Sam Hill
SAM HILL
Continuation of Oral Interview of Michael Apsey (of Mr. Sam Hill in 1975)
H: We sailed out of Boston, Mass. We first unloaded on, it’s the same island –, it’s an island right across the river from New York City.
I: One of the islands that makes up New York City now?
H: Well, yes I suppose so.
I: I can’t remember.
H: I don’t see why I can’t call the name of it, but I can’t right now. We were there on this island for about a week. I know we went over to New York City and we took a train and went under the river. I didn’t feel very secure, but we came out alright. The Union Station in New York City, and we had a little visit over there a few of us boys. We went then to Boston, Mass. and sailed from there to Nova Scotia and then across. Submarine scare was on then too...
I: Now what part of Europe did you go to.
H: Well we land at Liverpool, England and then from Liverpool to South Hampton, that was on the channel and we took a boat from South Hampton and went across to Morlaix, France. It’s where we landed in France. Then we took a train and went down to Bordeaux and that was big training camp down there and a base hospital, close to Bordeaux and we were there for quite a while.
I: Well, you were in the Artillery, so you were in the fighting part, weren’t you?
H: Well, I was in band.
I: Over there too?
H: Yes.
I: The whole time? Well, you were lucky. When you were discharged from the service you obviously had you thought about going some where else or you were coming back home?
H: I wanted to come back home. I didn’t want to go in the first place. When they put us up in the Army of Occupation, it just killed my soul. I was so anxious to come home.
I: Where were you when all Armistices were signed?
H: I don’t know those little villages that we were in, back around France. We were loaded into what you call quad trucks and we were headed toward the front. The band, their duties were to be stretcher bearers, right on the field to pick up the wounded and bring them in to the first aid stations and then send them to the base hospitals. That was our duty, we didn’t have a gun and I didn’t begrudge that because I didn’t want one. I didn’t want to kill anybody and I didn’t want to get killed. It was quite a good experience going into the Army of Occupation. The United Division that was a division that I was attached to. Their headquarters was at Burncastle, Germany. I bought this ring on the streets at Burncastle in 1919. I bought it just as a souvenir and I put it on, and I got fat after I got home and couldn’t get it off, I did all kinds of work and everything. I know there was an old German lady she wanted to turn this jewelry peddler over to the American authorities and I told her it didn’t cost me $2.50 in American money and I bought it just as a souvenir. I found out it was fourteen carat gold and I have done every kind of rough work.
I: The ring, Mr. Hill, that’s a cameo, isn’t it?
H: Yes.
I: That’s a beautiful ring.
H: I can get off now pretty easy, cause I’ve lost so much weight. That is the story about this ring.
I: Now lets get back to you. You’re still now in Germany?
H: I was in the Army of Occupation in Germany.
I: How many months were you there?
H: About twelve months.
I: When Armistice was signed.
H: Well Armistice was already signed.
I: You had to stay over about that much longer then.
H: Yes, they occupied a part of Germany you know after the war was over with. I don’t know I had a furlough one time and I went up to Cologne, Germany and that was a beautiful city, never touched with our ammunition. The cathedral there was right on the Rhine River, they claimed that they had been building it for a hundred years and it wasn’t finished. That building was as big as our square down here. It was an enormous thing. I went in it and I went in to one part where they had mummies, I don’t know yet what preservation, they claimed that bodies had been preserved I did go through there and it was a sight to see, those bodies were all bandaged up and you could see their faces. They looked just like they were human beings, they claimed they were. It was a preservation of the human body some kind of way of doing it.
I: That cathedral is still beautiful.
H: I saw a wedding there. They didn’t have any white bread in Germany. They had plenty of vegetable and meats, but they didn’t have any bread of any kind. They threw rice like it come from heaven.
I: Like we do now.
H: They threw the rice and I thought they ought to be saving that rice.
I: Well how did the German people treat you all in occupation?
H: Oh they were just wonderful. We lived in a German home and the old lady, the mother of the family. There were four of us had upstairs room. This old lady would come up every evening when we retire and she’d come up there and they had feather mattresses and another one for the top, it was not as large as the one you lay on. This old lady would come up there and tuck us in this bed with that feather. We just sleep as warm and comfortable. Every Sunday, they’d insist that we eat dinner with them, they didn’t have to twist our arm to get us to do that. They had all kinds of meat, and they knew how to pickleize it and make it appetizing and it was wonderful. The bread was Irish potatoes cooked in boiling water in the jacket, and put on the table for the bread. That was pretty good too. We had all kinds of vegetables they’d raised. I think one thing that impressed me in that Army of Occupation was, there was a farm they had their stables on the off side of the highway and the farm was on this side and they had a little acreage back upon the side of the hill and they raised grain and they fertilized. They had this barn, I went down to the barn, and they had concrete floor all over the barn. A little from the animals was a cart and that was carried to the soil They had grapevines and German’s wealth was measured by the number of grapevines that he owned.
I: You were there about 12 months and then you caught a ship back home?
H: Yes.
I: Did you land in New York or along the east coast?
H: Yes, we did and we went across the river to New Jersey and then we were in a camp in, oh what’s the name of that New Jersey, right across from New York City? Anyway we were there about 3 or 4 days. Our band was a fifty piece band. About 25 of the boys were northern boys. We had one boy played the xylophone and trap drums, that played with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. All those boys stayed back in the north and only 25 of us came back to the South. When we got to Dallas, they were going to parade down there and the Band Master came around and told me I had to be the drum major. I said I can’t do that. He said you have to. I had watched it I knew how, but I just didn’t think I could do it. I was getting a little weak anyway. The Band Master gave me the stick and I had to get out and call the band to order and get ready for the parade and we went up Main Street and down Commerce and back to the depot. They then took us over to Ft. Worth to a camp. (that they’re discussing now, something about a move) we were discharged there.
H: Camp Hill.
I: Carswell Air Force Base is there, I don’t guess it was the air force.
H: Ft. Worth (bought some time ago that) big fort.
I: Then you came home. How long was it till you married?
H: Approximately 4 or 5 years.
I: When you got back, had you been home periodically, on leave or had you been away the whole time?
H: I had been away the whole time.
I: Now were you impressed and got back and saw it. You’d been away long.
