Oral History Transcript - Ollie Giles - June 13, 2008
Interview with Ollie Giles
Interviewer: Barbara Thibodeaux
Date of Interview: June 13, 2008
Location: San Marcos, TX
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Interviewee: Ollie Giles, as an avid history enthusiast, has traced the history of local African-American families including her own. She is active in many community activities and boards including the San Marcos Historical Commission, the Calaboose Museum, Dunbar Neighborhood Association, City Council of Neighborhood Association, and the Southside Community Center. Ms. Giles employs her historical research skills in [A.C.T.O.R.S.:] Ancestry Chart Tracing, a business she started at the age of 62.
Topics: Ollie Giles – careers, family history; Lyndon Johnson visits to Gene and Dora Cheatham, life in San Marcos in the 1950s and 1960s, including education and integration.
BARBARA THIBODEAUX: This recording is part of the LBJ Centennial Celebration Oral History Project sponsored by Texas State University. Today is June 13, 2008. My name is Barbara Thibodeaux. I am interviewing Ollie Giles at San Marcos, Texas.
Ollie, even though you have agreed to the terms and conditions of the release pertaining to this interview in writing, will you also verbally acknowledge your acceptance with a yes or a no?
MS. OLLIE GLIES: Yes.
THIBODEAUX: Thank you.
Let me just start out with a little background information. You had mentioned that you were born here. What year were you born in San Marcos?
GLIES: Nineteen thirty-three, August 5, 1933.
THIBODEAUX: And you lived here for how long?
GLIES: Until I was eight years old.
THIBODEAUX: And then you moved to California?
GLIES: Um hmm. My mother married again. She and my dad separated and divorced when I was about two years old. We lived in Austin. I never had any sisters or brothers.
THIBODEAUX: You were an only child?
GLIES: I’m an only child. And I tell everybody I was a spoiled brat. I never had to work in my life. I got anything I thought I wanted, and all I had to say is, “I want.” “Get that baby, get that baby that,” whatever it was. (laughs)
THIBODEAUX: When did you move back to the San Marcos area?
GLIES: I moved back—oh, dear, it’s been so long—because four of my children were born in California, and I’ve been back here about fifty—about forty-nine years, I would say.
THIBODEAUX: About what year would that be?
GLIES: Oh, dear.
THIBODEAUX: That’s okay. I can subtract.
GLIES: Yeah, because my twins are now forty-four, but I can get you the date when we moved back, when we came back here because I have it all written down.
THIBODEAUX: It was like in the late ‘50s then?
GLIES: Yeah. Because the schools—when I came back to Texas, the schools were just beginning to integrate and because there was a switch, my children started to school in California. And when I went to California, I was in a segregated school, and when I went to California, everything was integrated. And the school that I had to go to—because, you know, just leaving Texas eight years old, all colored teachers, all colored students, and then when I got to California, I was the only little colored girl in the whole school. The whole school, and I said, “Oh, my goodness, what’s all these white folks going to do to me?” And that’s when they opened arms and I realized we were all the same. They didn’t look at the color of my skin, they looked at me, and, hey, it’s been that way with me ever since. I went to elementary, I went to junior high, and I went to Albany High.
And then I married and my children were born in California, four of them were. They had been used to an integrated school. When we came here when I moved back here—my children—my oldest child had gone to the integrated school, but she was so far advanced than the children here, they skipped her two grades, and they wanted to skip her three. And her dad said, “No.” I called him and told him, “They want to skip LaTreace another grade because she’s so far advanced.” He said, “No. Two grades is fine,” because she finished high school at sixteen. And then she went to college and she finished in three years. She just went winter, summer, fall, everything. She just kept on going.
Then my sons—one of them, David, well, he was right behind LaTreace, and then Michael. Well, they held Michael back because the African American teachers here knew that once all of the schools were integrated, they were going to lose their jobs, which they did, and that was so unfair. That was so unfair. And some of the African American teachers held our children back, thinking the school was going to stay open awhile longer. And Michael did not pass, and Michael was always very smart, and Larry. And they were held back. Well, the African American teachers wasn’t able to hold their job. Michael was so upset, he said, “Mom, I want to go back home to California to live with Dad,” and so we let him go back and he stayed in California and went to school because he did not like the schools here, which I don’t blame him. I couldn’t blame him, and so Michael did—he stayed in California, and he finished school in California. And Larry finished here.
But they were beginning to get okay because LaTreace played—oh, she played all games. She’s tall. My daughter’s tall, and she loved basketball and everything.
Then one of my daughters, Deborah, was cheerleader. And so, you know, they just—I don’t know. We all just got along. We really did. We did not ever feel like anybody was greater than we were, and I brought my children up like that. You know, hey, you’re very smart. You’re one of God’s children, and you’re from good stock, baby. So they realized that because I had always gone to school to get my education.
My grandmother finished school. My mother finished. My uncle was a teacher at the colored school, and he taught us at home, and I started to school there when I was five years old, and I told them I was five at home and six at school. But they let me stay because I knew the work. My cousin—my grandmother had three children, two boys and a girl, and my mother’s oldest brother had one, so there was just two grandchildren to spoil. And my dad—it was only three in his family. He had two sisters, and so Daddy left.
But anyway, we get back to the schools. Michael went on back. LaTreace finished, and Larry then finished.
And then my mother—when Mother finished high school, she wanted to be a nurse, and she went to enroll in school, and they said, “Oh, colored people can’t be nothing but teachers.” And she said, “I don’t want—my uncle was a teacher,” her baby brother. But Mother didn’t want to teach. She wanted to be a nurse, and I said, “Mother, why did you let them tell you that?” “Well, I don’t know. I thought they knew what they were talking about.”
THIBODEAUX: What school was she trying to get into?
GLIES: A school there in Austin, I believe it was, and they told her that, and I don’t know what school it was. They told her that colored people—and Mother went to a high school for a while in Austin, and my grandmother—Mother was another spoiled one. She got anything she thought she wanted.
And Harris’ Clothing Store downtown, because during that time—my mother was born in 1912—during that time colored people couldn’t go and try on clothes like anybody else. And Mrs. Harris would come down—she’d come, “Etta, we got some new stuff in.” She would bring the stuff down and let my mother try it on to see because Mother was always a well-dressed young lady, and she would let Mother try the dresses on, and Mama, “Yeah, we’ll take that,” and Mother, “Yeah, I like this.” Mama would buy what Mother wanted and what she wanted. And Mrs. Harris’d take the other clothes on back down to the shop. I said, “Those people would have a fit if they knew that a colored woman trying their clothes on first.” (laughs)
THIBODEAUX: So did she bring them to her house?
GLIES: Yeah. Yeah. She’d bring them all down in bags and things, and Mother’d try them on, you know, the new—the fashions that she would get in—and Mother would try them on and pick out what she wanted. Mama would pick out whatever she wanted, and then she’d take them on back uptown. (laughs) So I mean, my family had always been, you know.
And then they built a new house. The house is still standing. It’s across from the Mitchell Centre on Valley Street. My uncle was in service, and he made sure Mama got in a nice big house. Then when Mama died, she left the house to my daughter, Deborah, and they redid it but the house had always been a nice big house. And it’s still standing down there, a nice big house. My daughter had it rented out and it’s paying for the tax because she and her husband—my daughter and her husband—he was in service twenty-eight years, so they had them a new home built in Kyle. But, yeah, it’s still on Valley Street.
THIBODEAUX: So when you came back to this area in the late ‘50s, what was it like? You told me about the schools, but I think you had mentioned about the streets were not paved.
GLIES: No, it was gravel streets. Then I start working, and my grandmother said—I started doing housework. Ooh. And because my children—Mama would do their clothes, and I had a lady, Miss Mary, to do my ironing because—today I don’t own an iron. I wear rough dried clothes because I don’t own an iron. But anyway, my grandmother had—now, I went to work and did housework. My grandmother said, “She won’t be working that long. She’s not used to working.” I never had to work. I never had to work.
