More Historical Photos of Houston, the US, and the World

Click this link to view color photos of Houston in the 1950s and '60s. 

These next photos come from a Rice history blog that I follow. Look at the 2nd aerial, which gives a good view of the empty space between Houston and Stafford.

My thanks to the readers who sent me the following photo album. There are a few repeaters, but most are new (to me).

Click the image to view it.
 

 Construction of the Empire State Building, 1931.

More Historic Photos from Around the Wold

I can't recall who sent me these photos, but I always appreciate contributions. Thank you, whoever sent them. Click the image below to view the album.
 

 The lake side (reverse side) of Hover Dam before Lake Mead was filled with water.

Odds & Ends

I have a few miscellaneous items from recent research. The first comes from Jackie James, who said the following:

"... Of course I am old and do remember WWII very vividly.

I remember a small wooden building which was on Oyster Creek right at the end of where my Dad's park is now. There was no road but all fields at that time. The women of the town would go there and make bandages for the soldiers. They also looked for foreign airplanes. My mother would take me with her when she went and I was five years old when the war ended but I do remember this so well.

About a year ago I found something of my mom's that I had never seen before. It is a Certificate of Service from the U.S. Army Air Forces, III FIGHTER COMMAND, Aircraft Warning Service. It then says, "This is to certify that Mrs. T. L.James, Observer, OBSERVATION POST, PALM 129, faithfully and voluntarily served in the Aircraft Warning Service, III Fighter Command, U.S. Army Air Forces.

Witness my hand this FIRST day of JUNE in the year one thousand nine hundred forty-four"!

It is signed by a Major Signal Corps Acting Regional Commander and a Brigadier General, United States Army Commanding. I can't read their signatures or would have added them."

I hope Jackie can get a good image of her mother's citation - I'd love to have one. I've known about the observation post, but never heard its designation, "PALM 129." It would be a hoot if any of their reports turned up in a government archive.  
  

I'm sure I've said in the past that my grandmother Kelly was also an observer.  So was Mrs. W. T. 'Sallie' Matlage, Sr.  Here's her patch:

 

Jackie mentioned the location of the observation shack. Other people have given me the rough location. Here's an aerial photo taken in April 1941, which I've marked to show the general area. The hut wouldn't be built until sometime in 1942, I presume. (Click the image to magnify it.)

 

Sugar Land in 1941.

 

One more WWII item. Here's a piece of V-Mail Jean McCord Babineaux had in the McCord family archive. W. W. Jenkins (I don't know which Jenkins boy that was) sent it to Jean's mother at Christmas 1943 from somewhere in the Pacific theater of war. 

 

  

I saw this item on the KPRC History Page on Facebook. I remember some of these people: Bob Byron (who was co-host of the Tim & Bob radio program), Buck Buchanan (who was married to Marjorie Wappler [SLHS '48] at one time), Tom Fox, Bruce Layer (sportscaster), and Dick Gottlieb.

More Photos from US and World History

I want to thank my aunt, Mayme Rachuig Hause, for emailing me these photos. Click the image below to view the photo album.
 

Willard Scott as the original Ronald McDonald.

Alvin Kadlecek

I want to thank Gloria Farrugia and Brenda Albers Miles (DHS '66) for providing me the details for this item.

Fort Bend ISD has asked the public to propose names for four new schools now under construction. Click here for details on submitting names. (Note: submissions must be made by September 30th.)

I think the public has submitted H. L. 'Chuzzy' Jenkins and Jack Neal as possible names for a school and the agricultural barn. Anyway, Gloria submitted the name of her great uncle, Alvin Kadlecek (SLHS '40), and Brenda forwarded some of the supporting documentation, which I found remarkable.
 

Alvin Kadlecek is just beneath the class photo's label.

 

I believe it was Gloria's brother Charles who found official records on how their great uncle was killed in action during WWII.  I have never seen an official report like this and thought it should be passed along.

As you'll see, Alvin was the radio operator on a B-24 Liberator bomber sent on a raid from Torreto, Italy on April 2, 1944.  The target was Bihac, Yugoslavia.  His plane collided with another B-24 and broke in two.  He was not wearing a parachute when he was flung out of the forward half of the divided plane.  Apparently, his body was never recovered. Click here to read the official report.  You can read accounts from crewmen on other bombers, plus an account from the sole survivor of Alvin's plane (Antonio Lerma, flight engineer from Laredo, Texas).