H: Well I’d been away over two years. I didn’t remember that much change in it. I know there was a ladies, I can’t remember what organization it was, but they put on a display of all the souvenirs from the soldiers and I just happened to have a pipe and, I found it. This pipe sit in the floor for the smoker to sit in an easy chair and smoke it had that long stem. The lady asked me if I’d let them use it in a show downtown. I said oh yes, that’s one I got from the Kaiser. I didn’t get it from, I just bought some where and you know they told it around that I got that from the Kaiser. In Burncastle, Germany they put on a parade and they had a cage set and a truck, it was regular iron cage you could see through it and it had signs all over it, Kaiser, I thought about that, the Germans that really believed in the Kaiser it wasn’t very good for them to see the Kaiser all bound in chains in a cage.
I: Back to the gin I suppose.
H: Yes I didn’t have any money and I went back to Melissa and I had a good friend that was in the bank up there that stayed with me through thick and thin. He was a cashier in the Melissa bank, he was a brother to the Dr. Wysong, the old doctor and so I went to him and asked for credit and he extended me credit, I came to McKinney then and bought cotton down here on the streets and gave farmers checks on Melissa bank, it was OK. All the banks would cash them here, so it was handled pretty nicely then. One day Mr. Wysong came to me and said they were going to liquidate the bank, I would have to get new credit somewhere. I said well I don’t know, I think Mr. Eubanks might help me at Central National.
I: Now you had to change your banking from that to Central National.
H: No I had to change from Melissa, they liquidated that bank up there and Mr. Wysong told me that if I had any trouble, he’d come down if he had to he’d back me personally. I didn’t think I had to call on him, I thought Mr. Eubanks knew me well enough, because I had worked on a Greenville firm and handled a business through Central National Bank. I thought he knew that I was capable of handling stuff. When I went to him, he asked what did I have to put up for security. I told him I don’t have anything, I said I got a 3500 note against my mother and fathers estate, but it’s not negotiable and it wouldn’t do you any good! He said bring it down and let me look at it. I hated to do it, but I did. I took it down there and let him look at. While I was talking I said Mr. Wysong said if I had any trouble here, he didn’t tell me to go to the Collin County Bank or Central National either, but if I had any trouble he’d come down here and talk to you and if it was necessary he’d back me personally. He said tell him to come down here. The Interurban were running then, so he caught the next car, he didn’t wait, he caught the next one.
I: Mr. Hill, was that Dr. Wysong?
H: It was old doctor Wysong’s brother, Hamp Wysong, he was cashier of the Melissa National Bank. He came down here and he went into Central National and talked to Eubanks. That afternoon when I left the office, I started across the square to go home, Mr. Eubanks hollered at me and said come here. I went over and I didn’t have any idea what he wanted with me, I had no idea. He said Wysong talked to me, in the morning come by and get a check book and pencil and go after it.
I: That’s when you really got started in cotton buying and selling business.
H: He said, I’m just going to say this if you can come up to the recommendation that Wysong gave you, you’re superhuman. I said I want to tell you right quick I’m not superhuman and I do make mistakes, but I will promise I won’t lose this bank one penny. I don’t have to gamble and I’m not smart. When I took Mr. Brown as partner, why he asked Mr. Brown to put up, Mr. Brown had a few thousand dollars and he put up a thousand dollars and he took it down at the end of the season. The next season that started Mr. Eubanks wasn’t over there and we just went ahead. Mr. Sims Cameron was the head bookkeeper so I told Sims we can’t wait on that we got to go to work. I said cotton mugging and he said when Mr. Eubanks came back, why I’ll call you and you can come over and talk to him. One day Sims called me and said Mr. Eubanks’s back if you want to talk to him. I said I don’t want to talk to him, if he wants to talk to us tell him our office is up to Mitchell’s Drug Store. Do you know I couldn’t think about that Drug Store there.
I: Yes, it used to be Mitchell’s Drug Store before Perry’s.
H: Yes, Mitchell’s Drug Store. I said if he wants us that’s where we are. I kept on and Mr. Eubanks never did come over and Mr. Brown never did put up any more money. We worked for thirty years without having a squabble or any differences whatever, we just got along fine. We agreed on everything. It’s unusual, I never thought I could I know I’m a little hot headed sometimes, I might fly off and say the wrong thing, but he was very humorous, Mr. Brown was, he was the oldest one of the Browns. The others were in the grain business, his brothers.
I: What was his initial or name?
H: It was Clifford Brown.
I: How long were you in the business before you married?
H: I was, I don’t know how many years, Mr. Brown was my partner when I got married. I didn’t tell him that I was getting married. We got married one morning early. We took our honeymoon trip in Oklahoma in Sulfur, Oklahoma.
I: Didn’t they have those baths and things there then? It was sort of a vacation spot, wasn’t it?
H: Well it was health
I: Health center.
H: They had those sulfur wells and the odor was terrible. There was so many people that came there. People with arthritis would sit and put that mud over their legs and stay there for hours. It didn’t do them any good, I don’t think.
I: They thought it did though.
H: Yes, yes.
I: That was your honeymoon?
H: That was my honeymoon.
I: Well you didn’t marry in the church very much did ya?
H: We married in the parsonage, Brother Weaver, he passed several years ago he was pastor of the Christian Church. That’s funny how Bernice came to the Baptist Church, I didn’t ask her to come and after the children were born, she asked me to go to the Christian Church and I told her no. I been reared in a Baptist Church and I just don’t think I’m strong enough to go to some other church and take up. I don’t know any difference between the two churches, but I said I’m not. I have a neighbor up here two houses from us, the man’s a teacher at a Baptist Sunday School and the woman belongs to 1st Christian Church. She wouldn’t go to the Baptist Church if she I think she’d gone to hell before she went to a Baptist church. I told Bernice we can be as good as they are. I’ll go to your church at church time but I’m not going to join. Enroll our children in the cradle roll and we’ll just go on. Well the kiddos grew up and they enrolled in the Christian Church cradle roll. They got in the North Ward School and Dr. Clifton came here. Dr. Clifton came down home and Bernice had always worked at different things. The last place she worked was with the TPL people. Dr. Clifton came down home and needed a secretary at the church and asked if she’d come and supply. She asked me what I thought about it and I said well you do whatever you want to. It’s just a short time, supply, I don’t see why you would be willing to go up there and just as She got up there and she liked it so well she stayed there for thirteen years, before she had to quit on the account of her heart condition. Then she joined the Baptist Church, that was when Dr. Kodad was here. She asked me one evening late she asked me would you drive me down to the parsonage and I said yea, I didn’t ask why or what. I drove her down there and I stayed in the car and she and Dr. Kodad talked a while and directly they came on the porch and talked. After she got in the car, we started off and I said well I guess you’re satisfied I don’t know what you came for, but I hope you’re satisfied. She said I am, I’m perfectly satisfied, there s just a point or two in the Bible that I didn’t understand, you alls way of looking at it, and he explained it to me. Two weeks after that to my surprise she went down and joined the Baptist church. Her mother and father both had passed. Her father was a deacon in the 1st Christian Church too and that made it little hard on her.