And my husband—we were still married but he was in California, and all I had to do was get on the phone, “Gil, I need you, or one of the children,” and he would be here. He would catch the first plane out, and he’s here. Then he was upset because I got a job. “What’s the matter? I’m not sending you enough money for you and the children?” I said, “Yeah, but I want to be independent.” I didn’t want to depend on anybody.
And so I started working for Dr. Tallant. I worked in his home cleaning up and everything and cooking. I worked for—oh, what was her name? Her husband was the district attorney here. Oh, heck, I can’t think. It’ll come back around. But I worked for her, and when he come home—I’d cook lunch—and when he come home I had to fix him—he didn’t want any of his food touched. And he was having an affair with his secretary too, I found out, and his wife was sickly like. That was Dr. Sowell sister that was his wife. It’ll come back around.
And the way they had the house built, she could lay up in her bed and look in the kitchen and see every move I made. Then I would—you know, when you take pans and things out, you kind of rattle a little pan or something? “Oh, oh, don’t be rattling those pots like that. Ooh, I just can’t stand it today.” Tried to be as quiet as I could be. And the woman almost drove me crazy. And then she would just get so—if I tried to vacuum, she would have to go in the bathroom, lay in the floor, and close the door because she— (laughs). So then I would have to go turn—go out to the doghouse and turn the air conditioner on, and wash her clothes. Yuck! Then she said, “You’re not getting my slip and things clean because look how this.” I said, “Yeah, that’s because you lay on that bed all the time and the dye from the bedspread is— (laughs).
My cousin called me, Sammie Hardeman, and he was a cook. He was a chef, oh, like man, and he was at the officers’ club at Camp Gary. He called me, he said, “I want y’all to come out here and work. You’ll make more money and everything, and I’ll teach you everything you need to know.” I didn’t know anything about cooking. And so I said, “Well, okay.” I went out there, and I told her, I said, “Well, Mrs. Barber—“ Wallace Barber was the district attorney. I said, “Mrs. Barber, I’m giving you two weeks notice. I’m gong to quit.” “Well, what are you going to do?” I said, “I’m going to go to Gary. My cousin is working out there at the officers’ club,” because then it was a flight training school, “and I’m going to go and get a job cooking.” “Oh, those people are taking all of my colored help.” (laughs) Hey. So I don’t know whatever happened to her. I know she died later on.
I went to Gary and started and Sammie [Hardeman] taught us everything, pastry cook, dinner cook, salad girl. He said, “You never know what you’re going to get a job doing,” which we didn’t. I appreciated him for doing that. Then the Gary closed, and I went to work at this restaurant there in Austin, and Carson Restaurant was open then. And Carson heard about me, and they paid me more than what I was making in Austin to come to Carson and cook. The big buses would come in and, oh, we were busy because I could short-order cook, dinner cook, whatever they needed. And we were busy with that bus, and then they had a place in the back for colored people because they couldn’t eat there. Mr. Gene and Miss Dora used to come over there and come to the back and eat sometime.
And this woman that was the cashier—because I would run down here and help with the hamburgers and things and then run back up here to do my short-order cook with steaks and stuff. She came back there, “What are you doing? You should be doing this, you should be doing that,” and I’m running up and down. I said, “Not right now.” “But these orders need to come out.” “They are. Tell the waitress to get on up here and pick them up, and you should be out there at that cash register.” So then she, bless her heart, she going to come back there because I had the flames open because the steaks were flame cooked and everything. And she’s going to come back there because I talked to her and told her to get back out there at that cash register, and she came back there and raised her hand to slap her. I took her by her hair, and I was getting ready to lay her head down on that flame, and Saul ran up here. “No, Fellow.” He used to call me Fellow. “No, Fellow, don’t do that. Don’t do that,” and so when I let her go, she went on back up front and she went and called the manager, and he came in.
By then things had kind of slowed down, and he asked me what happened, and I told him exactly what happened. He said, “Well, it’s time for you to get off, so go home and don’t worry about nothing, and we’ll see you Monday.” I said, “Oh, okay.” And—no, “We’ll see you tomorrow.” I said, “Oh, okay.” So when I went back to work the next day, they’d fired her and she went all through town, “Yeah. They fired me and kept the nigger on there.” (laughs) I thought, well—I won’t tell you what I called her, but she deserved to be fired. She had no business raising her hand to me. I’m a grown woman, and she had no business talking to me like that. I think everybody around there respected me after that.
I stayed with Carson’s for three years, and all of a sudden my hands started breaking out. Right now, I can’t handle garlic. I got to buy garlic in a jar if I’m going to cook something with garlic in it. I told Mr. Carson and they would swell up and blister, and then I tried to work with rubber gloves on, and it was just something there that I was allergic to. They didn’t know if it was tomatoes or what. And so the doctor finally told me that I had to quit because both hands were bandaged up and everything. So I went and gave him a notice. I couldn’t go back to work, and he said, “Well, I don’t see any reason that you have to quit.” I said, “Well, Mr. Carson, the doctor—I mean, I can’t work right now.” So I went to file for my unemployment, and he fought it. He didn’t think I should quit.
So the man at the unemployment office said, “Mrs. Giles, just keep signing up.” And I did. Then when—I signed up eight times. We had it out in court, and he said—they asked him, “Would you have fired Mrs. Giles?” “No, I wouldn’t fire her, and I’d hire her back tomorrow because she’s a good worker.” And he said, “Mrs. Giles, if I was you, I would never go back there to work,” and so I won the case and I got all eight of my checks at once.
I had an eviction notice on my door. And they came and took the television out. I had an apartment over there, and so my children started worrying about it. I said, “Baby, God is going to make a way,” and that’s when I met my second—I got the divorce from the first husband—and now I met the second husband.
He was old, and I think he was the Dr. Bell. He was a teacher, a professor, Dr. Bell, PhD doctor. And I thought, hmm, this man’s got some money. So I married him, I thought he got some money, (laughs) moved to Seguin. And that’s when I got pregnant with the twins. He didn’t have nothing.
THIBODEAUX: What did he teach?
GLIES: Music and English, and he almost drove me crazy because dressed like I’m dressed, “You’re not supposed to be sitting up here dressed like that. You’re Dr. Bell’s wife. You’re Dr. Bell’s wife,” and, oh, I got so tired of that. So after the twins were born, I got a job cooking again in a restaurant. I was real careful with what I handled, and then the fiberglass plant there hired me, and I told them at the restaurant that I was going to quit because I was hired at the plant. “Why did they hire you? They don’t usually hire colored women out there.” I said, “Well, they hired me.” “Well, they’ll probably give you the hardest, dirtiest jobs there is.” I said, “No, I’m being trained as an inspector for fiberglass.” “Oh,” so then he goes and gets the night cook. He said, “You can go on home now. You don’t have to stay here two weeks.” “Hey, it’s fine. I get to rest.”
Then from there I got allergic to the fiberglass, and I went to business college, and that’s when I finished business college in accounting. And that’s when I first got on the computers. Big, clunky computers, big heavy—raised the level and all of that. From there I—after I finished school, I went all around here putting in for a job. Nobody would hire me because I didn’t have office experience. So I went to work two days after I finished school, they got me a job at a CPA office in San Antonio. And I worked myself up to supervisor.
I got tired of driving back and forth to San Antonio every day because I had moved back to San Marcos then. I went to the Baptist Academy and applied for a job, and I was hired over there in accounting. The president had to interview me, and he said, “Do you realize that you’ll be the first Negro to hold a position that you’re going to hold here?” I said, “So? I qualify for the job,” and he said, “Well, what if one of the children—“ because there wasn’t any African American children there. “What if one of the children or somebody calls you not by your your name?” I knew what he was getting around to. I said, “President [Jack] Byrom, I ignore ignorant people because when you show your ignorance, I show my intelligence.” He said, “Oh.” I got the job.
