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Boom-town stories spark area memories
Published November 30, 2009
If I’ve never learned anything in all this time, one would assume I have learned never to assume.
In particular, this holds true for believing once I’ve done what seems to be exhaustive research about any historical subject, I would have covered it with either complete accuracy or absolute completeness.
The past few weeks’ stories about Dow’s arrival in Brazoria County are a case in point.
In a tongue-in-cheek article called “Boom Comes to Town,” printed in Collier’s magazine for Dec. 28, 1940, mention is made of a Freeport businessman with the unlikely name of Bearhunter Funderburk, proprietor of Bearhunter’s Café.
J.D. Ratcliff, who wrote the story for Collier’s, describes him as a “solid, monolithic gentlemen” who is “a little less confused” than other residents of the area.
He says Funderburk’s unusual nickname was bestowed “when he set out on a fruitless journey to kick the wadding out of a bear that was annoying local citizens.”
A fictional character, I said, apparently coming to that conclusion because of his colorful nickname and the general tone of the story.
Not so.
Bearhunter and his café are a very real part of the history of that era, and longtime Freeport resident Sybil Andrus is one of those who remembers him.
Sybil also recalled her elementary school class in Freeport had to attend school just a half day for a time because there were too many students for all of them to attend for a full day.
While I was still making notes about that, I received another call, possibly from Leon Skeete, though my notes are so garbled I can’t be sure of the source.
Whoever it was told me when he was in the fifth or sixth grade, Mrs. Edwards was his teacher. About January of 1943, he went to school in one of two horse barns used for educational purposes, he said.
This makeshift school building had heat, but no air conditioning, he said, and in warm weather the doors were left open for ventilation.
It did provide some unexpected advantages for animal lovers, however, as “a big German Shepherd dog would come in and lie down while we had school,” he said.
As for the buildings he called horse barns, he recalled that for a time Julia May operated her dress shop in one of them.
He also remembered that although his father had lived in Camp Chemical before the rest of the family arrived in Brazosport, they moved into one of the old trailer on the east side of Dow’s Plant B.
The trailers were hot, and had only tiny windows. In this era before air conditioning, a family was lucky if they had a fan, he said.
Another call with other recollections came from Anne Danford, who came to the area as a new bride. She and her husband moved into Camp Chemical and he worked as a bulldozer operator, she said.
“We were young and in love,” she remembered. “I could have been living in a dog house and I wouldn’t have cared.”
Although their one-room home at Camp Chemical had gas heating, she still remembered how cold it got.
“I didn’t know how to drive a car, so I stayed pretty much right there.” This wasn’t as bad as it might sound, because at that time Camp Chemical was “pretty much a town unto itself,” with stores and a post office.
Most of the things residents needed could be purchased right there, although because of rationing during World War II, many things — such as shoes and sugar — often were not available.
She remembers her husband found orange crates that he nailed into the wall near the stove to serve as kitchen cabinets.
Their bed was in one corner of the small space, and they ate in another corner.
Their living quarters were “about as big as my family room,” she said. “We ran outside to use the facilities or to take a shower or bath.”
Anne’s husband was employed by Wilson Equipment, and his work as a bulldozer operator included building the streets in a wooded section west of the Dow plant, the future site of Lake Jackson.
Larry Parks, who said the stories about Camp Chemical had brought back memories, called about another idea for a future column — one that I’m certainly going to pursue.
Larry moved to Camp Chemical in September or October of 1942. At that time it was almost impossible to find qualified teachers for the sudden influx of children in the area, and Larry’s mother, the Mrs. Parks mentioned in an earlier column, was asked to teach.
Because Larry was only 5, however, Mrs. Parks was hesitant to leave him. School officials suggested he begin first grade a year early.
The number of students was somewhat overwhelming. Mrs. Parks taught 60 6-year olds, and Larry was enrolled in Miss Swingler’s class with 58 other children.
In today’s world, this number of first-grade students would seem too large to teach adequately, and the living conditions in the overcrowded quarters in which many of them lived might appear a forerunner to future physical and emotional problems.
These assumptions (like so many) would be far from accurate. Larry and many other “survivors” of these years of the county’s industrial awakening and growing pains disagree.
Most have emerged as productive citizens, including some of the leaders of the county’s businesses and communities.
Marie Beth Jones, a published author and freelance writer based in Angleton, is chairwoman of the Brazoria County Historical Commission.
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