I: Now you have two daughters one of them is Mary Emellen what?
H: Emellen is the youngest one. Virginia was Virginia Brawley, she married Sheriff Brawley’s son and he walked out on them down there and she’s been carrying on for several years. Emellen married a Strickland, Benny Strickland. She had a church wedding here. Virginia, I sent them both to the girls’ school in Denton. At the time I sent Virginia over there, the girls’ school was the only school in the state that furnished the books, which was a pretty big item. Virginia didn’t want to go over there and I told her you don’t know what you want to do you been here in McKinney and I said if you want to go to any other school after you’ve been over there a year, I’ll try and make arrangements for you to go where ever you want to go. She went on over there and she had a lovely roommate from Shreveport, Louisiana and they’re just like sisters they were so close and she fell in love with the school. When she married she had to marry in that little cockeyed church in the woods.
I: Now she has two children did you say?
H: Two boys.
I: And Emellen has?
H: A boy and a girl. The girl is the one gave me that candy, a 4 pd. box of candy and me a diabetic.
I: They both made school teachers, didn’t they?
H: Yea, Emellen has her masters degree from North Texas, but she got her bachelor’s degree at a girls school and Benny got his Doctors degree in education at North Texas and he’s been with TCU every since. He’s on the teachers staff over there. Emellen worked one year at TCU (in this work that I can’t think of now) counselor. She was a counselor, but she didn’t like the college’s work as a counselor. She preferred to go to high school. She got a job at the high school it’s about a ten minute drive from her home.
I: There at Ft. Worth.
H: Yes, so that’s where she is now at that high school. The boy’s in Baylor University. He’s as big as a cow.
I: Now how old is the little girl?
H: She’s fifteen.
I: Now Mr. Hill, I knew your wife but how long has she been gone, when did she die?
H: She died in November of 1966. She’s been gone about 9 years.
I: You’ve lived in McKmnney, I guess, when you weren’t in Melissa all your life?
H: I’ve lived in McKinney since 1921.
I: You remember when they remodeled the courthouse and tore down all the trees and everything.
H: When they remodeled the courthouse, well.
I: I’ve seen pictures of the courthouse way back when there used to be a lawn all around it and a hill and steps going up.
H: Yes I just couldn’t give a date. One of my close friend’s father was a commissioner at the time, Mr. Jim Gibson was one of the commissioners when they remodeled. They have a plate down there, don’t they, showing when they remodeled?
I: Around 1925 I think.
H: That hospital over was a early one. Both of my children were born in that hospital over there. That was back in the early thirties. Well Emellen was born in 1931 and Virginia in late 29.
I: Well that’s OK. Do you remember what to you was the biggest thing ever happened to the city of McKinney?
H: Well I don’t know, I don’t quite understand what you mean.
I: Oh one event that changed the city perhaps or helped the city improve.
H: Well you know it’s been quite a big change in McKinney but I don’t know if it’s improved or not. There used to be a Rambo Park out on North Chestnut Street and they had a race track out there. Mr. Rambo owned the property and he had roller skates, was the first one I ever knew of and he had that floor that was maple and it was wonderful. I played in the band way back then as a kid, the Chambersville band and Proc. Smith was the director of that band over at Chambersville and Mr. Rambo would give us a dollar a piece, there was twelve of us, to come down there and play at that skating rink. You talking about turning out people I never saw so many people and that’s been destroyed, I don’t know where it went. That building out there now, by A & P’s store.
I: The Plaza.
H: Yes, well that was the property that Mr. Rambo owned and his skating rink was down there where they extended that building, on down further toward that street that goes east and west. They used to race on tracks, I mean horse races and they had Mr. Gairish, Beechman Gairish I’m sure you’ve heard of him. Mrs. Fred Coffey, her father, I seen him out there training horses with these little old carts. They had a regular track around and he’d ride around. They had stables out there then too, that’s before the rink was built. I wish I could tell you what time it was, I was just a kid when that skating rink was in operation. We came down there and Ross Orenduff was slide trombone player and we’d get through playing, we’d come to town and get some peanuts and get a horse and buggy, we’d go over to his home half way between McKinney and Melissa and I’d spend the night over there and he’d take me home the next morning and we’d eat peanuts from McKinney to his home.
I: It sounds like fun that’s what it sounds like. In the cotton business, you’re talking about back some time ago, before there wasn’t any chemicals. How hard was it to grow cotton?
H: At one time in McKinney, I think it was five gins here. It was Burger Gin, Farmers Gin, Oil Mill Gin and Thompson Gin and a Griffin Gin. I don’t know what year it was, but Collin County, the biggest production I ever knew it to make was one year they had a bumper crop and they’d make 90,000 bales of cotton in Collin County. They don’t raise five now.
I: Do you have any idea why its down?
H: Yea it’s the people changing way of life. Right now cotton is the best product that we have for clothing, it’s more suitable for many things and we have, I don’t know what they use for medical purposes whether its synthetics or not, but they used to use cotton for everything. I know one thing– polyester cloth, I don’t know what it’s made up of I know I have two or three shirts ones made in Korea and that’s polyester 100% and I can put those shirts in my lavatory in there and wash the collar and when I get it washed and hang it on a rack in a hours time, why it’s ready to wear.
I: That’s why cotton went down.
H: Yea, that’s right. People just got to wearing more synthetic garments and you can’t hardly blame them.
I: Back when you were running the gin were you too concerned about how the cotton was growing. Did they have bug problems or insects, can you remember any insects?
H: Yes they did in some years in wet years they had boll weevil infection and a hopper of some kind, a hopper that infected the cotton, flea hopper or something like that.