And then the two young ladies that I worked in the office with, “You go on in there and clean the vault.” I said, “I didn’t come here to do any cleaning. I don’t have my papers to do cleaning.” “Well, you do this.” I said, “Uh uh. I know what I’m here to do,” and they started going upstairs taking a break an hour at a time, and I was just learning. I was just learning, doing everything, payroll, everything. One of the girls quit, and they saw I could do the work by myself, and when Vicki took off to have her baby, they told her she didn’t have to come back. And I ran that office by myself. I worked there twenty-three years.
And Evelyn Mehan—I don’t know if you know Evelyn or not—she did a lot of quilting and donated quilts to arts and all. She was working up there. She called me in there and she said—she called me on the phone. She said, “Could you run a report for me on accounts payable?” I said, “Yeah. Evelyn, I’d be happy to.” And I went ahead and ran the report and printed it out for her, and I was going to be nice and I went and took it over to her office to her—because my office was across the hall—and took it over to her office and laid it on the corner desk. “Evelyn, here’s your report.” She looked at me, she took it and she threw it in the floor. “Don’t you ever walk in here and put anything on my desk like that anymore.” I stood over her, and I said, “Evelyn.” She said, “Yes.” I said, “You’re acting just like a nigger,” and I turned and walked out. (laughs) She said, “Uh.” And after that, Evelyn and I became good friends, and I worked there twenty-three years.
They hired a lady and they told me they wanted me to train her——or train her to do every—teach her everything that I know. My grandmother always told me, “You don’t teach anybody everything you know.” When I was doing the payroll, I entered her name so I could start writing her check. They paying her more than they’re paying me? And I have to train her? I got up from the computer right then and went and sat down. “Mr. Patterson, you’re paying Fran, and I’m supposed to be training her?” “Well, she’s had more office experience than you’ve have.” I said, “She don’t have as much experience on these computers than I have. I know what I’m doing on the computers, and she don’t. And, Mr. Patterson, I’ll go get my hat, and I’ll walk out of here right now.” I knew I had him over a block because I’m the only one that knew how to do the payroll down there in fact. He grabbed a piece of paper and wrote for me to get my raise making more than she was. I went on back and sat down and went back and did my little work. So we all got along real good.
Then after twenty-three years, I got real sick. I had to have surgery, and I had an infection from the surgery. The adhesions, they grew into the intestines and I had to have them cut out. Then that last time that Dr. Livingston cut them out, the infection spread. I don’t know what happened, but I came home for a while and then I tried to go back to work, and I just got so sick they had to call my daughter. She came and got me—and my daughter’s a registered nurse—and she came and got me and took me to the hospital. I don’t remember getting to the hospital or anything.
I went into a coma, and I stayed in a coma forty-one days. My children said that—and the doctors told me later—they had to just cut out a bunch of intestines and the infection just kept spreading, and it was just a mess. My lungs collapsed three times. So finally they gave me up. After operating so many—they just left my stomach open, just left it open. The doctors finally called my family in and called my pastor in and told them I wasn’t going to make it through the night.
So I saw the light, and I saw myself laying up in my casket and Jesus came to me and said, “I’m not ready for you yet. I still have work for you to do. I’ll never leave you alone.” And then I started coming out of the coma, and they told the children—the doctors told the children I was going to be brain-damaged because I was in a coma so long. And every day I kept getting stronger and I started remembering, and I’d look around and my children were around and my mother was there. Everything gradually started coming back and the doctor came and sat down and talked to me. He said, “You know we almost lost you?” And I said, “But Jesus said he wasn’t ready for me yet.” He said, “Yeah, sure.” And then he said, “Well, I thought maybe you’d be brain damaged.” I said, “No.” He said, “Well, you never will be able to go anywhere without that oxygen.” I said, “God told me I didn’t need that mess.” So he just looked at me, Yeah. So I started getting stronger and stronger.
And they put me in a suite at the hospital. I was in Austin at Seton, and they put me in a suite (laughs) and then they—I had my little couch and television over here and my little bed and all that over here, and I could entertain. The doctor say, “You know, you might be able to go home pretty soon.” I had five doctors, and I said, “Oh, that’ll be great.” One of the doctors said, “Ollie, you see all of these gray hairs in my head?” I said, “Yeah.” “Everyone of them have Ollie Giles written on it.” (laughs) I said, “Oh.”
And so then the doctor—every evening he’d come and sit down and talk to me, and he said, “What are you going to do when you go home?” I said, “Oh, I don’t know. I’ll probably sit around and watch television, sit back, drink me a cold beer because I’d drink a cold beer at the end of the day.” He said, “Why wait until you get home?” He said, “What kind of beer do you drink?” I said, “I drink Schlitz.” I thought he was kidding. He said, “Okay. You got your suite and everything over there. You want your beer in the morning or in the evening?” I said, “Oh, the evening so I can just really sit back and relax,” and I was just talking. He said, “Okay.” The nurse came in that evening and had my beer on a tray. (laughs) I said, “Oh,” and it was Miller’s. I said, “I told him I like Schlitz.” She said, “Oh, okay. Well, we’ll get you some Schlitz.” And they did, and my pastor was up there when she said, “Sister Giles. Sister Giles.” And the nurse said, “That’s her vitamin B.” She said, “Go ahead and drink your vitamin B,” but I stashed it away because I guess all the medication—it tasted yuck.
So then they finally came in and I saw a cross with Jesus on it. And the chaplain there, Barbara Holloway, she bought me that cross when she knew—and the whole time she kept a journal on me. And in that journal she was telling how near death I was and the faith that I had and all of that. She gave me a copy of that journal. We stayed friends for the longest, and I would go up to Seton to see her. She would take me around to intensive care and everywhere and tell them my story, and I would go in and I would pray with a lot of the people because I know what God can do. So Barbara finally retired from the hospital. Dr. Hart died. He was one of my doctors, and here I am, never used that oxygen. I still got the paraphernalia in there but I never use it. I told him God told me I didn’t need that mess.
For a while there every year they was finding something to cut on or cut out. And I’ve had breast tumors, and I got a big scar coming across here (gestures) where I had—whatchacallit—the rock, rock—stone—gall stones. And it had gotten out, got behind the pancreas and they had to go and dig that and get it out. So I’m blessed.
Then I fight for my history, the true history. When I went back to get my job back at the academy, I had the release papers in my hand, and they said, “Nobody told you?” “Told me what?” Said, “We didn’t think you’d ever be able to work anymore and we don’t have any openings.” They didn’t hold my job, and I said, “Well, you know, that’s not right. God told me he would never leave me alone.” And I hated them. I hated them. I drew out all my retirement, and I just took a year off and just traveled. I went to Washington, I went to Utah, I went to Chicago. I just traveled around and got broke. (laughs)
Then I went to work at Tuttles, and I did the bookkeeping for Marvin, but he wanted me to learn to sell hardware. I didn’t know anything about hardware and wasn’t interested in it. A lady called and I answered the phone and she asked if we had any studs in. I said, “Yeah, there’s two or three of them are standing around here.” Marvin took the phone and he said when he got through talking to her, “Dammit, Ollie, you knew what she was talking about.” I guess I did, but I got fired. (laughs)
Then I went to work at Nagle, this clothes hanger factory in Maxwell, and I was the production accounting clerk, and I worked in the office there three years. When I was sixty-two God said, “It’s time for you to step out on faith and start your own business,” and I did. Two days after I did that, the Austin Statesman—because I stayed in libraries and everything, I really just started digging my family history, and I’ve donated seventeen volumes of my Merriwether family to the state library. That’s the reason I know we have a history to be proud of with all my digging.
And so then I went to work for the Statesman for three years. They furnished my laptop computer, and they called this Smart Line, and I would enter the deeds, the assumed names, and everything here in Hays County and get it into them. And then they got with the Smart Line. Well, by then other companies had heard about me, and now I’ve been—I have my own business. I’m seventy-four now—what’s that—twelve or thirteen years now that I’ve had my own business, and I just stayed busy.
