| ALBERTS: The following interview on May 2, is with William Bailey, resident of Wells, Texas. It will become a part of the Oral History Project of Wells High School, Wells, Texas. The interviewer is Michael Alberts. |
| ALBERTS: Mr. Bailey, how long have you lived in the surrounding community, the Wells area? |
| BAILEY: 78 Years. |
| ALBERTS: 78 Years? |
| BAILEY: Is that a good while? |
| ALBERTS:
That’s a pretty good while (audience laughter). It says here that
you got here in 1931. What brought you here to Wells? |
| BAILEY: In 1931 is when I started to school but I lived out in Wells here about three or four miles. I lived up there in what we called crossroads. I started school in 1931, during the WPA. I am sure they don’t know anything about the WPA. |
| ALBERTS: WPA? You want to tell us a little about that? |
| BAILEY: Well the WPA was a thing Franklin Roosevelt initiated to build the economy up. People were starving to death and they were in lines trying to get something to eat during the depression and he initiated this and it worked. He made jobs for people, you know. There’s one example here at Wells that you see--this stone around the old high school over there, that stone wall they got there, they built that just to give people work, you know, to give people jobs. I was in school when they built it . It was during the depression. It created jobs for people. |
| ALBERTS: OK that was the WPA pilot program. I imagine that you have seen a lot of changes around here since 1931. Would you share any of these with us? What kinds of things have changed around here since that time? |
| BAILEY: Well, Wells used to be kind of a little thriving town due to farming and tomato business. People would raise tomatoes. Of course they would come off in June and they contributed to the economy of Wells. Wells was, actually, wasn’t any bigger except some of the stores that was open back then is closed now. These old relic buildings up there in town. It’s really not near as much to it [the town] as back in the thirties. |
| ALBERTS: Tomatoes were the primary industry back then? |
| BAILEY: Tomatoes and cotton, that were the two big items. Tomatoes, we had I believe either seven or eight packing sheds over there that people worked at during the month of June that contributed to the economy, too. People raised them, but tomatoes were not really high. It was disappointing some years that they didn’t bring no money. I’ll give you an example. My granddad on my mother’s side raised tomatoes. There’s a lot of work goes into raising tomatoes, and he worked hard and he brought a load of tomatoes down to the packing sheds and the biggest price he could get was a cent and a half for a pound. He hauled them back home and poured them out in the ditch, it made him so mad (audience laughter). |
| ALBERTS: Did you ever work in the tomato industry? |
| BAILEY: I worked in the tomato industry, yeah. I was big enough before it went to pot. I loaded tomatoes into boxcars and made crates for to put them in. When I was just a little fellow you had a long thing up here; [gesturing] you was in the loft. You had a long slide that you put the crate in and you shoved them down one at a time, one right after another, and when they get down here they’d level off and the packers just reached up and got a crate and put it on a little rack and they’d put this tray in there. They’d wrap each tomato and put it in this tray. Then we had a fellow that was topping them. We had a top made and it bent over like this [motion with hands]. The tomatoes would be put in there and you would slip the top over and nail it on each end and it was ready to be loaded in the boxcar. |
| ALBERTS: About when did the tomato industry start to collapse around here? Do you remember that? |
| BAILEY: No, I can't--I don’t know exactly, but it was in the forties. |
| ALBERTS:
You’ve done quite a bit of things here in our
community. I’ve got written down here that you served as mayor
six times. |
| BAILEY: I served as mayor twelve times. There was two different seasons of it. I served six years one time and then six years once again. So, twelve years in all. |
| ALBERTS: What role does a mayor play in this community? |
| BAILEY: Well, he leads your city council. City council is made up of of five men as selected by the people and then the mayor presides over those five people and the mayor has the deciding vote if it comes up to be a tie. Wel,l you say if you got five, there’s not going to be no tie. That is possible... but what you do is you get into somebody that’s not there and you call the four that are leading it and it can be a tie then. Then if you have a vote and it was too tight, the mayor would make the deciding vote. And another thing, you could have five there and get in the same situation. One person could not vote, not vote either way, and then you could still have a tie. These people are elected by the voters of Wells. All towns don’t have just five, most of them have seven. Little towns, the population really tells you how many you have. |
| ALBERTS: You’ve had some other experience in the community too, I believe. What role have you seen churches or community organizations play in the growth of the community? |