I: The grasshoppers get pretty bad too?
H: Yes. You know there’s a lot of things if I had anything to remind me of I might be able to help you.
I: I just want to know how they treated them.
H: Well they had, the first I knew of was a boll weevil they used some kind of a machine that just whipped the bush, the cotton plant, just whipped it around a little bit. They didn’t use that very much, cause they’d knock those weevils off and the sun would at midday would affect them and it would not damage the cotton very much. Then later on they used some kind of a liquid that they claimed affected them. I had farmers tell me that they had better cotton when there’s two fields side by side, where they didn’t doctor the cotton plant they had better cotton than when they did doctor it. They just didn’t have it down to perfection.
I: No, but nature did I guess.
H: Yes that’s right.
I: Well that’s it I think it was a wonderful interview. We certainly did appreciate it.
H: Now I want you all to eat some candy. This is a Texas History tape by Michael Apsey
Daniel Montague was born in Massachusetts. He was a surveyor and became interested in the Texas cause in 1836, he moved here. From 1843 to 1846 he traded his surveying tools for a rifle. He took to helping pioneers protect their homesites. Daniel Montague had helped those same settlers find their homesites by surveying and searching for locations. Montague was pioneer Texan and soon Texas was to become the twenty-eighth state. As the government was organized new counties were to be born. Daniel Montague was remembered in the naming of one of those counties, northwest of Dallas. He died in 1876, but his namesake lives on. In it Bowie, grown to over 6,000, Nacona 4000. KBOX FM welcomes them to our span of listening audiences. For KBOX FM has grown too in power and welcomes Montague County to Stereo 100.
The annexation of Texas was no easy matter. Texas voters had approved of joining forces with young America back in 1836, but it wasn’t going to be easy lowering the Lone Star flag and replacing it with stripes. Among the opponents was Henry Clay and in 1844, eight years after voters had approved Texas statehood, Texas was still a country, not a state, with a president not a governor. Henry Clay was defeated by a Democrat James Polk. U. S. Senator Henry Wise of Virginia was one of those favoring annexation and today Wise County bears his name.
Bridgeport has grown to 4,000 and KBOX FM welcomes them to our expanded listening area. KBOX FM Dallas, we’ve grown too in power and welcomes Bridgeport, Decatur and Wise County to Stereo 100. In the period of faith and the value of the United States dollar was dwindling. The U. S. Secretary of Treasury restored that value, during his 1814 to 1816 stay in office. His name was Alexander Dallas, his son George Dallas served as Vice President of the U. S. later under James Polk. It was this period when Texas became the 28th state and Dallas County was born, in it of course Dallas both named and honoring the V. President George Dallas. In Dallas County is Carrollton and Carrollton has grown to nearly 14,000. KBOX FM welcomes them to our span of listening area. KBOX FM Dallas we’ve grown too in power and welcomes Carrollton to Stereo 100.
The Invincible, the Brutus, the Independence and the Liberty. Four strong ships that brave the Gulf of Mexico as the Texas Navy. This was no laughing matter because before Texas statehood, Texas used a Navy to protect its shoreline. The President of Texas has ordered the ships to Yucatan to ally with Mexican rebels against Mexico. The President is Merigo Lamare. The commander of the Naval fleet is Commander Edwin Moore, formerly with the U. S. Navy.
The ships were --- in 1843 with annexation pressing, but several of the ships were good enough to be incorporated into the United States Navy. Secretary of the Texas Navy is Memican Hunt, for whom Hunt County is named. In it Greenville 22,000 Commerce 1,000, KBOX FM with its span of listening audiences. KBOX FM Dallas, we’ve grown too with more power and we welcome Hunt County to Stereo 100.
Year 1836 Fort Houston, Texas needs a doctor and Doctor George Washington Hill moved in. Texas is about to claim her independence from Mexico and Hill is about to be made Secretary of War and of the Texas Navy. Anson Jones was going to reappoint Dr. Hill for that post. What Jones didn’t know was Texas was about to be annexed and Texas wasn’t going to need a Secretary of War. Hill County Texas was created in 1853 for Dr. Hill and with growing Hillsboro 7,000 residents is welcome to the span of listing audiences. KBOX FM Dallas. We’ve grown too in power and welcomes Hill County to Stereo 100.
Year now it’s 1837 (1847) Texas hasn’t been a state for very long, just a year or two, but already U. S. government was setting up its territory, the representatives and counties. Many counties are created in Texas, mostly from other larger counties, who give up parts of the territory. Naming these new counties is a job for the legislature. In some cases counties are left to name themselves. Most honor heroes and David Spangler Kaufman was remembered. He was a lawyer, who moved to Texas in 1837. He was the first Texan to be seated 30 & 31 Congresses of the United States. Kaufman died in Washington in 1851 in Waltens, sustain fighting Cherokees. Kaufman County is home of Terrell 13,000 and KBOX FM welcomes them to our span of listening audiences. KBOX FM Dallas we’ve grown too in power and welcome home of Terrell to Stereo 100.
1838, Texas is 8 million dollars in debt, and one way to get it is to sell Republic Bonds, so the President hires an ex-South Carolina Governor, name James Hamilton, to get the money. Hamilton works first as a diplomat and with success for the loan to be reached Hamilton has a new boss. Sam Houston is President of Texas in 1841, Houston doesn’t like the idea so he scuttles it, has the law permitting the loan repealed, refuses the pay Hamilton 210,000 Texans owe him, and has him fired. Hamilton receives word sixteen years later that Texas wants to settle their debt so he catches this ship to Texas, but drowns on the way. When his ship is ran and he gives his life to a woman and child. Hamilton County is named for James Hamilton in it Hamilton 28,000 and KBOX FM Dallas with more power. KBOX FM Dallas welcomes Hamilton to Stereo 100.
Among the mistakes young Texas made was to wander off into what is now named New Mexico with a brave band of men who established jurisdiction. Mistake because Santa Fe expedition as it’s called was captured and everyone was put in a dungeon and stayed until US intervened nearly three years later. W. G. Cook was on that mission. He’d given up a peaceful drug store to go. In 1842 Cook was released he came back to marry Antonio Navarro’s niece. The rest of his career was spent serving Governor Henderson. Cook died in office in 1847. Named in his honor was Cook County.