But you know, before I got my own business when I got broke and everything, God told me, “I didn’t give you back your life for you to hate.” I went up to the academy. We cried together. I told them, “I love you,” and I meant it. I told them, “I love you,” and they hired me to teach an African American class up there to the history class, and they paid me well. That’s when God really started opening doors. I’ve just been happy ever since. I live one day at a time. I don’t worry about tomorrow.
And I do my history and I’ve got old deeds. So just everything that I tell you about cemeteries and things, I’ve got backup because you saw some of the old deeds in that book. And when I had the name changed on the cemetery in Kyle they called the Slave Cemetery, I’ve got deeds on it. And it’s now the Kyle Family Pioneer Cemetery, and they said Claiborne Kyle bought that for slaves. No, he didn’t. I got deeds showing where Claiborne Kyle and some more men bought that property, and they set a burial ground for white people and a burial ground for colored people. Eighteen ninety-nine is naming the Colored Cemetery Association. Do that sound like slaves to you?
And now I’ve asked them to check and see—because we’re right next to the big cemetery that they called the White Cemetery—to check because I believe that’s property for the Negroes all the way down to that road, and I believe there’s more graves in there. I just believe it is, and Gerron Hite—I’m sure you’ve heard about him. He worked for the state—and I would say Texas Cemeteries, and Gerron Hite is with the state, and the state is behind us 100 percent. We’re asking everybody to please notify us if you find an abandoned cemetery because Gerron is trying to put everything on the Internet. He has this device that go around and mark graves—unmarked graves, and he have that device where he can do that. What’s her name—she’s a student at the university—she has been up there trying to put the stones back together—Liz. She has been trying to put the stones back together. This is—
THIBODEAUX: Now, is she from Texas State?
GLIES: Um hmm. Um hmm. She’s working in biology, and that’s where she’s put red flags across there, and that’s just some stuff, and that’s—okay. And here—that’s when I was standing under the hanging tree, and that gate (looking at personal photographs). A young man from the university tore down—it was an old barbwire fence there. You could not see the little graves over there, and he tore that barbwire fence down and rededicated that fence.
THIBODEAUX: Now, is this the one in Kyle?
GLIES: This is the one in Kyle. And see where she’s got stones and tried to get them back together. That’s where she’s got some of them. I have a picture of her. And that’s where we are out there. This is a woman from the newspaper and that’s me. Now, that’s Liz and a friend of hers, and then that’s Liz and me standing out there. She’s been doing—this is one of the graves that—and I told them Kittie Kyle. Kittie Kyle was a Negro—and I told them at the commissioners’ court she was the mistress of Clairborne Kyle. And that’s the reason it’s mulattos out there. My grandmother’s brother married one of the Kyle women, and her picture—oh, what’s her name—put it in the newspaper when they—did I put it to the front? Yeah. That’s Tonnie Kyle, and she’s one of the offsprings.
THIBODEAUX: Well, what about your grandmother? Tell me a little bit about her.
GLIES: Etta Hollins.
THIBODEAUX: Is it H-o-l-l-i-n?
GLIES: I-n-s.
THIBODEAUX: Okay. No “g” there?
GLIES: Uh uh.
THIBODEAUX: Okay.
GLIES: Hollins. Yeah. My grandma Etta, she was a strong woman. That’s my Hollins and Fuller family. It was thirteen—fifteen of them. And this one I’m going to have to break it down, like I did my Merriwether family. Here she is. I’ve got some things in state—no, up at the—no—the activity center where they’re doing generations. Okay. That’s my grandma.
THIBODEAUX: Oh.
GLIES: That is my—
THIBODEAUX: And she lived in San Marcos?
GLIES: Um hmm.
THIBODEAUX: And she’s the one that told you about Lyndon Johnson visiting them earlier?
GLIES: Um hmm. And she’s the one that had the restaurant and then the home laundry. And that’s my grandfather. He used to work for Southern Grocery. I’ve got a copy of their marriage license and everything. I probably put his in the Hollins book. Okay. My grandpa Mose—This is my Hollins family—George Mose. And I have a young lady that restore pictures, and he’s standing outside, and I’ve asked her to take that off where that weeds and stuff, and that’s the coffee bag—
THIBODEAUX: Oh, yeah.
GLIES: —that he took. Yeah, he started working for Southern Grocery from 1918 until he died. And when we were children we used to ride on the truck with him, and sometime Mama didn’t have nothing to do and Milton and I would ride—we’d stand up in the front seat of the truck and our little arms around them, and we’d go to Lockhart and where he went. We would stop and get Lockhart sausage or Lulling sausage and strawberry soda water and sweetbread. Mama used to call cinnamon rolls sweetbread.
One day Milton and I—Mama stayed home—Milton and I went on a trip to Austin with Papa. Papa took off and delivered some groceries at a store in Austin, and he thought Milton was in the back of the truck. So he gets in the truck, and I’m still standing up there waiting for him, and he drives off. Then we hear the police behind us on a motorcycle, and Milton—little Milton back there with big eyes where his Papa left him. (laughs) And the policeman was following Papa, so Milton did get back in the truck, and Papa, “Now, don’t y’all go home and tell Mama about that.” (laughs)
Then Mama—hobos used to come off the tracks over there. And we lived right over here then. And Mama would save all of the mayonnaise jars and everything. And hobos would come because they know they could go by Miss Etta’s, and she’d make them sandwiches and put water in the mayonnaise jar. The hobos, all of them were mixed people. There were Negroes, Caucasians, Hispanics, all of them would come across there and get sandwiches from Miss Etta and water in the mayonnaise jar because she would save all the jars. And they’d walk over back over there and catch another freight train.
THIBODEAUX: That was back in the Depression days?
GLIES: Um hmm. Now, no, I don’t think it was Depression then, but they’re like the homeless now. We call them homeless, but we used to call them hobos, and they were hobos. Then they could ride the train, and they’d get on the freight train, and, hey. So that was the hobos.
Then she would—we used to have people—we used to have outhouses. And Mama would always make sure the outhouse was nice and clean. We used to have— (laughs) Well, we were called niggers. We used to call them cedar choppers. They would come from up in the hills, and they would come down and clean the toilets. (laughs) I try to tell some people, “You don’t hear about that. The white folks used to come down here and clean toilets because we didn’t do it.” Mama would pay them fifty cent, and she would buy lime, and she’d say, “Now, put plenty of lime in there,” and we still had to get rid of the outhouses.
And iceman. We had iceboxes. Have y’all ever had an icebox?
THIBODEAUX: No, I haven’t.
GLIES: And they had iceboxes. And we could see the iceman going down the street, and we sat up there, “Iceman! Mama wants twenty-five pounds.” (laughs)
THIBODEAUX: Where did Lyndon Johnson live?
GLIES: He lived on—up near the campus. The house is still up there. He lived on campus up there. And just about everything you had to walk.
But I met Luci. She always been so sweet, and her mother. We went up there to Johnson City once and visit the ranch. Then when they started the LBJ Museum, Luci came down and we—oh, we just visited and talked. I always have my camera ready. I always take pictures. That’s my cruise to Mexico (looking through photograph albums). But Luci and Eleanor—you know Eleanor Crook?
THIBODEAUX: Yes.
GLIES: Eleanor and I were just like sisters, and we used to go—be on meetings together. My children and her children graduated together. Yeah, here we are. And they graduated together, and Eleanor invited us to her daughter’s wedding. So we were just always out there.
One day I called Eleanor. Our church was having a tea, and I knew she had this old silver teapot that her mother used to have. I said, “Eleanor, can I borrow your teapot?” and she said, “Yes,” so I went up there and got it, and she said, “Here. You’re going to have to have some sugar cubes,” so she got sugar cubes and then everything. I said, “Eleanor, I’ll take good care of this.” She said, “Oh, please do because that belonged to my mama.” So then—and I said, “And I’ll bring it right back tonight when the tea is over.”
