Where and when were you born?

Diboll, Texas, August 11, 1931.

Were you born in a home or in a hospital?

Home.

What is your earliest memory?

Earliest memory, let’s see. I have so many of them you know. We’ll, my earliest memory is working on the farm, helping Momma and Daddy in the garden.

Where did you go to school?

Kirbyville, Texas.  It was a little two room school. It had [grades] one, two, three, four, five, six in one room and seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven in the other room. We all lined up in rows.  So, when I got out of first grade I already knew what the sixth graders knew.

How did you get to school?

School bus, of about an hour ridin’.

Did your school have air-conditioning?

Yep, it had two-forty. Open two windows and let the wind blow forty miles an hour.

What kind of school supplies were you required to bring?

Same as they are today; notebook paper and pencil. That was it. You didn't have to buy books, but in high school you had to buy what you call workbooks. In grade school all you had to have was notebook paper and a pencil--that was the crop.

What did you do for lunch?

Lunch, we carried our own until about 8^th grade; no, it was the 9^th.  Everybody had a little slot, and as you come in there was a little hall about two foot long.  You had a room on this side and a room on the other.  Everybody had a slot with their name on it on the side of the wall, and that is where you set your lunch.

What kind of games did you play at recess?

You wouldn't know them; we played Deer and Dog, and baseball.  Deer and Dog is just a fancy form of tag.  And baseball, which you call ragball.  There was only seven or eight of us.  You batted and if you  got out you would go to the tailend of the line, and start over; you know.  Called it batter-up ball.
 
Where did you live at the time?

I lived on...first seven, eight, or nine years I was raised in a log cabin--one room log cabin--and then we moved across the creek because the creek was always up, so we couldn't get to school.  The school bus started running then an it ran over there; so we moved across the creek.  Daddy bought a house over there on the other side of the creek, and it was about a three-room house.  And there was no bedrooms to it...everybody just slept in whatever room they could.

What were the roads like?

They were all dirt except the main highway.

Did you have electricity?

No, we didn't have electricity until 1949

So, how did you get light?

Well, coal oil lantern and the fireplace.

Did you have chores?

I'll say...plenty of chores.

What kind of chores did you have to do?

Well, the first thing I did in the mornings was get up in the winter...me and my other brothers always had to take turns, and there never was but two of us there at a time, taking a turn getting the fireplace going and the wood in the kitchen stove so mama could start breakfast.  Then I always had to milk both of them dang cows, and then feed the mule and horses, then turn them out ever morning before I could go to school.  That was an every morning affair.  Then at night you went to the field.

Where did you go shopping for groceries?

Kirbyville or Jasper—both of them were about 10, 12 miles from the house.

What was the earliest type of car you can remember?

Earliest car I can remember is my daddy had a 1932 Chevrolet Roadster. I remember it pretty well. It was a convertible. I kinda thought it was neat.

What was your favorite thing to do as a child.

Swimming and spend the night somewhere else so I wouldn't have to work so hard [laughing].

What did you do for money?

I peeled telephone poles, but back then they didn’t have peelers.   I was just twelve years old.  They paid me two cents a foot.

How did you do it?

Straightened out a hoe, took a hoe and straightened it out flat, skinned it [the tree bark] right straight off.

Did you go to the movies?

Yep, in the summer time on Saturdays, if all of your chores where done.  It was an old movie house [and it cost] Nine cents to get in.

What movie stars were popular when you were a child?

Really, you didn't go see movies when I was a little feller; it was just a cowboy series.  Roy Rogers, and Dale Evans, and Gene Autry, those were the ones. They were the ones, the cowboys.

What stories do you remember your grandparents telling you when you were young?

How they came over from the old country, Georgia, moved to Texas, and the hardship they had. I remember grandpa saying something like that. They had to raise or kill ever'thing they ate—deer meat, you know, what have you, cleared off land with a axe and a hoe, to make it a farm.

When did you first start dating?

I must have been six or seven, somewhere along there.  I was  late getting started.  [laughter].  Actually about twelve or thirteen.  We'd go to these parties, you know. I had a little girlfriend. It wasn’t really a date. We couldn’t go get them. Then you get fourteen or fifteen, you could go to their house and pick them up. Their parents knew exactly where you were going. Someone usually had a party, in the neighborhood.

Do you remember the Great Depression?

Honey, I was raised wright in the middle of it, but I was to  little to know it.  I can remember not having any money and not knowing why, because I was born in 1931. It happened in 1929.

Do you remember when you heard about Pearl Harbor?

I was getting school. No, it was Sunday. The next day Daddy picked us up off the school bus and went to town to buy two tires to put on the truck because everything was going to be rationed, because of World War II.  He was right,  too.  He knew what was going to happen. I knew they bombed Pearl Harbor because I heard it on the radio and at school on Monday.

Did you have relatives in the World War II?

My oldest brother was in the war and several uncles and cousins.

(photo:  Gene and daughter Lynn)

Do you know if there were any prisoner of war camps in Cherokee County?

One on Mount Hope Road, another in Alto. Matter of fact, the one on Mount Hope Road is still there. It's a house. Everybody knows where it is, believe there was two in Cherokee County that I was aquainted with after I moved up here in 1954.

What do you remember most about the 50’s?

The 50’s were leap years. Everything was going as fast as everything now in the 90’s. The new cars, prettier and sharper, the excitement, just like kids today have coming out with new things. Mostly new cars. Getting a few highways that weren’t dirt. It was really something having electricity, having lights. We had an icebox you didn’t have to put down in a well on a string.

What do you remember about the building of the Berlin Wall?

I remember when the Berlin Wall was built. You have a pretty poor country when you have to build a wall to keep people in, and you know, the young people today can’t look back and see that… you don’t know history, you're destined to repeat it. I remember the Berlin Wall very well.

What were you doing when you heard President John F. Kennedy was assassinated?

I was fixing to go to a business meeting in Itasca, Texas. I had just stopped at a resturant to get a cup of coffee and I walked in and all of the waitresses was hiding under the counter and crying.  I thought to my self, boy I must be ugly.  I had not heard it on the radio because I didn’t have a radio. I remember this waitress told me that President Kennedy just got shot in Dallas. I knew he was in Dallas. That was when I knew he was assassinated.

If you could give me a piece of advice before I graduate high school what would it be?

Well, nobody can get through with just one piece of advice, but  treat everybody like you want to be treated and you will come a long way.  Another piece of advice would be pay attention to history.  If you don’t, you will be destined to repeat it.  And take everyday one day at a time!  The world was not built in one day and you can’t tear it down in one day. Just takes time to grow up—you have plenty of time to grow up!