World War II

 

I've just finished reading a book I highly recommend.  It's title is Voices of the Pacific, by Adam Makos.  Here's a link to Amazon, where you can read more about it.  Of course, I'm prejudiced because I know one of the men whose oral history was included in the book, Wayburn Hall.

  

 

Makos interviewed 15 men, still living in 2012, who served in the 1st Marine Division during WWII.  The author said he didn't want to interfere with each man's story.  He wanted to present them as if they were sitting around a kitchen table talking about their experiences, and the reader was merely eavesdropping in a dark corner.  I think he achieved his goal.

Wayburn talks about being wounded in the invasion of Pelelieu and participating in the battle for Okinawa.  I'm very grateful that he's left a record of that chapter in his life's story.

  

I had a chance recently to see a few WWII-vintage planes that had stopped at the Sugar Land Airport the day before the recent air show at Ellington Field.  The centerpiece was a B-17, which was open to the public.  I took a camera and made a short video of crawl through the plane.

Click here to view the video. 

Last but not least is a photo of Lawrence Elkins, graduate of Missouri City High School, Class of '42, and WWII veteran of the Army Air Corps.  Thanks to his daughter Lee for letting me scan this photo.

German WWII POWs in Fort Bend County

I've posted an item about this topic in the past - click here to view the entry.  I found another article a couple of weeks ago, which led me to look for photos of POWs in Fort Bend County - click here to view the recent article.  I've seen a few in the past but couldn't find them now.  Maybe they are no longer online.  

However, I found this undated photo, which is interesting.  It shows the funeral procession for a dead German POW inmate in Rosenberg, I think.  The camp was located on the old Fort Bend County Fair Grounds, where the Fiesta supermarket now stands.

An Undated Photograph of a Funeral Procession at a German P.O.W. Camp (http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth610922/ : accessed July 15, 2015), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, http://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Fort Bend County Libraries, Richmond, Texas.

Notice the lone diehard who's giving the Nazi salute. (Now that I look closer, I can see a few more in the distance.)

Color Photos of WWII

I want to thank Donna Christopher Baker (DHS '63) for sending me a link to these photos.  I'm sure most of us visualize WWII in black and white since a preponderance of historic images and film are in that format.  

Link to color photos of WWII.

Flights

My thanks go to Lou Payton (SLHS '46) for sending me this link.  It accesses a video of Charles A. Lindbergh's historic flight across the Atlantic in 1927.  The author, Win Perkins, assembled all the existing newsreel footage into a chronological whole to give a comprehensive recounting of the story.  Click here to access the Web site.

I want to thank T. V. Abercrombie, Jr. (DHS '64) for this next video.  An American pilot, who flew a Spitfire on photo reconnaissance over Germany in WWII, sees a film of himself crash landing his plane decades later.  It's a great story and won an award at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival.  Click here to access the video.

Then and Now Images from WWII

I want to thank BJ Binford Pitts (DHS '61) for sending me this link.  I really like the technique of showing then-and-now images of a location.  I think it has a lot of potential in museum exhibits.  I hope the Sugar Land Museum can do similar things.

You can view these scenes in two ways.  You can left-click on each image to invoke an automatic transition, or you left-click and drag your mouse across the image and control the pace of the transition.

Link to Then-and-Now Images of WWII sites.

Then-&-Now Photos of the Normandy Invasion in 1944

Thanks to Donna Christopher Baker (DHS '63) for sending me the link to these photos.  I really like this type of presentation and hope to do similar things with local historic photos.

Click here to view the album of photos.

Sugar Land's Fourth of July Celebration 95 Years Ago

I've found contemporaneous newspaper articles describing how  Sugar Land celebrated the 4th in 1919 - 95 years ago.  It was an all-day affair that started at school campus on the banks of Cleveland Lake where everyone enjoyed sporting exhibitions and a barbecue lunch.  

Afterward they went to Lonnie Green Park, to watch children compete in various races.  At that time, Lonnie Green Park was located on the block bounded by Main, 4th, Wood, and 5th Streets, which was vacant of residential housing.  Churches and homes were built on that block a couple of years later, and decades later Lonnie Green Park was re-established on the north bank of Cleveland Lake along 1st St.