Continuation of Oral Interview of Michael Apsey (of Mr. Sam Hill in 1975)
H: We sailed out of Boston, Mass. We first unloaded on, it’s the same island –, it’s an island right across the river from New York City.
I: One of the islands that makes up New York City now?
H: Well, yes I suppose so.
I: I can’t remember.
H: I don’t see why I can’t call the name of it, but I can’t right now. We were there on this island for about a week. I know we went over to New York City and we took a train and went under the river. I didn’t feel very secure, but we came out alright. The Union Station in New York City, and we had a little visit over there a few of us boys. We went then to Boston, Mass. and sailed from there to Nova Scotia and then across. Submarine scare was on then too...
I: Now what part of Europe did you go to.
H: Well we land at Liverpool, England and then from Liverpool to South Hampton, that was on the channel and we took a boat from South Hampton and went across to Morlaix, France. It’s where we landed in France. Then we took a train and went down to Bordeaux and that was big training camp down there and a base hospital, close to Bordeaux and we were there for quite a while.
I: Well, you were in the Artillery, so you were in the fighting part, weren’t you?
H: Well, I was in band.
I: Over there too?
H: Yes.
I: The whole time? Well, you were lucky. When you were discharged from the service you obviously had you thought about going some where else or you were coming back home?
H: I wanted to come back home. I didn’t want to go in the first place. When they put us up in the Army of Occupation, it just killed my soul. I was so anxious to come home.
I: Where were you when all Armistices were signed?
H: I don’t know those little villages that we were in, back around France. We were loaded into what you call quad trucks and we were headed toward the front. The band, their duties were to be stretcher bearers, right on the field to pick up the wounded and bring them in to the first aid stations and then send them to the base hospitals. That was our duty, we didn’t have a gun and I didn’t begrudge that because I didn’t want one. I didn’t want to kill anybody and I didn’t want to get killed. It was quite a good experience going into the Army of Occupation. The United Division that was a division that I was attached to. Their headquarters was at Burncastle, Germany. I bought this ring on the streets at Burncastle in 1919. I bought it just as a souvenir and I put it on, and I got fat after I got home and couldn’t get it off, I did all kinds of work and everything. I know there was an old German lady she wanted to turn this jewelry peddler over to the American authorities and I told her it didn’t cost me $2.50 in American money and I bought it just as a souvenir. I found out it was fourteen carat gold and I have done every kind of rough work.
I: The ring, Mr. Hill, that’s a cameo, isn’t it?
H: Yes.
I: That’s a beautiful ring.
H: I can get off now pretty easy, cause I’ve lost so much weight. That is the story about this ring.
I: Now lets get back to you. You’re still now in Germany?
H: I was in the Army of Occupation in Germany.
I: How many months were you there?
H: About twelve months.
I: When Armistice was signed.
H: Well Armistice was already signed.
I: You had to stay over about that much longer then.
H: Yes, they occupied a part of Germany you know after the war was over with. I don’t know I had a furlough one time and I went up to Cologne, Germany and that was a beautiful city, never touched with our ammunition. The cathedral there was right on the Rhine River, they claimed that they had been building it for a hundred years and it wasn’t finished. That building was as big as our square down here. It was an enormous thing. I went in it and I went in to one part where they had mummies, I don’t know yet what preservation, they claimed that bodies had been preserved I did go through there and it was a sight to see, those bodies were all bandaged up and you could see their faces. They looked just like they were human beings, they claimed they were. It was a preservation of the human body some kind of way of doing it.
I: That cathedral is still beautiful.
H: I saw a wedding there. They didn’t have any white bread in Germany. They had plenty of vegetable and meats, but they didn’t have any bread of any kind. They threw rice like it come from heaven.
I: Like we do now.
H: They threw the rice and I thought they ought to be saving that rice.
I: Well how did the German people treat you all in occupation?
H: Oh they were just wonderful. We lived in a German home and the old lady, the mother of the family. There were four of us had upstairs room. This old lady would come up every evening when we retire and she’d come up there and they had feather mattresses and another one for the top, it was not as large as the one you lay on. This old lady would come up there and tuck us in this bed with that feather. We just sleep as warm and comfortable. Every Sunday, they’d insist that we eat dinner with them, they didn’t have to twist our arm to get us to do that. They had all kinds of meat, and they knew how to pickleize it and make it appetizing and it was wonderful. The bread was Irish potatoes cooked in boiling water in the jacket, and put on the table for the bread. That was pretty good too. We had all kinds of vegetables they’d raised. I think one thing that impressed me in that Army of Occupation was, there was a farm they had their stables on the off side of the highway and the farm was on this side and they had a little acreage back upon the side of the hill and they raised grain and they fertilized. They had this barn, I went down to the barn, and they had concrete floor all over the barn. A little from the animals was a cart and that was carried to the soil They had grapevines and German’s wealth was measured by the number of grapevines that he owned.
I: You were there about 12 months and then you caught a ship back home?
H: Yes.
I: Did you land in New York or along the east coast?
H: Yes, we did and we went across the river to New Jersey and then we were in a camp in, oh what’s the name of that New Jersey, right across from New York City? Anyway we were there about 3 or 4 days. Our band was a fifty piece band. About 25 of the boys were northern boys. We had one boy played the xylophone and trap drums, that played with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. All those boys stayed back in the north and only 25 of us came back to the South. When we got to Dallas, they were going to parade down there and the Band Master came around and told me I had to be the drum major. I said I can’t do that. He said you have to. I had watched it I knew how, but I just didn’t think I could do it. I was getting a little weak anyway. The Band Master gave me the stick and I had to get out and call the band to order and get ready for the parade and we went up Main Street and down Commerce and back to the depot. They then took us over to Ft. Worth to a camp. (that they’re discussing now, something about a move) we were discharged there.
H: Camp Hill.
I: Carswell Air Force Base is there, I don’t guess it was the air force.
H: Ft. Worth (bought some time ago that) big fort.
I: Then you came home. How long was it till you married?
H: Approximately 4 or 5 years.
I: When you got back, had you been home periodically, on leave or had you been away the whole time?
H: I had been away the whole time.
I: Now were you impressed and got back and saw it. You’d been away long.
