Interview with John Allen Templeton, 86, of Jacksonville, Texas.
Interviewer:  Luke Ocker 
Cherokee County Memories Home




 
 

John Allen Templeton, son of Dr. A. F. Templeton, published the Jacksonville Journal from 1935 to 1959.  His grandfather and namesake, John Allen Templeton (shown at far right in photo) was born in 1844 and was a member of the Confederate Army.  He spent 18 months as a prisoner of war.  Mr. Templeton's paternal great-grandfather, David Green Templeton (shown in photo at far left), was born in 1815 in North Carolina.  He came to Texas in 1846.  During the Civil War he served as a supply agent, issuing food, clothing, and farming needs to families of soldiers.  The following is taken from an interview with Mr. Templeton, now age 86 and residing in Jacksonville, Texas.
 

When were you born?

December 21, 1913. Were you born in Cherokee County? No, I was born in Colorado, moved here with my family. Were you born at home or in a hospital?
At home.
How many brothers and sisters were in your family?
One brother, and two sisters.
Are you the youngest or oldest child?
Oldest.
Were your parents born in Cherokee County?
My dad was born in Jacksonville, and my mother was born in Naples, Texas. I believe that's Morris County.
Where were your grandparents born? My paternal grandfather was born in Suttonville, Arkansas. Yes, and my maternal grandfather was born in, can't think of the county name. He was born in, I know, near Naples, Texas. My maternal grandmother was born in Georgia. What is your earliest childhood memory? Phew! I guess the earliest thing I remember is being at my grandfather [John Allen] Templeton's home with all the Templetons for Christmas dinner when I was about four [that would be in 1917]. Where did you go to school?
Jacksonville High School, Lon Morris, and SMU.
How did you get to school? Did you walk or ride the bus?
(Laughter) We didn't have school buses then. I walked. And later I had a car.
What kind of school supplies were you required to bring to school?
A Big Chief Tablet, and a soft lead pencil.
What did you wear to school? Clothes of course. [laughing]  I wore just trousers and shorts. I remember in the 4th grade we had a terrible rain here. In fact, the building I was in was flooded. It was that day I went in there and got mother to let me wear over-alls to school for the first time. She said boys weren't supposed to wear over-alls to school. What did the classrooms look like? They were just bare rooms with blackboards, and of course the teacher's desk at the front. Yeah, we had the old style school desks. And in those days schools [were] heated with wood burning or coal burning stoves. Did the school have air-conditioning?
[Laughter] What tree did you fall out of? We didn't have air-conditioned schools.
How were they heated in the winter? In the winter, was heated with coal burning stoves, in grade school and high school. In college we had steam. What did the students do for lunch?
Brought a sack lunch from your home. We didn't have lunchrooms.
Where did you keep the lunch you brought from home?
In your desk.
What games did you play at recess when you were in school?
Played football, baseball, basketball, marbles, pitch washers, pitch horseshoes.
What classes did you have and what were your favorites? I guess English and History were my favorites. We had geography and health, and uh, different courses of writing. Where did you live at as a child? I lived in Jacksonville. We came back, my father came back here when I was three [1916]. Did you live in the country?
No we lived in town.
What did the first house you remember living in look like? Aw, it was just a two bedroom house, fireplaces, one in the living room, one in my parents bedroom. Had a dining room, kitchen. Did you have electricity in that house?
Yes.
Did you have chores when you were little?
Oh yeah.
What kinda chores were they? Bringin in wood and kindlin'. There was a house, out to the back of the yard, and it had been my great-grandfather's doctor office. And, my family owned a bunch of farms and stuff. We would go down to the farm, and [my dad] he'd have wood -- fireplace wood, and heater wood. He'd split the kindlin'. Every Saturday it seemed like somebody'd bring a load of stovewood in, and it had to be put in the building and stacked and the kindlin' had to be put in a box. Where did you go to shop for groceries or clothing?
Well we used to have grocery stores then, and dry-good stores. We didn't have any supermarkets.
Were there any clothing stores?
Yeah, several here in Jacksonville.
What stores do you remember shopping at when you were a child in Jacksonville?
Westmiller's Grocery Store, Simpson Brother's Grocery, J.R. Brown Store, Brown and Dickson.
What is the earliest model car you remember?
Model T, Ford.
Did you have a television as a child?
[Laughter] This kid's fallen out of a well every day, ha ha.