As soon as the races were over, the crowd walked to the ball park, which was then located in what is now the west parking lot of Kempner Field.  They first watched an exhibition game pitting Sugar Land's 'Fats' versus the town's 'Leans.'  It lasted just three innings because the Fats pooped out.  (The newspaper account is pretty funny.)

A serious game followed: the Sugar Land Blues played Rosenberg.  The Blues were missing some important players, and Rosenberg was undefeated, but the home-town nine were victorious in a one-run squeaker that went 10 innings.

Next up on the agenda was a fried-chicken dinner for WWI veterans at the Auditorium.  Sponsors were the Chamber of Commerce, the Red Cross, and Sugarland Industries.

The young crowd finished the evening with a dance on the roof of the Auditorium.

As you'll see if you read the accounts, there was a separate celebration for colored (African-American) veterans in the Quarters (Mayfield Park).
  

I've put images of the clippings, which come from the Texas Farm and Industrial News, in an digital album.  Image quality isn't good, but click here to view the clippings. I've transcribed the articles so they are easier to read.  Here are the links.

Link to article summarizing the days events.

Link to article expressing thanks from returning white soldiers.

Link to article expressing thanks from returning colored (African-American) soldiers.

Link to article covering the Fats vs Leans baseball exhibition.

Link to article covering the Sugar Land Blues vs Rosenberg baseball game.

Follow Up

I found another photo of Dorothy Trout Mason (SLHS '31) later in her life.  (She was the Sugar Land woman who joined the US Navy during WWII, and worked in Washington, D. C., maybe as a secretary to James Forrestal, Secretary of the Navy.)

 

  

I wish I could remember the name of the woman on the left, but that is Dorothy in the middle with Mrs. Martha Pirtle on the right.  I don't have a date, but it was probably taken in the 1970s.

We've had some discussion about a woman who appears in the 1947 Awards Banquet photo.  Several of us think it is Etna Schindler.  Any other suggestions?
   

 

Belinda Jenkins Faison (DHS '69) identified her father in the same photo.  I don't know how I missed him.

Roy Lemke (DHS '74) has identified Joe Ruzicka, Maintenance Supervisor of the Packing Department, as one of the men in the most recent photo of Imperial employees.

Joe Ruzicka

And finally, Jon Pitts (DHS '61) helped me out with the Jester brick manufacturing plant.  (Thanks for the great info, Jon.)  Here's what he said:

  

Chuck, the Jester Brick Plant shut down in the summer of 1979. I know this because I was the one who shut it down. I worked there from January 1975 till I shut it down and was the last state employee to be classified, "Brick Plant Manager". It operated at the Jester 1 site from 1934 till 1979. I don't know the exact location prior to 1934, but I'm sure it was not very far away from the final location, because of the clay deposit location pattern. I possess the last brick that was manufactured at the plant.

Follow Up From Earlier Postings

A handful of people were able to identify Blondie Moses in the photo below, but just two people, Mayme Rachuig Hause (SLHS '47) and Richard Norman (DHS '62), mentioned her granddaughter Nancy's (DHS '70) name.  You need a sharp eye and good memory to identify the people in these photos.

 

I got the following message from John Pirtle.

The blowup with Tom James in it may have a profile picture of me in the upper right hand corner.  I was 16 at the time and remember the occasion. The big ears and hair look like mine.  Also the pretty woman in front of Mrs. Boyer may be Mrs. Friend.  I can remember the faces but can't call up the names of several in the picture. 

I have fond memories of your grandfather when I was on the graveyard shift running and cursing the old brown sugar liner and box maker.  His secret trick allowed us to finish eight hours work in six and crawl up on the boxes and nap. He was the mechanic at that time.

Dorothy Trout Mason lived next door to us when I was a kid.  She was one of the first WAVES, did her basic training at Smith.  She met and married Carrington Mason who was the mentor of the man who turned Houston Natural Gas into Enron.  I never heard the story that she was Forrestal's secretary. She met Carrington in DC so it is possible.

Liked seeing the old pictures and I remember the layout of the town quite well.

I've highlighted John Pirtle in the photo.

I've noted the woman John thinks may be Mrs. Friend.

Here's a larger version of the entire image - maybe other people will be identifiable.