We went on and had the tea up at Austin Savings—it used to be a savings—and that’s where we have our tea. So that night, as soon as we got back to church, I got the tea set and bring back up there, knocked on the door—her front door—knocked on the door, holding her teapot. Eleanor wasn’t home. I thought, oh, my goodness. I came down the front step, holding the teapot. I said, “Lord, I hope a policeman don’t come by thinking I’m stealing this.” So I hurry up and got in the car and later on I called Eleanor. And she said, “Oh, we were out walking the dog.” I said, “Well, I had to come back down the front steps with that teapot, and I was holding,” and she just laughed. And every year she give our church money and everything.
THIBODEAUX: She has a relationship with Lyndon Johnson.
GLIES: Um hmm.
THIBODEAUX: Her husband was Ambassador [Bill] Crook.
GLIES: One you see at the wedding—it’s not in that book but in another—like I say, I’m always taking pictures. When we were up there at the wedding, we were all standing with Jake Pickle and all of us there holding our little champagne. (laughs) Eleanor and Luci and all of us were around there together.
THIBODEAUX: Well, going back to your grandmother, you said that she just told you a little story or some information about Lyndon Johnson.
GLIES: Not too much about Lyndon Johnson. It was a lot about family, but the ones with Lyndon Johnson coming down to see—that’s about the only story that she told about him.
THIBODEAUX: And who did he visit?
GLIES: You know, I was telling you I didn’t know too much about Lyndon Johnson except that story that he used to always come to see Gene and Dora.
THIBODEAUX: And who were they?
GLIES: Cheatham. Dora Cheatham and Gene Cheatham. They used to come over to Carson’s and eat sometime. One day Miss Dora said—because she used to call me by my full name. That’s another story. My name is—I just use W. now—but it’s Ollie Wilburn. And she would call, “Ollie Wilburn?” and I was named after Dr. Wilburn. I don’t know if you’ve heard of him here.
THIBODEAUX: No, I don’t think so.
GLIES: We had—the doctor could come to the house, and Mama said—my grandmother—said Dr. Wilburn would come to the house and said, “When the baby was born, he’d slap him on the little ass, and say, ‘Name the little nigger Wilburn.’” She said they would. (laughs) That’s the reason my name is—there are more little Wilburns running around there. I said, “Oh, Mama,” she said, “He would. He would.” So Miss Dora would always call me Ollie Wilburn, but I don’t—we didn’t go up to her house. In fact, we didn’t go to anybody’s house. I’m still like that. I don’t visit a whole lot, and we don’t always have a lot of company. I never went to Miss Dory’s house too much. Every now and then I’d go by if she send for me or something.
THIBODEAUX: Is that who Cheatham Street is named after?
GLIES: I don’t think so because it was some more Cheathams here also. And I really don’t know where Cheatham Street came in because I don’t really know when Miss Dora and them were in San Marcos. I remember Brother Gwen—and we called her Sister Brown because Sister Brown—you’d show out in church, she’ll look at you or she’ll spank you and tell your parents, and then the parents will spank you. But that was Sister Brown.
We used to go out here to Wesley—Episcopal—African American Episcopal Church. Now I’m at Jackson Chapel United Methodist, but, yeah, Miss Dora, and Miss Dora and Mr. Gene went to our church. No, they didn’t, they went to the Baptist church, First Baptist Church, because First Baptist was up there on Comal and Comanche Street. The big church there, they rebuilt and moved on Mitchell Street, and now they’re trying to renovate that church. I’m a member of the National Historic Preservation, and they are interested in preserving that old church. And we have raised money, and they said it had asbestos—
THIBODEAUX: Yes.
GLIES: —in the church and we had to spend it to get it out. It’s clean in there and the mural that’s painted on the wall in there, Mrs. Kyle did that. You know H. C. Kyle?
THIBODEAUX: Yes.
GLIES: He’s an attorney. His dad was an attorney before him. Their mother did that, and she donated it to the church. And it’s still in there just as pretty and still just, well, like she just painted it. So we’re trying to restore it because that church is—well, the small churches around when we have big programs or something, we used to have it there. That church is where the—when the colored students graduated from high school, they would have graduation there, and they had some old books. My cousin graduated from there, and they had an old book, old graduation stuff, and they had—they sealed a door because they kind of remodeled the church, and then when they went in to try to redo the church, they took that sheetrock down and there was that door. And they opened it, and that was some old books. My cousin is eighty-some years old now. They let me make a copy, and she live in Detroit, and I sent her a copy of it. She said, “Lord, Ollie, I forgot all about that graduation book and everything.” But that church got a lot of history.
THIBODEAUX: Were the Cheathams African American or were they white?
GLIES: Both.
THIBODEAUX: Oh, wow! So the people that he visited—Lyndon Johnson visited Dottie and Eugene?
GLIES: They were African Americans.
THIBODEAUX: Okay.
GLIES: Yeah. Sure was, and I don’t know where the Cheatham name came or anything like that. We never thought about them. Oh, what’s her name? She had a lot of history of the Cheatham family, but I don’t know which Cheatham. I don’t know. We never thought about Cheatham, just a Burleson family. (laughs)
THIBODEAUX: Well, the Cheathams, were they contemporary of Lyndon Johnson or were they older than he was?
GLIES: They were older. They were older. He’d kind of run around them like they were mama and daddy. That’s the way he cared for them, and they treated him like, you’re my baby. I have no idea when or where they met. If they lived anywhere in the vicinity where Lyndon Johnson lived or was raised, I really don’t know. But they were close.
Then when he became president, Sammie—Sammie Hardman is another one that knew Lyndon Johnson.
THIBODEAUX: How do you spell his last name?
GLIES: H-a-r-d-m-a-n. He barbecued. He had his own business. He barbecued. And he—let me get this story together because I’ve got old newspapers. Don’t ask me which scrapbook—
THIBODEAUX: No, that’s okay.
GLIES: I do newspaper clippings. You can tell I’m behind with my newspaper clippings, and I’ve got a file cabinet full of newspapers. But Sammie went to Washington with his barbecue when Lyndon Johnson was president. And him and Miss Marguerite Cheatham—another Cheatham—Marguerite Cheatham—they were all standing up there together because Sammie’s got his big chef hat on, and he’s the one that taught us how to cook because Mama never did teach us how to cook, or, hey, you know, we were little angels. We couldn’t get in there and cook.
THIBODEAUX: So he was older than all of you, right?
GLIES: Oh yeah.
THIBODEAUX: He’s no longer with us?
GLIES: No, Sammie died, and he had his own barbecue pit and his stand, his little store over there on Jackman. He had his own barbecue sauce out. He made his own barbecue sauce, and I still have some of his old recipe. But he was—Lyndon Johnson knew Sammie, and then Sammie would go on campus when Lyndon Johnson was a student there. Sammie and my mother were about the same age. He might’ve been a little bit older than my mother.
THIBODEAUX: So he went on campus to sell barbecue?
GLIES: Went on campus cooking and did barbecues and all of that. Yeah, and he always wore his big white hat. I’ve got a bunch of—some pictures of him also.
Some of the pictures that I have when the colored soldiers were here, and then when they had the flight training school, that’s when Sammie was working at Gary, and then he called us and that’s when there was the officers club when we started cooking there. I don’t know if Lyndon Johnson came out there or not because a lot of the dignitaries went out there to that flight training school.
Let me see. I don’t think I have—in this book—
THIBODEAUX: You’re going to have a hard time putting all this stuff back up.
GLIES: I’m always putting—that’s the reason I said I was going to see when I could jump up. That was the one of the exercises at the colored school—the Colored High School—and that was in 1929. Now, my mother—I have her diploma hanging up here. She graduated in 1930, and then my uncle graduated—when Mother was going it was just the Colored High School. And then my uncle it was San Marcos Colored High School, he graduated in 1935. And then my cousin graduated in 1952 from the colored—San Marcos Colored High School.
