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Dance Halls in Texas by
Lois Zook Wauson |  |
I
loved going to dances in South Texas,
during the 1940s. Every one went, from mothers and fathers to the children. It
was our social life. I lived in Wilson County, 20 miles southwest of Floresville.
Every week there was a dance at Three Oaks Hall. The week before there would be
one at Hobson.
If there was a dance at Three Oaks or Hermann Sons Hall
in Poth, my brother Lawrence and
I were going to go, no matter what. I loved going to Hermann Sons Hall best. |
Hermann
Son's Hall in Poth
Photo courtesy
Lois Zook Wauson |
Country-dances were
popular in South Texas. When I was
small, in the late 30s and early 40s, I remember going to dances at Kasper School.
The band would consist of a guitar player, a fiddle player and maybe a harmonica
player. They cleared out the desks and put everything in one room, opened up the
big folding doors between the two big classrooms. They threw cornmeal all over
the floor to make the floor slick and easy to slide on. As every one danced and
danced, small children played outside and watched through the windows or went
in and danced with each other. As a child, I remember standing outside on the
porch and watching through the open windows as they dancers did the Cotton-eyed
Joe, the waltz, two-step or polka. Before electricity came in the early forties,
when the REA came through, they put up kerosene lanterns to light the place up.
I loved the sound of the music and the beat of the mens boots or heavy shoes on
the wooden floors.
There have been dances over at Three Oaks since before
I was born. My mother and father had their first date going to that New Years
Eve dance at Three Oaks in 1931.
When I left home in 1950, I moved to
San Antonio and spent quite a few
Saturday nights at Fest Hall, at the Circle B, and later on at The Farmers Daughter.
Just before I got married and even afterward, when my husband and I would go dancing
with my aunts and uncle and friends, we went to Helotes to the John T. Floores
big dance hall. The outside patio, with it large spacious concrete floor was wonderful
on warm spring, summer and autumn nights. We went to see Charlie Walker, a local
singer, and even got to hear a newcomer everyone was talking about. His name was
Willie Nelson. A few times I had dates to the Silver Dollar Saloon in Bandera,
where we danced the night away, then drove back to San
Antonio, at 2:00 in the morning. |
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| After moving to North
Texas near Ft. Worth, in 1968,
we even went to a few dance halls with our grown kids, who loved the old time
country western dances. Our favorite was Nine Acres Club out in Colleyville. I
only went to Billy Bobs in Ft. Worth
one night. By then my dancing days were going by. But I still yearned for the
good old days of going to country-dances. |
| Hermann
Son's Hall as church in February 2006. TE photo |
My
memory has taken me back to one night long ago. It is Saturday night! It is the
summer of 1948. The sun is going down in the west. It is still hot after a sweltering
hot day! The temperature was still near 99 degrees. The dance halls were calling.
I was 16. And I was going to the dance at Hermann Sons Hall in Poth.
I hurried, along with my brother and sister, to milk the cows. The sweat was rolling
down my face and back. I had to take a bath. Well, taking a bath at our house
meant filling up the big wash tub with water which was set up in the bedroom,
and then scrunch myself down in it and bathe. We had no running water. Finally
I felt clean and the breeze blew in through the window to cool me off. I put on
my white cotton peasant blouse and my big full pink printed skirt that would swirl
around when I spun around the dance floor. I had rolled my hair in pin curls earlier
in the day and now I combed it out and my hair was soft and curly. I just hoped
the humidity and heat wouldnt make the curls droop too soon.
I applied
my red lipstick and slipped on my sandals. My brother Lawrence, only 14, drove
the old gray pickup truck, and we took off in a cloud of dust for Poth.
I wondered who would be there? To dance with, I meant. The boys! I knew my friends,
Crystal, Jennie Lee, Dorothy Ann and other friends would be there. But, I was
thinking of the boys.