H: Well I’d been away over two years. I didn’t remember that much change in it. I know there was a ladies, I can’t remember what organization it was, but they put on a display of all the souvenirs from the soldiers and I just happened to have a pipe and, I found it. This pipe sit in the floor for the smoker to sit in an easy chair and smoke it had that long stem. The lady asked me if I’d let them use it in a show downtown. I said oh yes, that’s one I got from the Kaiser. I didn’t get it from, I just bought some where and you know they told it around that I got that from the Kaiser. In Burncastle, Germany they put on a parade and they had a cage set and a truck, it was regular iron cage you could see through it and it had signs all over it, Kaiser, I thought about that, the Germans that really believed in the Kaiser it wasn’t very good for them to see the Kaiser all bound in chains in a cage.
I: Back to the gin I suppose.
H: Yes I didn’t have any money and I went back to Melissa and I had a good friend that was in the bank up there that stayed with me through thick and thin. He was a cashier in the Melissa bank, he was a brother to the Dr. Wysong, the old doctor and so I went to him and asked for credit and he extended me credit, I came to McKinney then and bought cotton down here on the streets and gave farmers checks on Melissa bank, it was OK. All the banks would cash them here, so it was handled pretty nicely then. One day Mr. Wysong came to me and said they were going to liquidate the bank, I would have to get new credit somewhere. I said well I don’t know, I think Mr. Eubanks might help me at Central National.
I: Now you had to change your banking from that to Central National.
H: No I had to change from Melissa, they liquidated that bank up there and Mr. Wysong told me that if I had any trouble, he’d come down if he had to he’d back me personally. I didn’t think I had to call on him, I thought Mr. Eubanks knew me well enough, because I had worked on a Greenville firm and handled a business through Central National Bank. I thought he knew that I was capable of handling stuff. When I went to him, he asked what did I have to put up for security. I told him I don’t have anything, I said I got a 3500 note against my mother and fathers estate, but it’s not negotiable and it wouldn’t do you any good! He said bring it down and let me look at it. I hated to do it, but I did. I took it down there and let him look at. While I was talking I said Mr. Wysong said if I had any trouble here, he didn’t tell me to go to the Collin County Bank or Central National either, but if I had any trouble he’d come down here and talk to you and if it was necessary he’d back me personally. He said tell him to come down here. The Interurban were running then, so he caught the next car, he didn’t wait, he caught the next one.
I: Mr. Hill, was that Dr. Wysong?
H: It was old doctor Wysong’s brother, Hamp Wysong, he was cashier of the Melissa National Bank. He came down here and he went into Central National and talked to Eubanks. That afternoon when I left the office, I started across the square to go home, Mr. Eubanks hollered at me and said come here. I went over and I didn’t have any idea what he wanted with me, I had no idea. He said Wysong talked to me, in the morning come by and get a check book and pencil and go after it.
I: That’s when you really got started in cotton buying and selling business.
H: He said, I’m just going to say this if you can come up to the recommendation that Wysong gave you, you’re superhuman. I said I want to tell you right quick I’m not superhuman and I do make mistakes, but I will promise I won’t lose this bank one penny. I don’t have to gamble and I’m not smart. When I took Mr. Brown as partner, why he asked Mr. Brown to put up, Mr. Brown had a few thousand dollars and he put up a thousand dollars and he took it down at the end of the season. The next season that started Mr. Eubanks wasn’t over there and we just went ahead. Mr. Sims Cameron was the head bookkeeper so I told Sims we can’t wait on that we got to go to work. I said cotton mugging and he said when Mr. Eubanks came back, why I’ll call you and you can come over and talk to him. One day Sims called me and said Mr. Eubanks’s back if you want to talk to him. I said I don’t want to talk to him, if he wants to talk to us tell him our office is up to Mitchell’s Drug Store. Do you know I couldn’t think about that Drug Store there.
I: Yes, it used to be Mitchell’s Drug Store before Perry’s.
H: Yes, Mitchell’s Drug Store. I said if he wants us that’s where we are. I kept on and Mr. Eubanks never did come over and Mr. Brown never did put up any more money. We worked for thirty years without having a squabble or any differences whatever, we just got along fine. We agreed on everything. It’s unusual, I never thought I could I know I’m a little hot headed sometimes, I might fly off and say the wrong thing, but he was very humorous, Mr. Brown was, he was the oldest one of the Browns. The others were in the grain business, his brothers.
I: What was his initial or name?
H: It was Clifford Brown.
I: How long were you in the business before you married?
H: I was, I don’t know how many years, Mr. Brown was my partner when I got married. I didn’t tell him that I was getting married. We got married one morning early. We took our honeymoon trip in Oklahoma in Sulfur, Oklahoma.
I: Didn’t they have those baths and things there then? It was sort of a vacation spot, wasn’t it?
H: Well it was health
I: Health center.
H: They had those sulfur wells and the odor was terrible. There was so many people that came there. People with arthritis would sit and put that mud over their legs and stay there for hours. It didn’t do them any good, I don’t think.
I: They thought it did though.
H: Yes, yes.
I: That was your honeymoon?
H: That was my honeymoon.
I: Well you didn’t marry in the church very much did ya?
H: We married in the parsonage, Brother Weaver, he passed several years ago he was pastor of the Christian Church. That’s funny how Bernice came to the Baptist Church, I didn’t ask her to come and after the children were born, she asked me to go to the Christian Church and I told her no. I been reared in a Baptist Church and I just don’t think I’m strong enough to go to some other church and take up. I don’t know any difference between the two churches, but I said I’m not. I have a neighbor up here two houses from us, the man’s a teacher at a Baptist Sunday School and the woman belongs to 1st Christian Church. She wouldn’t go to the Baptist Church if she I think she’d gone to hell before she went to a Baptist church. I told Bernice we can be as good as they are. I’ll go to your church at church time but I’m not going to join. Enroll our children in the cradle roll and we’ll just go on. Well the kiddos grew up and they enrolled in the Christian Church cradle roll. They got in the North Ward School and Dr. Clifton came here. Dr. Clifton came down home and Bernice had always worked at different things. The last place she worked was with the TPL people. Dr. Clifton came down home and needed a secretary at the church and asked if she’d come and supply. She asked me what I thought about it and I said well you do whatever you want to. It’s just a short time, supply, I don’t see why you would be willing to go up there and just as She got up there and she liked it so well she stayed there for thirteen years, before she had to quit on the account of her heart condition. Then she joined the Baptist Church, that was when Dr. Kodad was here. She asked me one evening late she asked me would you drive me down to the parsonage and I said yea, I didn’t ask why or what. I drove her down there and I stayed in the car and she and Dr. Kodad talked a while and directly they came on the porch and talked. After she got in the car, we started off and I said well I guess you’re satisfied I don’t know what you came for, but I hope you’re satisfied. She said I am, I’m perfectly satisfied, there s just a point or two in the Bible that I didn’t understand, you alls way of looking at it, and he explained it to me. Two weeks after that to my surprise she went down and joined the Baptist church. Her mother and father both had passed. Her father was a deacon in the 1st Christian Church too and that made it little hard on her.