THIBODEAUX: Well, do you think segregation in San Marcos went smoothly? Was there any objections to it?
GLIES: No, it wasn’t. Everybody just switched over and at first they didn’t want them to play football or anything, but we hung in there. Then they started hiring African American teachers again.
Now, this is my mother. This was her class, follow the 1930 graduating class, and that’s my mother, and Cousin Vesti and all of that.
That is my grandmother. She was strong Eastern Star, and we had to become Eastern Star. (laughs) I have been an Eastern Star all my life. I’m not anymore. And this was her. Some of those pictures now, I’ve had Holly to restore because they meant so much to my grandmother, and I know she would be proud of it. That’s some of the army guys, some of the colored troops.
And that’s when they integrated.
THIBODEAUX: So were you on the school board?
GLIES: No. I wasn’t elected. I ran and one of the other men, Dr. Nolan’s wife, I believe it was, ran and one of the other Caucasian men that ran, he dropped out at the last minute and then he turned all of his support over to her. And so I told her, I said, “Well, you did me a favor.”
THIBODEAUX: When was that?
GLIES: Oh, heck. Did I write the date on that? It’s been so long ago. I didn’t put the date on it.
Now, this is my grandma when she was younger. That’s her and her sister. That’s my grandmother and her sister, Ollie. She’s the one I was named after.
THIBODEAUX: Oh, okay.
GLIES: She never had any children, and when we went to California, Aunt Fannie, my grandmother’s other sister and Aunt Ollie were in California together, and my children never wanted for anything. They neither one of them ever have children, and they bought them everything. That’s how Holly redo the pictures and things. Those are my mother’s brothers, her two brothers. And this is my mother, but that’s me. (Both laugh) Then that’s my mother and my daddy. That’s when they were in Austin, and Mother’s brothers. That’s my grandpa. See where I put scotch tape over that? She redid that for me. And that’s my grandmother, my paternal grandmother.
THIBODEAUX: Oh.
GLIES: Yeah, she’s part Indian or something. She had me kind of spoiled, and that’s my daddy and I. The pictures got stuck on the frame—
THIBODEAUX: Oh yeah.
GLIES: —but that’s my daddy.
THIBODEAUX: Handsome man.
GLIES: That’s my maternal grandfather’s sister. And that’s me with five of my children.
THIBODEAUX: You’re beautiful.
GLIES: You know I never wore makeup. I wouldn’t know how to put it on. My skin was always so— Now, that’s me and my first husband. We were getting ready for a formal in San Francisco, and that’s where we went to the formal with some friends of ours. She do a beautiful job on restoring. And that’s when my twins started to school, they separated them, Linda and Brenda. Now, that’s my grandmother—that’s where she redid that picture that I was showing you?
THIBODEAUX: Yeah.
GLIES: Then this—maybe we start on—that’s her sister, my grandmother’s sister, Albert Armstead. You know Johnnie Armstead’s husband?
THIBODEAUX: Yes.
GLIES: That’s his grandmother. His grandmother and my grandmother were sisters, and they had a lodge named after her, the Agnes Rhodes, and I gave him a copy of that because she was always strong with the Eastern Star. And that’s Jim Walker, Mary Gray—Nancy Gray. Mary Gray was my grandmother’s grandmother. She was married to Marion Anderson, and everybody thought that Marion Anderson was a white man. He was part Irish, and Mama said they were children in Staples playing, and they looked on this old white man staring up looking at them. They ran in the house, “Mama! Mama! This old white man’s standing out here looking at us.” So Grandma ran to the door and she looked out. “That ain’t no white man. That’s my daddy.” And he was married to her sister. That was Nancy. He was married to Mary.
Jim Walker was in Staples. He had a lot of property. He gave property for the first colored school down there. He gave property for a colored cemetery, and he just—and he was a pastor.
And so this was my mother and her—that was my mother. They used to take pictures on running down the street in Austin. Now, that’s my daughter—my oldest daughter. That’s where she went to school in California, and that was her. So she’d always been used to integration, and that’s my son. That’s my first husband. We used to go on the beach in San Francisco, and I had the other two—we went with some friends, and so I had them to cut the other two children out and just have our two on there with him. That’s my son and his wife and my little grandson. Now, that’s my grandmother’s brother, Albert Fuller.
This is—oh, hey. What was her name? She was—her mother married again her daddy. Her mother married again, and her stepfather—they call him Ed X., and he used to bootleg liquor, and they said you could see her and she’d have on a big coat because she would help him bootleg liquor. This child, Little Jim Kirk—yeah, because they married. Mama’s sister married them—Kirk. He was sixteen years old, him and my grandmother was born the same day, and he spoke right down here on Valley Street—he spoke to a white woman, and she went and told her daddy a lie. And he came down and shot him.
THIBODEAUX: Oh, my goodness.
GLIES: Killed the child, he was sixteen years old. You know, just friendly. Ah, how you’re doing? He wasn’t going to touch her. And so he’s dead. That’s one of my babies, and she redid that, and that’s my baby, Michael, and that’s my baby, Larry. And this is when my children were small. Now, that’s their stepmother. Their daddy married again, and the stepmom and I, we still good friends. The daddy is dead now, but we’re still good friends. And they used to come down and see the children. And that’s my first husband and Deborah. She redid that. She had her eyes, and that’s me when I was in high school in California. But that’s when we got on the beach with some friends. But that’s what she did to these old pictures. She restored them.
And the USO is some more pictures where we used to have the USO at the Calaboose, and they would take pictures there. I wasn’t here, so I just got some of the pictures. But it is so much history in this little town, this little town.
And I told you that we had four schools here. One was on Hunter Road and the school let me make copies of the old records, and I have them in there naming the first colored principal here in 18-something. We used to have a school—you know where the school office is? We used to call it Katy Town—
THIBODEAUX: Um hmm.
GLIES: —over there where the school office is. And it used to be a school back in there somewhere. I don’t know where because when they called that Katy Town my grandmother and them used to live in Katy Town. They had a school over there for the colored, and the Mexicans didn’t have a school because they were migrants all the time. They were in and out. So then they decided they were going to get schools here for the Mexicans, and that’s when they moved the white school—because they built them a new school—and they moved it down here right down Center Street before they opened Centre Street all the way down. That’s when they put the colored students there. Then they put the Mexicans over there. Well, according to the minutes, three days they had a Mexican teacher— (end of CD) Three days he was in there drunk, and that’s when they put a white teacher over the Mexicans because he was drunk.
Then they moved the school from there—the school board bought the property out here and they moved the school on out there. The colored teachers wasn’t making that much. It’s in the minutes how much they made, and the Mitchell Center, it was an old army barrack because they had to enlarge the colored school, and they moved two old army barracks down there. But they added—they built on to the white school.
Then on Hunter Road—I’ve forgotten the name but I have it written down—she was white, and she taught the little colored and white children together on Hunter Road because they all came up. And then further down—and I can’t think of the school name on Hunter Road—a colored teacher, Miss Lillian Harris, was there. And they had a school then.
Then over where the mall is—Durham, Barry Durham—and you’ve heard of Eddie Durham and all of them—Barry Durham was the great-great-grandpa, and I’ve got a copy of his deeds. This power company had me to do some checking because they bought that property over in that area, and in those old deeds he said that he wanted a school built for the colored and Negro children. And I thought, I never heard of colored and Negro. So I called his sister and asked her because she was still living and asked her, “What did he mean, colored and Negro?” She said, “Well, when you come in from Africa, the colored children were the lighter skinned, and the Negroes were dark skinned.” I never heard of that, but I’ve heard of it now. And he built a school over there. Molly—I don’t remember her last—she live in Kyle—she’s an archeologist, and she did a digging and everything, dug up old artifacts and everything.
