| TOBIAS: The following interview took place on May 14, 2002 with Jerri Gail Cartwright of Wells, Texas. It will become part of the oral history project of Wells High School in Wells, Texas. The interviewer is Jennifer Tobias. |
| TOBIAS: Miss Jerri Gail how long have you lived in the community of Wells? |
| CARTWRIGHT: I have lived here all my life--just 46 years. |
| TOBIAS: How has the town changed since you first came here? |
| CARTWRIGHT: Well the town has changed from when I was a little and can remember to we had several stores. We had a bank and we had two dry good stores. We had a five and dime store. We had a pharmacy [and] we had several filling stations. We had a sorta like a Polk’s but it was a Hodges’s then and we had several places to eat. We had a café and a Dairy Queen and which is now the Crazy Horse and we had-of course we had several churches-the churches are all still here and now there’s not very many stores in town, so we have had more stores and and variety stores and different things than you do now. So it has changed a lot to me, a lot. The bank stayed open on Saturday so the town was always full of people on Saturday. Everybody got their checks cashed and they bought their groceries and their clothes at the dry goods store and material was sold and all kinds of things were sold there so the town was really booming on a Saturday morning. |
| TOBIAS: What type of community organizations have you participated in? |
| CARTWRIGHT: Okay, I’ve been in the Wells Community Homecoming. I’ve been involved in that since I was seventeen years old and I’m now secretary of that organization and I have been involved in my church organizations. I’ve taught Sunday school and been with the WMU and in the church that I belong to. I have coached and managed youth sports baseball. I did [that] for ten years and I also was the manager for 4-H for ten years and then assisted in four years of 4-H. |
| TOBIAS: What type of projects have you done in the community? |
| CARTWRIGHT: Well I do have one claim to fame for a project I think anyway. We have brand new softball field that’s been existent for two years now. We’ve had two years of softball played on it and I think I was pretty instrumental in gettin’ that going and actually doing the ground work and workin’on it. I always loved softball and baseball and I organized it for ten-nine or ten-years in Wells. I went to the Homecoming association and asked them for some money. So we started saving money to build one and a lady named Miss Burke, Ms. Henson-she was a Burke-Ms. Henson had left land to the city. So I went to the city and asked them if we came up with money could we build a softball field on it and they said yes. I went to the Homecoming to get money and then I talked to Mr. Lloyd Richardson who was on the city council a few years back and asked him to write a grant cause I had a found a place that we could get a grant from, the Norman Summers Foundation out of Jacksonville. So he wrote em’ a letter and they were kind enough to give us money. With their money and the Homecoming’s money we started building a softball field and I’m real proud of it and I feel like that’s probably my biggest accomplishment. |
| TOBIAS: Do you have any interesting stories to share with us about Wells? |
| CARTWRIGHT: Yeah I guess, got some ya’ll probably don’t want to hear but anyways....when I was in school I guess the difference in when I was in school we could go off campus for lunch. We could either go down to the Dairy Queen or the Café or to Hodges’s to eat junk food, or down to Mr. Dutch Shults’s pharmacy where he had hand-packed ice cream and he had soda fountain drinks that he would put mixture in and stir up. Ya’ll probably don’t see that anymore. Ya’ll buy ya’ll's all out of a bottle. Well they were the best things in the world. I can still taste em’ when I think about em’; cherry limeade my favorite. But anyways he had those and we could go off campus. We could go into town or we could go home. When I was in grammar school I always went home cause my mother was at home and she always had dinner ready, so I had to go home. I wanted to eat in the cafeteria so bad. Then when I got in High School we could still go off [campus] but I'd rather have a chocolate rebel ice cream and a cherry limeade...so me and my friends would go down to Mr. Dutch Shults’s....When when they closed campus I guess I might've been a junior in High School. We had to stay on campus and eat our lunch. All those years that I wanted to eat in the lunch room I wasn’t real fond of it after I ate there because the food’s not changed a lot I’m sure. I used to want to ride the bus so bad 'cause I lived within walking distance of the school and they didn’t let you at that time. Now they let anybody ride the school bus if you live a block or what a way but I couldn’t ride. Then after I got to goin’ on ball trips and stuff like that didn’t want to ride the school bus anymore . Those things are not as fun as they look like that are when you can’t do it. But I think our lunch room would have the same thing every week like ...Wednesday was soup and sandwich day. ...We got a hot dog one Friday of the month, a hamburger one Friday. ....So everybody ate on Fridays and everybody ate on Wednesdays because that was soup and sandwich days and they made really good soup. When I was in grammar school I was in what they call the Rock Building. The building that’s there now was not the one I was in. This building was an old building with biggest high ceilings in it and big ole' long windows in it. It was a really really big building but they tore that down now. I attended high school in the same part of the long wing that you all attend high school in but they did not have the little wing where Mrs. Collins’s room [is]. They built that on but they didn’t have the joining to the Ag shop, the Ag shop was still the same but it was like (I have to use my hands) it was like separated, you know, from the building. We