  

I wanted to add more about Dorothy Trout Mason, whom John has mentioned already.  I'm with John regarding her war work.  She may have worked in the Secretary of the Navy's office, but I can't pinpoint that.  However, here are some photos.

Here's photo of Dorothy as a high school student.

Another photo of Dorothy as a high school student.  I think that's Norma Hockersmith on the left.

 Dorothy Trout Mason during WWII.

  

Here is her listing on Find-a-Grave.  As you can see on her head stone, she was a Lieutenant in the US Navy.

Cindy Anderson and her aunt, Marte Vickers, identified Cindy's grandfather, Bill Garnoski, in two photos.   

My aunt, Marte Vickers, asked that I send this information to you regarding the names of people you didn't know in some of your pictures.  In the picture with Tom James & The Helmcamps, the man with the white hat standing behind Tom James to the right is my grandfather, Bill Garnoski.  He is also in the picture at the awards banquet standing between Mr. Louviere and the other man.  The woman in the 1980's picture with the cap on her head is Juanita Facemeyer.

Juanita Facemeyer, identified by Cindy Anderson/Marte Vickers and Leon Anhaiser.

  

And, I got help completing identifications in the group photo with W. H. Louviere, Sr. at an Imperial Awards Banquet.

In the picture with Mr. Louviere,the two ladies are Left to right, my Aunt Millie Hauerland and my Mother Mary Hauerland.  (Marjorie H. Polasek)

Horace Lemke is on the far right.  (Leon Anhaiser)

   

My thanks to everyone for helping with ids.  We don't want to lose the identity of people in these historic photos.

A Belated Memorial Day Entry

Milton Strickland (DHS '66) asked me recently about a Dulles alum, Dixie Berger (DHS '65), who was killed in the Vietnam War.  Here is an earlier post about him.  I have also posted this entry about Arthur Medina (DHS '69), who died in Vietnam.

Fort Bend County has a memorial to armed forces personnel who've died in combat.  I hope to get a photo in a few days.

Here are two items I scanned in the past week.  This first one is a 1921 article about Lonnie Green, the only Sugar Land resident to die in WWI.  I noticed the article says Lonnie Green Park was to be located on the block bounded by Main, Fourth, Wood, and Fifth Streets.  Of course, the plan changed and the park was located on the north bank of Cleveland Lake next to First Street.

   

I found the following article in an old scrapbook, and rather than clean it up, I'll post overlapping images of the page.  I know there are men, and possibly women, who were serving in the military at the time, but weren't mentioned in the article.  I'm thinking of my father, Charles Kelly, Bill Krehmeier, Raymond Maxwell, Wayburn Hall, et al.

Morris Frank says Dorothy Trout Mason (SLHS '31) is secretary to James V. Forrestal, Secretary of the Navy.  I'll have to check into this.  Frank's humor relied on wild exaggeration, so I'm doubtful she was actually Forrestal's secretary, but we'll see.  I'll have more info on her soon.  [She's not the only Sugar Land woman to serve in the military during WWII.  Dorothy Schultz Gandy (SLHS '40) was a Lieutenant in the Army nursing corp.  There may be others I'm not aware of.]  Note that Gold Star families were ones who lost a member during WWII.  That's not a complete list in the article because T. J. Williams isn't included.  There may be others missing - I'll check.

  

The Battleship Texas Video

Click this link to view a Texas Parks & Wildlife video commemorating the Battleship Texas, which is celebrating its 100th birthday this year.

The Battleship Texas Is 100 Years Old

The Battleship Texas, now docked at the San Jacinto Battle Grounds, will be 100 years old on March 12, 2014.  The Battleship Texas Foundation will host a celebration on March 15.  

Here's a link to information about the celebration.

Here's a link to information on the Battleship.  I'm not sure I like the way this site is organized, but there are good pictures and articles if you're interested, and I appreciate the effort in collecting and organizing the information.

  

Audio Recordings of Houston & Dallas Radio on November 22, 1963

I thought I'd post one last item on the Kennedy assassination.  I've been surfing through old radio recordings and found the following items.  I'm  not a conspiracy nut, but I'm always interested in seeing or hearing contemporaneous accounts of historic events.  After all, they are the first rough draft of history.