We drove up in the big dirt parking lot, already
full with cars and pick-ups. As we walked in the door of the big white frame building
sprawled out under the trees, I could hear the oompah-pah of the polka the band
was playing. I smelled the strong smell of beer, coming from the bar area, and
walked into the big hall. The dancers were swirling and dancing round and round
the room, and I could see the walls lined with benches, people sitting there,
talking and watching the dancers.
My brother took off to find his friends,
and I began to walk around looking for Crystal or Jennie Lee. There was Jennie
Lee dancing and laughing with Paul, her boyfriend and I saw Crystal, dancing with
some boy. He was happily stepping on her feet, and she was trying to get out of
the way, and acting like she was having a lot of fun. But, I knew better. I sat
down on the bench and waited for the set to finish, and she saw me and walked
over, smiling and thanking the tall gangly boy for the dance. When she sat down,
whispered that she just couldn't hurt his feelings and refuse to dance with him.
I shook my head and smiled, knowing what she meant. We always seemed to
be dancing with the wrong boys. The ones we wanted to dance with had other girlfriends.
Finally came the time we were waiting for, the Paul Jones. That was where the
girls and boys got in a big circle in the center of the hall, with the girls in
the center and the boy to the outside. We all walked around in opposite directions
in the huge circle as the music played, boys and girls, and then the whistle blew
loudly, then the boy next to you grabbed you and started dancing. You never knew
whom you would get, but sometimes I was lucky. The boy would be tall and handsome
and a great dancer. I was disappointed when it was over, and we sat back down
and waited for the music to start up with Cotton Eyed Joe. Now that was something
we could all dance to, without a partner. It was just dancers sometimes in a line
of two to six people. We danced and swayed and back stepped and front stepped
for sometimes two sets, if the musicians were agreeable to doing it again. Everyone
loved the Cotton Eyed Joe.
The night wore on, and the heat in the hall
was getting unbearable. Only big fans stirred the air, with the human bodies all
hot and sweating, and dancing and moving. There was not much coolness in the place.
The men and boys kept going to the bar area and going outside. They got rowdier
and rowdier and every once in awhile I could hear yelling and hollering outside.
Someone broke up a fight. But I didnt ever go outside. I stayed inside, even during
intermission.
Toward the end of the night, as I was sitting there, laughing
and talking to Dorothy Ann, I could see one boy coming toward me, smiling. My
heart jumped in my chest. Was he coming to ask me to dance? He didnt say a word,
he just reached out his hand and I lifted up mine and I stood up. The boy I had
been wishing I could dance with all night was right there before me! We "two-stepped"
and waltzed around and around the dance floor, and when he put his cheek next
to mine, I wanted to faint. All too soon the dance was over and he walked me back
to the bench and smiled and walked off.
I left the dance that night, my
head in the clouds. It was the best dance of my life. The clouds were beginning
to build up some in the west. I could see the darkness on the horizon and then
a streak of lightening. A breeze was kicking up the dust in the parking lot. It
was cooler as I got into the pickup, and my brother started it up and we drove
out to the farm.
We talked. I had seen him dancing one time, but he had
mostly been hanging round with his friends. After all he was only 14 years old.
He liked the girls, but just didnt have the nerve yet to dance with them.
My brother asked me if I had a good time and I had fun and did I dance with anyone.
I told him I had danced a lot and it was fun. He glanced over at me, as he shifted
the gears in the pickup, and started past Schneiders Cafe on the road and headed
west across the River, to home, smiling knowingly.
He asked, Oh Yeah? Who
did you dance with?
None of your business! I said, smiling, tossing my
hair, my curls gone and my hair stringy and damp and drooping down on my neck.
But I didnt care. It was all worth it. I had had a good time at the dance. I wondered
who was going to play at Herman Sons Hall next week. I was sure Daddy would let
us go. For tonight I was happy! It looked like it might rain, and maybe it would
be cooler next week!
"They
shoe horses, don't they?"
March 11, 2010 Guest Column
Copyright Lois Zook Wauson |
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