still had the gym and basketball games in what they call the auditorium now, which was very small. The out of bounds was so small people had to turn their feet from being on the gym floor, but the coolest thing was that they had a balcony. They had benches on the bottom and up above they had a balcony. That’s where all the kids sat so their parents couldn’t see what they were doing. They could have a big-time visit and socialize upstairs and that was pretty cool . The stage was still there so that’s changed a lot cause it [wasn't] just an auditorium in 1972. When I was a sophomore they build the new gym that ya’ll use right now and I got to see games played in school there. ...The homemaking room's still the same. The living room, well actually, [the teacher's workroom] used to be a living room when Mrs. Monnie Warner was here. It didn’t have all those ole' copiers and things in there. She would have died. ...Of course they have better copiers now. They had them old ink ones that you had to sit and squirt ink and twist with your hand but that was fun to me. I liked to run copies when the teachers would let us. I think ...ya’ll have a bigger turn around of teaching that what we did. I had the same science teacher all through high school, same math teacher. Had two history teachers I think. We had the same Ag teacher and the same homemaking teacher. Had the same English teacher--Mrs. Villie MacVicker, who's one of the most wonderful people I know. I liked all of my teachers. Mrs. Alexander--she was a doll [and] Mr. Alexander, he was the funniest thing in the world. Our superintendent taught us history--that was Mr. Thomas Fields. Our principal, Mr. Max Treduals taught us Spanish. Our principal and superintendent had to teach a class when I was in school and I don’t think that they do that now. Our biggest turnaround was coaches. We had several coaches in my school career , but I pretty well knew that when I came to school in September or August that I was going to see the same faces, the same teachers. I think that was a good thing. I think it was a good thing to have the same teachers. You feel confident with em’. We had a few that came and went but not very many. |
| TOBIAS: Why have you chosen to stay in Wells? |
| CARTWRIGHT: Well I really
didn’t choose Wells. My parents chose Wells. I just happened to
choose to stay here. The reason I chooose to stay here is because
my whole family's here. I was born and raised here and my all my
ties are here. I like a small town sometimes, sometimes it’s not
the
greatest, but all in all...I still feel like it’s the best place for me
to live. I have a lot of friends here. I like a small
school for my kids to be raised in. I
think they get more attention form their teachers. I just like
here for some ungodly reason [laughing]. |
| TOBIAS: Is there anything that you would like to see changed in this community? |
| CARTWRIGHT: Ooo, yeah, lots of
things would be nice to change. We could use a few more
businesses for competition where gas is maybe not so high and groceries
not so high. Since we really only have one apiece now it would be
nice to have a nice place to get something to eat or rent a video so so
you wouldn’t have to drive twenty something miles just to do
everything. You know I would like to see it a bit more like it
was
when I grew up. I
think the people cared about each other a little bit more when I grew
up--I’d like to see that back. I’d like it better...when we had
one policeman instead of fifty million policeman. Our town’s not
that bad. We have too many rent-a-cops and I think they need to
do their job a little
better. We have some problems that they need to address and to
get to the bottom of...more than stop sign running and a few things
like that you know. I think that we have some major issues that I
would like to see them take care of. I’d like to see us have our school
to get a little more pride into their sports...like they used to when I
was in school. I think that this was a big basketball town and I
know sports are not everything in a school but it helps keep kids in
school and it makes pride in a school. When I was young our
school went to state tournaments five years in a roll and we’ve
only gone one other time and that was in 1972 and that was all
girls. Our community, I think we need to make it a better
place, and the best way for us to make it a better place is to volunteer and help and do things. |
| TOBIAS: Is there any words of advice that you would like to give young students our age today? |
| CARTWRIGHT: Ooo…advice..ummm. . . |
| TOBIAS: Maybe on how to teach people how to act in school. Things like that. |
| CARTWRIGHT: Well I think everybody should consider everybody else’s feelings a little more and not intentionally set out to hurt people. I know kids are kids and things happen but to intentionally hurt someone I think is something that kids need to get away from. I think that one of the main things is to come to school learn as much as you can learn get a good education. Be involved because being involved in different activities helps keep you out of trouble. Like I say have a lot of pride in your school, your family, and your community and once you graduate go on and further your education. I was a stay at home mom and it’s gettin’ harder and harder for mothers to stay at home with their kids. It takes two people to make a living for their families nowadays. I think that to get a good education, decide on something you want to do. Set goals for yourself and achieve those goals to the best of your ability and never think that you do not do enough because if you try hard you’ll succeed in anything you do. I think that kids need to have a little more self-esteem, knowing that they do the best they can. There's several good kids in this school that I know will accomplish something in their life. Just study hard and be a good person. |
| TOBIAS: Miss Jerri Gail it’s my
understanding that most of your family has military experience.
