnson and didn't EVER want to talk about Huntsville. Maybe it was your unmarried aunt from Abilene who drove to El Paso and married a stunt man named Earl or that bus stop in Beaumont where that novelist disappeared.

These people, places, pets, trees, theaters, cafes, ice houses, swimming holes, playgrounds, class projects, air fields, crime-scenes, beaches and imprinted-while-wet sidewalks may not qualify for historical markers, but they're remembered here in TE. - Editor

Texas Memories

TEXAS FORUM >
Small nuggets from Texans' inexhaustible mother-lode of collective memory.
  • Searching for Cupid Cave:
    A Taste of Life in 1917 Sierra Blanca

    Courtesy Eldon M. Holman
    1-14-08
  • Life on a West Texas Paint Train in the 1940s
    Big Bend Memories
  • The Queen Theatre in Merkel
    or Reflections through a Dr. Pepper bottle
    by Roger T. Moore 7-27-06
  • Life in Clara 7-21-06
    Written by my uncle, Ray Johnston, and my aunt, Edith Johnston-Hall. They grew up in Clara, Texas and are the only two remaining family members.
  • Bronco Stories by Jim James 10-10-06
  • Wings Over Notrees Texas by Mike Moore 8-7-06
  • Remembering Big Lump by Dan Scott 6-22-06
    "All this occurred before my time but I remember my grandfather telling about how he shot the dog while it was being held by its owner and had it's head sent to Austin to check for rabies."
  • I remember Bartlett by Carolyn Ripper 5-10-06
    "I remember taking my shoes off, walking near the tracks, and feeling the exhilaration and excitement of laying out pennies to be squished. When we got home, my feet were black, and my cheeks were bright red from the heat."

  • Memories of Uncle Bob and a Wooden Box by Delores Miles 5-6-06
    "Really he must have been a most intelligent man for how else could he have known to give a child joy you must let them have it a little at a time."
  • Remembering Alexander and the "Fattest Kitten" in Erath County
    by Duby Joe Moore 3-17-06
  • Not Remembering the Monahans Sandhill Rangerettes 2-3-06
    Readers mail from Maine
  • I Remember a Faded Love by Ken Rudine 11-22-05
    "Just looking at a San Antonio map, I want to say it was probably on Taylor Street, near the intersection with 4th Street – but of course, I could be wrong. It was called Hips Bubble Room..."

  • Story about Coolidge, Texas by Archibald Flint Watkins 11-22-05
    An excerpt from the writings of Archibald Flint Watkins. (This unpublished manuscript was written in 1956, two years before his death.)
  • Lela, Texas by D. Caywood 11-22-05
    "I am 78 years old and lived in Lela for a relative short time in 1932 or 33. My father was an Agent for the CRI&P RR and was Agent at Dodge City, KS before going to Lela...."

  • Family Life in Mackay
    Vintage photos courtesy Ruben R. Hernandez 9-1-05
  • La Vernia, Texas by Virginia Carroll 10-05
  • Hunter Texas in the 20s and 30s -
    A Memoir by Pablo L. Sanchez

    Vintage photos courtesy Paul O. Sanchez 8-1-05
  • * * * * *
    Dwight Young
    Originally published in Preservation magazine
    National Trust for Historic Preservation:

  • Right Here 3-16-05
    Keene, Texas
    "There's something incredibly powerful about being able to walk into a building and say, "This is where it happened, within these walls, right here."
    That's what a landmark does: It tells you, "Right here."
  • Perfect Worlds 2-1-05
    Donna Reed and the Granada Theater in Plainview, Texas
    "... I distinctly remember more than one afternoon when I thought, sitting there in the plushly upholstered splendor of the Granada, “I wish the whole world was like this.” A decade later, Donna Reed brought that sentiment into our living rooms..."
  • Sagging Symbols 1-12-05
    "In the midst of the vast, windswept West Texas landscape, the courthouse was the architectural paperweight that kept the town from blowing away. ... [It] offered tangible evidence that our town was here to stay and that the residents were a civilized lot who knew what a public building ought to look like."
  • * * * * *
  • Remembering Beattie by Harland Moore 7-24-05
    Beattie, Comanche County, Texas
  • Richard Gaertner's Story by Murray Montgomery 5-14-05
    Every town needs a storyteller and Moulton is fortunate to have a mighty good one in a feisty fellow named Richard Gaertner.
  • Bend, Texas by Harland Moore 4-19-05
    San Saba County Chronicles
    "In this account of the history of Bend, Texas, it may sound like that my ancestors invented the earth, inhabited it, created Bend, Texas, and hung the moon..."
  • Bethel Community by Shirley Thompson Mohler 4-18-05
    Romance at the mailboxes, smuggled books and why pregnant women couldn't teach.
  • "The town we are approaching was Perico." 2-4-05
    No longer on the map, it resides now in the heart of one Amarillian.
    From an Interview with former resident Hugh Hamilton.
  • Alpine High School
  • Remembering Belton
  • Remembering Bishop
  • Remembering Bowie - "My Date With Mary" by Harold Bell
  • Ranch Life in Brewster County
  • Remembering Crane
  • Dallas Underground
  • Remembering Dermott
  • Remembering Dime Box - "Grandfather" by A. S, Friedell
    "My grandmother would send me into the chicken house or even under the farm house to gather eggs...."
  • Remembering Duffau
  • Elm Grove, Fayette County
  • Remembering Fayetteville
  • Remembering Floydada
  • A Schoolhouse in Hovey, Texas
  • Remembering Megargel
  • Another Megargel Landmark: the Megargel High School Gym by Jamo C. Powell, Colonel (Ret.) US Army
  • "The town we are approaching was Perico."
    No longer on the map, it resides now in the heart of one Amarillian.
    From an Interview with former resident Hugh Hamilton.
  • Remembering Grandma & Dado (Elmer F. and Clara B. Sanders) in Quemado, Texas by O. Polly (Ford) Wright
  • Romance at Spunky Flat or Little Schoolhouse in the Cotton Field
  • Going to the Movies in Temple
  • Remembering Temple, and the Arcadia Theatre by Linda (Thomas) Hass
  • Remembering Toyah: Letters from 3 Generations of Toyahns
  • Neta's Snake Tale (Toyahvale)
  • Remembering Valentine
  • Water Tower Memories
  • * * * * *
    The Thirties in Texas >>
    There was some truth to the story of people in Texas not being aware of a depression - let alone a "Great" Depression. For most Texans there was little change in their standard of living.


     
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