| BAILEY: Well, maybe I don’t understand that question. Start back over again. |
| ALBERTS: Well maybe I’m not doing a very good job of asking it. |
| BAILEY:
No, you’re doing good. |
| ALBERTS: Wells has several, several churches, VFW organizations, community organizations. What role do you think they play in the community? |
| BAILEY: Well they play a big part because the churches are very important and we got about five or six churches. Three of them are strong here in Wells. It hadn’t been that way all down through the years, but it has in the last twenty or twenty-five years, and they play a big part. That’s just part of your organization in town. It’s very important, and most of the churches are real good at deciding points that need to be figured on. I don’t know any of this group [from church] except Slade and I see him every once in a while (audience laughter). |
| ALBERTS: This area is extremely rich in local history--sawmills and other such things around here. Do you have any special memories or family stories about Wells you would like to share with us? |
| BAILEY: Well, yeah there been a lot of them. I don’t really know where to start. I know that not any of these people [the class] know--we had some escaped convicts got out and come through Wells and took a shot at the constable. They shot the constable’s son. He was in the car. Shot him threw the cheek, it come out on the other side. What they done, they formed a posse, that don’t sound right for Wells, but they did. They had a posse of about eight or ten and they traced them guys down here on this old road that goes down by [pointing]. Right out there that used to be the old road to Lufkin. Just turn right there, (audience “Old Homer Alto”) Yes, it used to be the old road. They tracked them down to one of them fields and they killed both of them. The Wells posse shot and killed both them guys, and they put them in a pickup and hauled them back up here in town. We was in a little old tent out there that had a movie picture thing, formed by Green Brothers. The Green Brothers came to Wells about once a year to show their movies and they stayed about a month while they was here. They [the posse] drove up there by the tent where they had the movie with those two guys in the back of the truck. It emptied the tent, they all went out there and crowded around. That’s just one incident, there’s a lot of things that happened, in other circumstances, but that was one of the things that impressed me when I was about twelve years old I guess. |
| ALBERTS: That’s an interesting story. I haven’t heard that one before. |
| BAILEY: You haven’t? |
| ALBERTS: I read a lot of local history around here but I haven’t heard that one. That’s a good story. You have an interesting background yourself. You served in the armed forces in World War II? |
| BAILEY: Yes. |
| ALBERTS: What, what branch were you in? |
| BAILEY: I was in the regular Army. |
| ALBERTS: The Army? |
| BAILEY: I was in the Fourth Infantry Division and they are having there reunion in Killeen, lets see, tomorrow and the next day. Well, I called the guy down at Galveston that heads up the Fourth Division. The thing is, I called and talked to him and I was in the Battle of the Bulge. I know y'all have read about it in the history book. I talked to him about going over to it this year. I never have been to a reunion when they have them, they have them every year. But my outfit is split up. There’s one regiment that’s up in Denver, Colorado, and two of them are over in Killeen, and I talked to him about the people that was in the Battle of the Bulge. He said well, there ain't many of them living. He said "I can’t encourage you to go because I don’t think you’re going to see none of them". I know, I know I’m not, so I didn’t try. I really was planning on going. They are going to have that reunion tomorrow and the next day. |
| ALBERTS: Tell us a little about that, December, 1944, The Battle of the Bulge. |
| BAILEY: December, the Germans, Hitler was really getting to his last stand, but he didn’t really think so much, or maybe he knew but he didn’t want to tell nobody that he was coming to the end, and he concentrated his forces up there in (you’d have to have a map for me to show you), but it’s the Ardennes. The Ardennes was in the First World War too; they fought in there. What he done is he massed his forces, and got all his tanks in there and he jumped off on the sixteenth day of December and he started taking little towns that Americans had pushed his forces back. He massed his forces and he started back again on the same territory where he was at, taking every town and so forth. It was a tank war really. Infantry, and tank. They split, they got down there close to Luxembourg (that’s that little country). West of Luxembourg [was] where they split and one group started to march to Antwerp. Antwerp, that’s on the coast, and they wanted to [be] where they could get supplies in there. They were going to take Antwerp and then the rest of them were going to go on to Paris because they had been in Paris before America pushed them back. It was a bloody battle, I know it. It’s in the history books and they said