The Nichols, they were African Americans, and Mr. Ragsdale live out there now because they sold it, and it’s a little graveyard in the back, and the power company bought that from Ragsdale. They saw that little graveyard back there, so I told them, “Yeah, I know the Nichols family. We’re related to the Nichols, and we were going to have a family reunion.” Well, the deeds I got, they designated that as cemetery. It could not be sold. The Nichols family still own that. And they didn’t know it. And so I said, “The power company want to move the bodies over and make a memorial park.” “No, no, we don’t want the bodies moved. We don’t want the bodies moved.” So they bought the property over from it. Mr. Ragsdale can live out there as long as he live.
THIBODEAUX: Is that Wilburn?
GLIES: Um hmm. I gave him an old picture of some couples that was given to me. Somebody sent it to city hall and they gave it to me. And so they went to the county and asked them to build a road through there so the family can get back there to the cemetery. And he said, “No. They don’t need to go to the back. They can just come on through the front, and I’ll show them where the cemetery is.” So they wrote a lot of history on that. As far as I know, he’s still living because I gave him that picture, oh, I guess about three years ago because Mabel—she goes to—down at the doughnut place every day.
THIBODEAUX: Shipley’s or Krispy Kreme?
GLIES: Yeah—no, Dixie.
THIBODEAUX: Dixie.
GLIES: Yeah, Dixie Cream. She go down there every day and have doughnuts. My grandmother’s sister raised her. She gave me a picture—Alfa’s grandmother—she gave me a picture of her standing out there with Mama Aggie and Myrtle taught there. And she gave me a picture. And every now and then I’ll go by there and holler at her to give me a hug because she’s there and they got a little table for her and a picture of her down there and everything. Now her son have to drive her because she don’t get around too much anymore. So every now and then I have to stop in because she’s part of the family.
THIBODEAUX: I’ve been hoping to talk to Myrtle Tarbutton too. She’s just kind of busy these days.
GLIES: Yes. Yes.
THIBODEAUX: But she said she’d get with me in a couple of weeks or so.
GLIES: Oh, she know a lot. Yeah, Mama Aggie, we called her Mama Aggie. She used to take care of Myrtle. And I go, “No, that’s my sister,” and people kind of look at us, and Myrtle say, “We’ve been sisters a long time.” (laughs) But we always got along seem like, we really did. And this is the book— I have it where she—they gave me a copy of it. I’ll find it when you leave. (Thibodeaux laughs)
But some of the history that was done in that book and what Molly dug up showing the dolls and things during that time. If I can get my hands on it and show that to you from that cemetery and from that little graveyard back there, and then it’s a Mexican cemetery out there too. Now we’re trying to—Coronado Cemetery. I love cemeteries. We have—we went to Giddings this summer to Texas Cemetery—
THIBODEAUX: Um hmm.
GLIES: —and dug up a body. Bill Longley. And the family in Louisiana said he was buried in Louisiana, and they said, “No, he’s buried in Texas.” Well, the family gave us permission to dig him up, and they got bones and they are—it was Bill Longley buried in Texas. And you see us down in the grave. (laughs) That was so exciting.
THIBODEAUX: Yeah. That was an experience.
GLIES: Oh yeah. And then this attorney hired me to get deeds on the Hindus in Dripping Springs. You know where that Hindu church is?
THIBODEAUX: Um hmm.
GLIES: They said it was the Johnson family. You’ve heard of the Johnson family? They had a boys school.
THIBODEAUX: So they’re no relation to Lyndon Johnson?
GLIES: Uh uh, not that I know of. But they had a boys school out there, and they said that Mr. and Mrs. Johnson was still buried out there. The Hindus wanted them moved, and the family—it took them a year to make up their minds to give them permission to go ahead, so we went out and dug them up. Couldn’t find any bones or anything. We don’t know if the Hindus marked the wrong place or what happened, but we couldn’t find any bones. We sat out there from—we dug and dug from nine o’clock until about two that evening, and one of the family members—he was an elderly gentleman—and they had to hire two hearse, they had to bring two caskets, two black bags and everything. So they had the black bags out ready and we dig over here, and one of the family members said, “Dig over here, and I’ll dig over here.” Never did find any bones. We found the footstone of the woman, but that was it. And one of those family members said, “Just throw some dirt in that bag, and call them Johnson let’s get out of here. I’m tired.” So they finally had to do that.
They hired this African American funeral home, and he and another young lady—she’s Caucasian—they drove the other ambulance—the other hearse. It wasn’t an ambulance, it was a hearse. He and I were the only two African Americans out there. We took them over to Rocky Mountain or Spring Mountain or somewhere over there, but I think it was getting done. (laughs) When we got out there, I was running around and taking pictures. I got a bunch of pictures of it, and I saw these Confederate flags flying around. I went over there and I stood next to him and I said, “You see all these Confederate flags flying around here?” He said, “Yeah, if you see a cross burning, let’s run.” (laughs) I know people couldn’t imagine what we were talking about over there. But that was another grave we dug up.
THIBODEAUX: So this area has a very interesting history because of the long lines of ancestors?
GLIES: Um hmm.
THIBODEAUX: You could see the families that came hundreds of years ago.
GLIES: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And seem like—I don’t know—in this area we hear of people being hung and everything. I’m sure there was some hanging here or something, but you never hear about it. Because like my grandmother said, “Everybody got along here. Everybody got along,” and she said, “I guess because everybody knew their place.” Even when, oh, she was doing home laundry, they would bring the laundry down, we’d sat and talk. My mother used to work for Mrs. Sowell, Dr. Sowell’s wife, and they were two of a kind. Bless their hearts, they would get together and they’d argue sometimes, and Mrs. Sowell would bring Mother home, and Mother, “Don’t bother to pick me up tomorrow. I’m through working for you. I don’t want to work for you anymore.” Mama said, “Nola, what in the name of God is wrong with you and Mrs. Sowell now?” “That she’s just so bullheaded.” And the next day Mrs. Sowell was right back down and, “Come on and get in this car, Nola.” But she worked for Mrs. Sowell for the longest.
And she worked for the Wilhites, Eugenia Wilhite now—I’ve forgotten what her maiden name was. And Eugenia and I were like sisters because Mother worked for her mother for years and told her she would always stay with Eugenia when Eugenia’s mother died. Eugenia married and Mother stayed right there with her. She had two children, and Mother was right there, and the baby girl, Laurie, was—when Mother’d get ready to go home, Laurie’d go home with her. And right down the street here, and Eugenia’d know where Laurie was. So when Laurie married, Mother—well, naturally Mother was gone, but we always remember Eugenia because, like I said, we were like sisters. That was Sophie. That’s Sophie in Kyle—no, that’s another one.
Where was Eugenia? This one because, see, she’s pregnant now, and we were just at a shower, at her baby shower. Well, that’s Laurie when she married, and I fixed her a book, and that’s my mother.
THIBODEAUX: Oh.
GLIES: And Laurie saw that, she said, “Oh, WoWo.” They called her WoWo, and I fixed her a book with Mother in it. And that’s Eugenia and George and the two girls because I put all of that in a book for her, and that’s her getting married. Then that’s her pregnant now, and that was the cake, the baby’s cake.
THIBODEAUX: Oh, that’s so pretty.
GLIES: We went to a shower. When was that, last month or month before last now.
THIBODEAUX: Yes, May 10.
GLIES: That cake was something else though, and they said the woman came out and looked at the nursery and everything—
THIBODEAUX: Ooh.
GLIES: —and that’s how she made that cake. We didn’t want to cut it. But that’s part of my family. And my daughter and I were there and people kind of looked, Yeah, honey, we are all family. I mean, you can look at us if you want to, but we all family.
So Mother helped raise them, and now Wowo is gone—everybody called her WoWo.
THIBODEAUX: That’s interesting, WoWo.
GLIES: Yeah. WoWo. Everybody knew her as WoWo.
THIBODEAUX: Well, this is very—all very interesting. Have you thought about—I don’t know—trying to put together a history of San Marcos?