I: Now you have two daughters one of them is Mary Emellen what?
H: Emellen is the youngest one. Virginia was Virginia Brawley, she married Sheriff Brawley’s son and he walked out on them down there and she’s been carrying on for several years. Emellen married a Strickland, Benny Strickland. She had a church wedding here. Virginia, I sent them both to the girls’ school in Denton. At the time I sent Virginia over there, the girls’ school was the only school in the state that furnished the books, which was a pretty big item. Virginia didn’t want to go over there and I told her you don’t know what you want to do you been here in McKinney and I said if you want to go to any other school after you’ve been over there a year, I’ll try and make arrangements for you to go where ever you want to go. She went on over there and she had a lovely roommate from Shreveport, Louisiana and they’re just like sisters they were so close and she fell in love with the school. When she married she had to marry in that little cockeyed church in the woods.
I: Now she has two children did you say?
H: Two boys.
I: And Emellen has?
H: A boy and a girl. The girl is the one gave me that candy, a 4 pd. box of candy and me a diabetic.
I: They both made school teachers, didn’t they?
H: Yea, Emellen has her masters degree from North Texas, but she got her bachelor’s degree at a girls school and Benny got his Doctors degree in education at North Texas and he’s been with TCU every since. He’s on the teachers staff over there. Emellen worked one year at TCU (in this work that I can’t think of now) counselor. She was a counselor, but she didn’t like the college’s work as a counselor. She preferred to go to high school. She got a job at the high school it’s about a ten minute drive from her home.
I: There at Ft. Worth.
H: Yes, so that’s where she is now at that high school. The boy’s in Baylor University. He’s as big as a cow.
I: Now how old is the little girl?
H: She’s fifteen.
I: Now Mr. Hill, I knew your wife but how long has she been gone, when did she die?
H: She died in November of 1966. She’s been gone about 9 years.
I: You’ve lived in McKmnney, I guess, when you weren’t in Melissa all your life?
H: I’ve lived in McKinney since 1921.
I: You remember when they remodeled the courthouse and tore down all the trees and everything.
H: When they remodeled the courthouse, well.
I: I’ve seen pictures of the courthouse way back when there used to be a lawn all around it and a hill and steps going up.
H: Yes I just couldn’t give a date. One of my close friend’s father was a commissioner at the time, Mr. Jim Gibson was one of the commissioners when they remodeled. They have a plate down there, don’t they, showing when they remodeled?
I: Around 1925 I think.
H: That hospital over was a early one. Both of my children were born in that hospital over there. That was back in the early thirties. Well Emellen was born in 1931 and Virginia in late 29.
I: Well that’s OK. Do you remember what to you was the biggest thing ever happened to the city of McKinney?
H: Well I don’t know, I don’t quite understand what you mean.
I: Oh one event that changed the city perhaps or helped the city improve.
H: Well you know it’s been quite a big change in McKinney but I don’t know if it’s improved or not. There used to be a Rambo Park out on North Chestnut Street and they had a race track out there. Mr. Rambo owned the property and he had roller skates, was the first one I ever knew of and he had that floor that was maple and it was wonderful. I played in the band way back then as a kid, the Chambersville band and Proc. Smith was the director of that band over at Chambersville and Mr. Rambo would give us a dollar a piece, there was twelve of us, to come down there and play at that skating rink. You talking about turning out people I never saw so many people and that’s been destroyed, I don’t know where it went. That building out there now, by A & P’s store.
I: The Plaza.
H: Yes, well that was the property that Mr. Rambo owned and his skating rink was down there where they extended that building, on down further toward that street that goes east and west. They used to race on tracks, I mean horse races and they had Mr. Gairish, Beechman Gairish I’m sure you’ve heard of him. Mrs. Fred Coffey, her father, I seen him out there training horses with these little old carts. They had a regular track around and he’d ride around. They had stables out there then too, that’s before the rink was built. I wish I could tell you what time it was, I was just a kid when that skating rink was in operation. We came down there and Ross Orenduff was slide trombone player and we’d get through playing, we’d come to town and get some peanuts and get a horse and buggy, we’d go over to his home half way between McKinney and Melissa and I’d spend the night over there and he’d take me home the next morning and we’d eat peanuts from McKinney to his home.
I: It sounds like fun that’s what it sounds like. In the cotton business, you’re talking about back some time ago, before there wasn’t any chemicals. How hard was it to grow cotton?
H: At one time in McKinney, I think it was five gins here. It was Burger Gin, Farmers Gin, Oil Mill Gin and Thompson Gin and a Griffin Gin. I don’t know what year it was, but Collin County, the biggest production I ever knew it to make was one year they had a bumper crop and they’d make 90,000 bales of cotton in Collin County. They don’t raise five now.
I: Do you have any idea why its down?
H: Yea it’s the people changing way of life. Right now cotton is the best product that we have for clothing, it’s more suitable for many things and we have, I don’t know what they use for medical purposes whether its synthetics or not, but they used to use cotton for everything. I know one thing– polyester cloth, I don’t know what it’s made up of I know I have two or three shirts ones made in Korea and that’s polyester 100% and I can put those shirts in my lavatory in there and wash the collar and when I get it washed and hang it on a rack in a hours time, why it’s ready to wear.
I: That’s why cotton went down.
H: Yea, that’s right. People just got to wearing more synthetic garments and you can’t hardly blame them.
I: Back when you were running the gin were you too concerned about how the cotton was growing. Did they have bug problems or insects, can you remember any insects?
H: Yes they did in some years in wet years they had boll weevil infection and a hopper of some kind, a hopper that infected the cotton, flea hopper or something like that.