Would you like to share that with us? |
| CARTWRIGHT: My great uncle was named Howie Smith and he lived with me. He was the postal worker and he stayed and worked in the post office till he was seventy-two years old before he retired. He was in World War I and him and his brother Cook Smith both went to war within a month apart. They were both cooks in the service. That’s what their job was in World War I. They both went to France. My dad was named Mayford McMillon and all of his brothers went to service of some kind either World War II or Vietnam. My dad was a short man, kinda like me, and his clothes didn’t fit him. I have to tell this little story, it’s kinda humorous. He wasn’t but about 5’4 and so none of his clothes fit and he would roll his sleeves up and his pants legs up. They were shooting their rifles, practice shooting their rifle, and his sergeant came by and said "private roll them sleeves down. You don’t wear your sleeves rolled up, that’s tacky." So my dad unrolled his sleeves and they came way past his hands and so the his sergeant said "private roll those pants legs and sleeves back up!" When my dad was in the service his name was spelled M-C-M-I-L-L-O-N. When he got his first payday they had it spelled M-C-M-I-L-L-I-O-N. My dad said "That’s not how you spell my name. Ya’ll put an extra I." They said "Well it’ll be 3 months before you can get this changed and get your payday. My daddy said "well give it here" and he signed with an I O N and from that day forward the army gave him a different spelling than all the rest of his family. Until this day we’re the only one of his brothers and sisters' families that spell our name with an I O N cause the government gave us that extra I. So we all spell our names different. Both my uncle and my dad made it home safely from their wars. I had two brother-in-laws and an uncle who served in the Vietnam War. One of my uncles was a gunner on a helicopter so he seen a lot of action and he was not killed in Vietnam. He served two terms in Vietnam and made it out safely and then while he was still in the service was killed in a car wreck in 1972 in Germany. My other brother-in-law he got to see a little more fun part of Vietnam. He was on the beach called Camran Bay in Vietnam. He had all the ammo [because] that’s where they stored all the ammo for the different companies. I wasn’t old enough to see any of my friends [go to war] but I remember the Vietnam War first stated when I was in the sixth or seventh grade, so I saw a lot of the boys here in Wells leaving home for that war and it was a really sad thing for a small town to see so many of the young men have to go off to that war. I have had cousins who served in the Gulf War and I don’t have any who're over in Pakistan (Afghanistan Conflict) right now. So pretty much my whole family has been in some kind of service connected thing. |
| TOBIAS: Do you know anything
about
any of the historical markers around this town? |
| CARTWRIGHT: Well I know where most of them are. The one up there at what they call the old mill pond what used to be a big ole’ saw mill. People used to go swimming up there a lot and I and a bunch of people were there one day when a man drowned. They have a memorial marker there now and I know that they have one out at Shook's Bluff. Then there’s one up on the highway about the cemetery but I really don’t know enough about those markers as I should. |
| TOBIAS: Have you or any one in your family been involved in a founding project in in this town? |
| CARTWRIGHT: My mother, Bettie Pounds, and my grandmother Vivian Brown and my great grandmother Olosha English and my grandfather Hess Brown were all charter members of Calvary Baptist Church. They started that church and the story they told was that they started in a brush arbor, which they built like a tent, and put limbs over it. They had their first meeting there and then the First Baptist Church in Lufkin kinda sponsored them and helped them get started. There were several other charter members and there were seven or eight of them. From then on Calvary began to have a building program and they grew and they are what they are today. I was the first little baby born in Calvary Baptist Church and then Ricky Burke come along and his parents moved to Wells from Lufkin, so that made him the second baby in church. Then Renee Sulivan was born and it was us three little babies there for a long time. |
| TOBIAS: What was the main source of income here when you were growing up? |
| CARTWRIGHT:
My father was
a carpenter. He worked for Belvin Stewart Company, who had a
really good business here. Belvin Stewart built all the
apartments that are in Wells now. He built those and he built
every one of the houses on West Fourth Street. [The one]
that I live
in and all the rest of those houses. My dad was a carpenter and
my mother worked in the meat market in Rube Sessions’ Store. When I was
probably a little bitty girl they
had a lot of things like tomato sheds that people worked in. They
had cotton up there, they call it the Black Land, up there between
Wells and Forest. [There] was a crossroads where cotton was
planted. A lot of people picked cotton for a living, which must
have been a
really, really hard job from what I can understand. My
grandmother picked
cotton to help make a living for her family and then Daryl Wood Smith
had a little
coal shed that she worked in. When I was small my grandpa was a
plumber, just kinda odd job plumbing. There
were lots of things that people did here; a lot of handy man things. |
| TOBIAS: Thank you. This concludes the interview with Jerri Gail Cartwright. It will become a part of the Preserving the Community Voice Program of Wells High School in Wells, Texas. The interviewer was Jennifer Tobias. |