it started on the sixteenth day of December. I wasn’t there when it started, but shortly after, I was there, and they said it was over the twenty-seventh day of January, but they forgot to tell the Germans it was over (audience laughter). So it went on till the eighth day of May, really. I never could tell no difference in it. There’s lots of experiences that went into that. Lot of little ones, I was going to tell you people about one of them. It really didn’t turn out to be anything but I was in a foxhole with another guy from North Carolina, and if you’ve ever seen a foxhole some of them are made different. The one I was in was already built, because it was built when the Germans pushed towards Paris. It was the same foxhole and when we went back we took the foxhole. So, the way we handled it there, we had two ends to each foxhole, and we stayed in that particular foxhole for three weeks and it was snow on the ground. It would snow almost every night. We always said we were in a fur-lined foxhole (audience laughter) but it lacked a lot a' being fur-lined. We’d stay on guard to keep, the Germans, you could hear them at night talking. We had an open field-an open timber line-and we was in the other timber and you could hear them talking at night. They would fire, they’d back them tanks up in that wooded area, then they’d fire on you with them tank guns, and they had what they call arrow bursts. I know you’ve probably never heard of it, but that shell would fire over you and you’d hear it then in a few seconds. It exploded right close to you. Then they would just hit us. They’d put shrapnel in the trees and they would glance off, you know, and you’d hear it peppering around you. And the Germans had--I tell this story because I think its funny in a way--We stayed on guard for two hours at a time. Me and this guy that was in there, (and this wasn’t all just us), everywhere you had a foxholes. They traded guards about every two hours during the night. And you’d have to know some things about the Germans that give their position away. They had some of the dumbest things and they had some of the smartest things that you ever heard of. The dumbest thing they had was they had a gas mask. It was about this long [measuring with hands]. It was a canister. It was about this big around [gesturing] that they kept their gas mask in. This was made out of metal and it had strap and they wore it over their shoulder. That thing made a lot of noise at night. You could hear it bumping against things like their rifles and stuff they was carrying with them. Those canisters made a lot of noise and I was on guard this particular time. I was on guard while my buddy was...well, let me back up a little bit. This foxhole had some logs rolled to the top of it; all but about a half a section, where you sit out in there, and it was about three foot deep. And when you wasn’t on guard you got up under them logs so when they throwed that artillery on you that wooden part and that dirt that was on top of it protected you some. So I was on guard. I was setting out here in front of it, and I kept hearing what I thought was one of them little old canisters that the Germans carried with them with their gas masks in it. And I kept hearing ting, ting like this. I got down there and woke my buddy up and I told him--his name was Bud Galloway. He was from North Carolina--I told him, “Bud there’s Germans fixin' to come in on us.” I said “Now you just listen in a little bit and they’ll go ting, ting, and you’ll hear ting, ting out there in the dark.” You can imagine everything, you know, when you hear something like that. What happened was as time goes on it began to get daylight. Well, we got ready for them anyway. We wouldn’t have gotten surprised, I can tell you that. Anyhow, it began to get daylight. We could hear that tinging noise and when we could see good, to our surprise it was a squirrel out there in a bunch of cans that we’d been eating out of [audience laughter]. We’d piled them up outside and it was a squirrel and I got some relief at that time [audience laughter]. But anyhow, that was a real funny one. I tell that one a lot of times and I generally go into detail more than I did today. There’s lots of things that happened, there’s something new every day, and I know you read about how cold it was and I will give you an example. I had my canteen on my hip and it was inside a little canteen cover and inside that cover was a drinking cup that fit down on the canteen on the bottom part of it. That buddy froze solid on my hip. You think that’s getting cold? Well anyhow, it was an experience that I never want to go through again and I don’t want anybody else to. |
| ALBERTS: A good story, by the way, I enjoyed that. If you could leave these students with one piece of advice today, this is your chance to give some advice to them. |
| BAILEY: Stay out of the Army [audience laughter]. |
| ALBERTS: All right Mr. Bailey, I thank you for coming in. |
| BAILEY: Let me tell you what, if y'all have time I’ll tell you another story. |
| ALBERTS: Certainly. |
| BAILEY: And
this is a fascinating one to me. When the war was over we all had
pistols that we took off of prisoners. I had about five. I