I: The grasshoppers get pretty bad too?
H: Yes. You know there’s a lot of things if I had anything to remind me of I might be able to help you.
I: I just want to know how they treated them.
H: Well they had, the first I knew of was a boll weevil they used some kind of a machine that just whipped the bush, the cotton plant, just whipped it around a little bit. They didn’t use that very much, cause they’d knock those weevils off and the sun would at midday would affect them and it would not damage the cotton very much. Then later on they used some kind of a liquid that they claimed affected them. I had farmers tell me that they had better cotton when there’s two fields side by side, where they didn’t doctor the cotton plant they had better cotton than when they did doctor it. They just didn’t have it down to perfection.
I: No, but nature did I guess.
H: Yes that’s right.
I: Well that’s it I think it was a wonderful interview. We certainly did appreciate it.
H: Now I want you all to eat some candy. This is a Texas History tape by Michael Apsey
Daniel Montague was born in Massachusetts. He was a surveyor and became interested in the Texas cause in 1836, he moved here. From 1843 to 1846 he traded his surveying tools for a rifle. He took to helping pioneers protect their homesites. Daniel Montague had helped those same settlers find their homesites by surveying and searching for locations. Montague was pioneer Texan and soon Texas was to become the twenty-eighth state. As the government was organized new counties were to be born. Daniel Montague was remembered in the naming of one of those counties, northwest of Dallas. He died in 1876, but his namesake lives on. In it Bowie, grown to over 6,000, Nacona 4000. KBOX FM welcomes them to our span of listening audiences. For KBOX FM has grown too in power and welcomes Montague County to Stereo 100.
The annexation of Texas was no easy matter. Texas voters had approved of joining forces with young America back in 1836, but it wasn’t going to be easy lowering the Lone Star flag and replacing it with stripes. Among the opponents was Henry Clay and in 1844, eight years after voters had approved Texas statehood, Texas was still a country, not a state, with a president not a governor. Henry Clay was defeated by a Democrat James Polk. U. S. Senator Henry Wise of Virginia was one of those favoring annexation and today Wise County bears his name.
Bridgeport has grown to 4,000 and KBOX FM welcomes them to our expanded listening area. KBOX FM Dallas, we’ve grown too in power and welcomes Bridgeport, Decatur and Wise County to Stereo 100. In the period of faith and the value of the United States dollar was dwindling. The U. S. Secretary of Treasury restored that value, during his 1814 to 1816 stay in office. His name was Alexander Dallas, his son George Dallas served as Vice President of the U. S. later under James Polk. It was this period when Texas became the 28th state and Dallas County was born, in it of course Dallas both named and honoring the V. President George Dallas. In Dallas County is Carrollton and Carrollton has grown to nearly 14,000. KBOX FM welcomes them to our span of listening area. KBOX FM Dallas we’ve grown too in power and welcomes Carrollton to Stereo 100.
The Invincible, the Brutus, the Independence and the Liberty. Four strong ships that brave the Gulf of Mexico as the Texas Navy. This was no laughing matter because before Texas statehood, Texas used a Navy to protect its shoreline. The President of Texas has ordered the ships to Yucatan to ally with Mexican rebels against Mexico. The President is Merigo Lamare. The commander of the Naval fleet is Commander Edwin Moore, formerly with the U. S. Navy.
The ships were --- in 1843 with annexation pressing, but several of the ships were good enough to be incorporated into the United States Navy. Secretary of the Texas Navy is Memican Hunt, for whom Hunt County is named. In it Greenville 22,000 Commerce 1,000, KBOX FM with its span of listening audiences. KBOX FM Dallas, we’ve grown too with more power and we welcome Hunt County to Stereo 100.
Year 1836 Fort Houston, Texas needs a doctor and Doctor George Washington Hill moved in. Texas is about to claim her independence from Mexico and Hill is about to be made Secretary of War and of the Texas Navy. Anson Jones was going to reappoint Dr. Hill for that post. What Jones didn’t know was Texas was about to be annexed and Texas wasn’t going to need a Secretary of War. Hill County Texas was created in 1853 for Dr. Hill and with growing Hillsboro 7,000 residents is welcome to the span of listing audiences. KBOX FM Dallas. We’ve grown too in power and welcomes Hill County to Stereo 100.
Year now it’s 1837 (1847) Texas hasn’t been a state for very long, just a year or two, but already U. S. government was setting up its territory, the representatives and counties. Many counties are created in Texas, mostly from other larger counties, who give up parts of the territory. Naming these new counties is a job for the legislature. In some cases counties are left to name themselves. Most honor heroes and David Spangler Kaufman was remembered. He was a lawyer, who moved to Texas in 1837. He was the first Texan to be seated 30 & 31 Congresses of the United States. Kaufman died in Washington in 1851 in Waltens, sustain fighting Cherokees. Kaufman County is home of Terrell 13,000 and KBOX FM welcomes them to our span of listening audiences. KBOX FM Dallas we’ve grown too in power and welcome home of Terrell to Stereo 100.
1838, Texas is 8 million dollars in debt, and one way to get it is to sell Republic Bonds, so the President hires an ex-South Carolina Governor, name James Hamilton, to get the money. Hamilton works first as a diplomat and with success for the loan to be reached Hamilton has a new boss. Sam Houston is President of Texas in 1841, Houston doesn’t like the idea so he scuttles it, has the law permitting the loan repealed, refuses the pay Hamilton 210,000 Texans owe him, and has him fired. Hamilton receives word sixteen years later that Texas wants to settle their debt so he catches this ship to Texas, but drowns on the way. When his ship is ran and he gives his life to a woman and child. Hamilton County is named for James Hamilton in it Hamilton 28,000 and KBOX FM Dallas with more power. KBOX FM Dallas welcomes Hamilton to Stereo 100.
Among the mistakes young Texas made was to wander off into what is now named New Mexico with a brave band of men who established jurisdiction. Mistake because Santa Fe expedition as it’s called was captured and everyone was put in a dungeon and stayed until US intervened nearly three years later. W. G. Cook was on that mission. He’d given up a peaceful drug store to go. In 1842 Cook was released he came back to marry Antonio Navarro’s niece. The rest of his career was spent serving Governor Henderson. Cook died in office in 1847. Named in his honor was Cook County.