The Houston item is a recording of KILT, Gordon McClendon's radio station in the Bayou City.  As I've said before, I and my classmates were in Mrs. Roger Guinn's 8th grade reading and spelling class when our principal, Dugan Hightower, announced the first news reports.  As I recall, he gave periodic announcements for a few minutes, but soon afterward he decided to play the radio on the classroom intercom system.  If I remember correctly, he told us an important world event had happened and we should follow news reports rather than proceed through our classes as if it were a normal day.  I'm fairly certain he tuned in to either KPRC (950) or KTRH (740) -- not KILT (610), which was a juvenile pop station.

I don't know if our next class was Mrs. Mary Frierson's English class, or if Coach Hightower sent us all to our home rooms prior to dismissing us early, but I remember staring at the intercom speaker in her room as the news unfolded.  The speakers were dark-stained wooden boxes attached above the blackboards on the front walls of our classrooms.  They were about 18" x 18" x 6".  Their front panels were canted downward a little, so sound would project down on the classroom rather than bounce off the back wall.  Circular brown cloths covered the inset speakers.  I'm sure many people remember them.  My class sat in silence staring at the speaker and listening to announcements, which were almost non-stop by 1:00 pm.

Maybe I'm a cold northern European type, or maybe my class was exceptionally reserved, but I don't remember any tears.  The atmosphere was more somber, stunned silence than anything else.  My guess is that we all knew a momentous historic event had occurred, but we didn't really know what it was or how to react to it.

I recall a much more emotional atmosphere during the Cuban Missile Crisis the year before.  We all had some skin in that game, and a low-grade sense of dread haunted classrooms.  I can laugh about it now, but every so often, jet fighters would fly overhead at supersonic speed and produce sonic booms.  They were sudden and unpredictable, and they made the school windows rattle.  I'm sure they heightened the tension -- it's amazing we didn't have any quick trips to the bathrooms!

I haven't listened to these audios completely, but I will soon.  Maybe I'll find something new to prove or disprove all the conspiracy theories.

Link to KILT (Houston) audio. (23-1/2 mins)

Link to KLIF (Dallas) audio. (3 hrs)

  

Dallas Morning News Articles on the JFK Assassination

Thumbnail of Dallas Morning News Front Page, Saturday, November 23, 1963

 

As we passed the 50th anniversary of JFK's assassination last Friday, you probably watched countless television documentaries and read several essays on the subject.  You may find it interesting to cherry pick these contemporaneous articles from printed in the Dallas Morning News.  They provide an immediate feel of what the American public knew and how it reacted to the event.  As someone said, journalism is the first draft of history, so here's a chance to read the initial rough draft.

This last item is an editorial that appeared in The Fort Bend Mirror.  Below it are links to more articles from the Dallas Morning News archive.

  

 

Front Page of Dallas Morning News on Saturday

Dallas Morning News Headline on Saturday


Assassination Details 
 
Dallas Reaction To Assassination

Reports On Police Investigation

Profile of LBJ

Stories About LBJ and Oswald

Oswald's Background

Clues Regarding Assassination & Murder

Profiles of LBJ and Oswald

Oswald in the USSR
 

JFK's Trip To Texas

As everyone knows, we're coming up to a big anniversary of the events in Dallas on November 22, 1963.  I found a few articles from The Dallas Morning News pertaining to the run up to JFK's visit.  If your interest in history extends to source documentary evidence, here are some article you can scan.  Note the 'unfortunate' political cartoon in the last  clipping.

It may be helpful to remember why JFK came to Texas in the fall of '63.  He had barely won the 1960 election.  He needed to win Texas badly and he was way behind in the polls.  More importantly, the Texas Democratic Party was falling apart.  

A conservative faction led by John Connally (Governor) and a liberal faction led by Ralph Yarborough (Senator) were in open warfare.   During his short stay in Houston, JFK and LBJ (a Connally suporter) had a loud shouting match in the Rice Hotel before the President gave his speech to LULAC.  

The overriding purpose of Kennedy's trip was to patch up problems in a state he desperately needed to win in 1964.  The only direct influence this intra-party conflict had on the assassination were the seating arrangements in the presidential limousine.

 

(Dallas Morning News)

(Dallas Morning News)

(Dallas Morning News)

(Dallas Morning News)

(Dallas Morning News)

(Dallas Morning News)

(Dallas Morning News)