didn’t want to give them away as souvenirs because they were worth
about a hundred dollars apiece. We were selling and we was
exchanging souvenirs because we knew we was going to come home, and we
had a guy from Nebraska that was with us. He had been right with
us but he had never captured any of the prisoners or been up close
enough to get what they had. We took pistols off of them and took
their money and throwed it away. I didn’t know it was
good. I throwed away... there ain't no telling how much money
[audience laughter]. And he just couldn’t find a German who had a
pistol on him. I told Buddy Galloway one day, I said, “Buddy we’re gonna ride tanks today.” And I said, “If we capture any Germans that have a pistol on them we’ll just give one to ol' Frank,” this guy from Nebraska. He agreed to it, so we started out on the tanks that morning and, of course, the infantry rode on the outside. The tanking crew was in the good place; when you get on the outside of that you was exposed to everything. We was going down a little road and I just got a glimpse of a German. Just a glimpse, I mean, just a glimpse there and he run under a bridge and I got ahold of that tanker and I patted him on the shoulder and told him to stop. He got it stopped before we got to the bridge and I motioned to Bud and we jumped off the tank. Going down the side of this embankment where we though he was at, and sure enough he was. When we got down there to where he was at, he throwed his helmet off. That was the surrender signal that he was giving up, you know. He would just push it off and it would hit the ground. That was the signal that went all over Europe, when them helmets hit the ground they was through. Well, he had a pistol on him and I went back and got Frank and I said “Take that pistol off him.” And I said “We're going to give it to you.” He was thrilled. Then when the war was over they made us register every one of them firearms according to make and serial number. I had receipts on about five of them that I had in my pack. He [Frank] registered his and he got one of those receipts on it. We were going to have to give those pistols up until we got back to the United States. They put it in some kind of big old box, but you could get your same pistol back because of the make and serial numbers on them. And just before we left we was in Vanbourg--it’s a pretty good size town--when we was getting ready to come back to the United States. They reissued them [the pistols] the night before we were getting on the little train we were riding. They reissued them back to the person [they belonged to] so we would be responsible for carrying them on the ship and so forth. They wouldn't let you have any ammunition, but they give you your pistols back. So we was on the ship. We had been out one day and I seen old Frank on the deck and boy, he was sick. He told me “Somebody stole my pistol away.” He never had had but one and hated to lose it. He was sick 'cause he had lost that pistol, and I would have been, too. If you could see the way we was loaded in that transport. They could just reach over one cot and pick your pistol up and you would never know it, you was so close you looked like sardines in there. Well, it went on several days and we was all lounging on the deck and this guy walked up to Franklin and said, “Would you like to buy a souvenir?” Frank said “I don’t know whether I would or not. What is it?” “A pistol.” There was seven thousand [men] there on that ship, and he said “You got it?” The guy said “Yeah I got it”, and he pulled it out. Frank looked at it and he said “That’s my pistol.” 'cause it wasn’t the regular kind of pistol. It wasn’t a P-38 or a Luger or something like that; it was an off-brand. Of course it was important to him. It wouldn’t have been that important to me but, anyhow, he said “That pistol is mine.” The guy said ”No it’s not, either, 'cause I got it from so and so.” Frank said “I don’t care who you got it from, its mine.” He reached in the billfold and got that receipt and the serial number was right. Can you believe that guy walked up to one out of 7,000 [soldiers on the ship] with this pistol? I tell that story every once in a while. And that’s a good story and it’s a true story. |
| ALBERTS: Do you have any other stories you would like to share with us? |
| BAILEY:
How much time do you have? |
| ALBERTS: We have all the time you need. |
| BAILEY: Naw, I don’t want to bore you with all
that stuff. Aww, I got a bunch of them but they don’t come to me
right now. But anyhow, you don’t never want to get in the Army or
the Boy Scouts because the Boy Scouts might mobilize [audience
laughter]. |
| ALBERTS: Well I certainly thank you for coming Mr. Bailey. |
| BAILEY: Okay, Well I’m glad to talk to you. |
| ALBERTS: You have been a lot of help to us. |
| BAILEY: I had done this once before years ago with a different crew. It's been about five or six years ago. |
| ALBERTS:
Well, thank you very much. [applause from
audience]. |
| ALBERTS: This concludes the interview with William Bailey. It will become part of the Preserving the Community Voice Program of Wells High School in Wells, Texas. The interviewer was Michael Alberts. |