What did you do during the summer months? Had a good time, most the time. When I got older I worked in tomato sheds, and things like that. I mowed the lawn of course. What was your first job and how much did it pay? 50 cents a day. Riding a bicycle up and down the streets, puttin numbers, marking numbers on loads of cotton to come to the gin. Then I worked for a grocery store 7 o'clock Saturday mornin' until whenever they locked up for gatherin' the hay. When I was in high school, I was a Western Union Messenger. And that payed 25 dollars a month, plus 5 dollars for your uniform. But we got tires for our bicycles for a dollar a piece. Did you go to the movies when you were little?
Yeah.
Was it a drive-in or a theatre movie?
Ours was the theatre movies. We didn't have drive-ins till, gosh, up in the thirties or forties.
How much did it cost to get into the movies?
Aw, you could go for a dime.
What were the popular movies when you were a child?
Oh, Tom Mix, a westerner, and Birth of a Nation.
What was your favorite television or radio show when you were a child?
Oh I was plumb grown when television came in. We didn't get television until '55 or '56, and I don't know what my favorite show was. I watch nearly everything except the cooking shows.
Did people tell you ghost stories or scary stories when you were a child?
Oh yeah, that was part of the routine.
Do you remember any stories your grandparents told you?
Oh yeah, hundreds of 'em.
What kind of music did you listen to when you were a teenager?
Well, Ted Weems, Guy Lombardo,  Horace Heidt .
What did teenagers do for entertainment when you were their age? Anything they could. No, we played baseball, tennis, um, I came up in the days when dancing was immoral so I didn't dance. We played all kinds of sports. When did you first start dating?
I guess junior in high school.
Where did you go on these dates?
All we had to do was go to the picture show.
What do you remember about The Great Depression? Well like I told my grandson, or one of my grandsons, I knew the depression was over when I had two pairs of shoes at once. Money was tight, prices were low. You could buy a good pair shoes for 5 dollars, nice suit for 30 dollars, shirt for a dollar, ties for four bits. Do you know what four bits is? It's fifty cents. How did the Depression affect Cherokee County? Well like all of the states, and all the country, everything was cheap. Lots of people were out of work, lots of people, they didn't have a way to make a living. People helped people. People that had extra money or extra food, helped the ones that didn't. Do you remember anything about World War II when you were young? I was plumb grown then. Yeah I was at the office one Sunday afternoon working, and Jenny called me and said the Japs had bombed Pearl Harbor. So I turned on the radio and listened to the accounts of that. Did you have any relatives in World War II?
Yeah, I had a brother-in-law, and a cousin.
Do you remember any German Prisoner-of-War camps being in Cherokee county?
There was one in Alto. That was the nearest one.
Do you remember war rations? Oh sure, we had rationed books of coupons. You could buy so much sugar a month, so much meat a week. We had meatless days, and tires were scarce. You had to have a license to get tires, and gasoline was scarce. We were in the newspaper business, and paper was scarce too. Ink, nearly everything we needed to do business was scarce. What do you remember most about the 50's? The decade of the 50's. Well, we were in the newspaper business, and it was a tough go. Most of the boys were comin' back from the military service, and people literally sold merchandise, specially priced, right out of the carton. They didn't even have to condemn it or display it. Do you remember anything about the Cold War? Sure, it was uh, it was just touch and go all the time, between the United States, its allies, and Russia, its so-called ally. Were there any bomb shelters here in Cherokee County? Not that I remember. Oh a few were sold that were made of steel and buried. Like an old-fashioned storm cellar, but they were still supposed to be bomb proof. Do you remember what you were doing the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated? Yes, I was working in Fort Worth then and our company had just opened a building in South Fort Worth. And our founder was scheduled for a radio talk show interview with Barbara Wygant, one of their staff members. When word came that he'd (President Kennedy) been shot, Mr. Thomrenson, our boss, just turned to Mrs. Wygant--the interview had just started—and told her he believed they oughta cancel it. Which they did immediately. If you could give me one piece of advice before I leave high school what would it be?
Learn everything you can, and make good grades.
Date of Interview:  March 7, 1999
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