GLIES: There were dirty races in everyone. There were gamblers, murderers, it—just thieves, and Mr. Cephers and Mr. Giles—Anthony Giles—not related—they thought we were related, but I met—I brought my first husband’s name back, Giles, because my maiden name was Hargis, H-a-r-g-i-s, Hargis. Mr. Anthony Giles was the blacksmith, and the KKK would bring their horses for him to shoe. He knew them all.
THIBODEAUX: So he was an African American?
GLIES: Um hmm. Mr. Anthony, and then the KKK, I’ve got—the San Marcos Record just let me go through the old newspapers, and they said that they gave Reverend—oh, what was the man’s name? They gave him twenty-five dollars. He was a colored man. He was a good man, and he was sick and they gave him—it was in the paper—they gave him twenty-five dollars because he kept his people in line. Well, Mr. Anthony knew them all from the shoers and when they have their hood and everything on, he could look down and see who it was. The horses—if they were on horseback, he could look at the horses because he’d shoed all of them, and he knew who the KKK was.
Then three Negro men wrote to the KKK, and that was in the paper. They didn’t sign their name. They don’t put their name in there. “Mr. KKK, we’re so glad you ran them tight women out of colored town. We got some more here in colored town you need to run out of town.” (laughs) I said, “I wished I knew who wrote that.”
So somebody—and Johnnie [Armstead] promised them that she would not tell who gave her a KKK robe with the hood, and she never—she went to her grave and we still don’t know who gave it to her. But about two years ago, my daughter said, “Mom, you got something out there on the porch for somebody to pick up?” “No,” because when I come in, I go and park in the back on the carport, and I very seldom use the front door. So that whole weekend and all, and so she said, “Oh, I thought you had something out there.” So that Monday when I got ready to go to the courthouse to get some work done, I looked over that way and I saw a yellow plastic bag on the porch.
I said, “Oh, I guess somebody left something up there for me,” and I went on to work and came back and went and got it. And I opened it. I said, “No! This is not what I think it is.” It was a KKK robe. I have no idea who left it. No idea. It was in a bag and the rope was tied around it and everything. So I took it out and opened it up and held it up. My hands felt, you know, kind of— (laughs) and I thought, okay. So I rolled it up and put it back in the bag, and I called my children. I called my daughter in Kyle, and she said, “Mom, call the police.” Then I called my oldest daughter in Austin. She said, “Mom, please call the police.” I said, “I don’t think it was hate. Somebody know how I am about history, and they were like this person told Johnny, they had been embarrassed to give her that, and I’m sure they felt embarrassment when they left me mine.”
So I went ahead and called Howard. I said, “Howard,” “Yeah, Ollie, what can I do for you?” I said, “Somebody left a KKK robe on my front—“ “Oh, my God, Ollie, you’re kidding.” I said, “No, I’m not.” “Well, I’m going to send somebody by there to pick that puppy up.” I said, “No, Howard, I don’t think it was hate because if it had been hate, that robe would’ve been stretched across my front porch, a cross would’ve been burning, and a note, ‘Get out of town, nigger.” (laughs) And Howard just—he just rolled on.
And so he did send a guy by, a policeman by, and he said, “I didn’t think there was any KKK in San Marcos.” I said, “Sit down, honey.” He sat over there in the chair and I got my scrapbook out telling all about KKK, and in the newspaper how they had a big barbecue up there on the square and everybody was invited, Negroes and everybody, went up there on the square to eat, and everybody just got along. And he looked through that book and he saw all of this about the KKK and how they went into Lockhart to recruit other members. He said, ”Oh, my God. I didn’t know that was here.” But I said, “It seem like we all got along,” so, hey.
THIBODEAUX: So their presence here was not the typical cross-burning, hanging type of thing?
GLIES: No. And you know, when you see them on the street, well, there wasn’t any of that here. And so then I told the security guards down at the Justice Center—because I’d go down there and do criminal background check and everything—and I told them about me getting a KKK robe. And I told Howard too, I said, “Howard, I think I’m going to wash it, and I’m going to find out because I hear they’re still meeting, and I’m going to find out where they meet. I’m going to put my robe on, and I’m going to walk in there and say, ‘I’m sure glad y’all invited me to this meeting.’” And Howard said, “Ollie, you would do that too.” (laughs) So I told the security guards about that. He said, “If you do, I’ll go with you.” I say, “I tell you what, let me borrow—because mine don’t have a hood.” I said, “Let me borrow Johnny’s, and then you wear mine, and I’ll wear Johnny’s with the hood, and we’ll walk in there and you say, ‘Fellows, I want you to meet my wife,’ and I’ll take the hood off.” He said, “Ollie, you’ll get us both killed.” And we just never had any trouble. We really didn’t. So they probably were standing next to us and we didn’t know. Mr. Anthony Giles did, but, hey. And they said some of the bankers were KKK. When we go in there, we’d laugh and talk and we’d borrow money, and everybody just got along. Probably some of those people Mama did washing for, I don’t know.
THIBODEAUX: Well, that is interesting.
GLIES: Yeah. And I’ve got all kinds of newspaper clippings about the KKK when they were here.
THIBODEAUX: So they were more of a social organization here than anything else?
GLIES: I don’t know if—to me I call them a cult because they were white supremacy.
THIBODEAUX: Um hmm.
GLIES: And, hey, to me God made us all, but they had Satan in them. When we die, we’re all going to same place anyway. We’re going to God, and he’s not going to look at the color of our skin. Hey, so, but that was life then, but in other places—my first husband was from Alabama and in there, ooh, and you know how they would burn their homes. We never heard of any burning around here, or in Austin for that fact. We never heard of anybody being burned out of their home. The only thing, my little cousin who was shot, we don’t know if that was the KKK. We just said it was an angry white man because he spoke to his daughter.
THIBODEAUX: Did anything happen to the white man?
GLIES: Nah. Hey, he just killed a nigger, that’s all. So, no, they just let it go, the family and everybody, I guess, because they didn’t want any trouble.
And then my grandmother—the child’s mother had married again to Ed X. McIntyre, and he was a gambler, and I’ve got commissioner court minutes and it’s telling all about all of the bad men, and some of them they had names. And Ed X. was a gambler, and they tried to break that gambling up. Sam Kyle, he was African American, and he was always arrested for gambling. And they made him a deputy sheriff because they thought he could—would stop his gambling, and because that he was a Kyle too, but anyway, I don’t know if he was related to Clairborne Kyle, but he was African American. And they made him a deputy sheriff, and Tom Armstrong was deputy sheriff. Tom Armstrong was the first deputy sheriff—African American deputy sheriff in San Marcos. They said that David Peterson was, but he wasn’t because I’ve got the papers showing when they initiated Tom Armstrong.
No, the deputy sheriff—and then Ed X. McIntyre killed a white man, and I think that was all gambling, and my grandmother said he ran home and said, “Mame, come on and get in the car. Don’t bother to pack nothing. I just killed a white man. We got to get out of San Marcos.” And Mama said Aunt Mame and all of them jumped in the car and rode on out and went to Oklahoma, and they never did find them. And—oh, what’s her name? She got tuberculosis, the girl that was—Lord, I can’t think of my cousin’s name—that rode with him all the time that helped him brew liquor—she got tuberculosis, and Aunt Mame brought her back to Texas and took her to Austin to Grandma. She died in Austin, and her grave is out there because a lot of people think one of my twin daughters favored her a lot. Aunt Mame went on back to Oklahoma, and that’s where she died. I got papers where my grandmother went to Oklahoma to the funeral, and Ed X. died in Oklahoma and he was from Seguin, and they brought his body back to Seguin. Sure did. But they never did catch up with him. (laughs) Oh, never did catch up with him, bless his heart. Yeah, they got out of Dodge.
THIBODEAUX: Well, Ollie, that is an interesting history lesson.
GLIES: I don’t know if I told you everything you want—
(End of interview)