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Note: RECOLLECTIONS OF THE EARLY YEARS - By Dorothy Lou Mathis Childress
(Transcribed from a hand-written note by son Pat Childress, 11/2000)
Upon seeing their new baby sister for the first time, the quote was, "Where did that come from?" They were told that their Dad had brought it out on his motorcycle. This was 77 years ago and I was the baby sister. My brother, sister and I have been very close all our lives. We lived in an area know as College Hill, in Texarkana, Arkansas. My sister was 10 and my brother was 3 when I was born. When I was teased about being from Arkansas, my reply was that I had never seen any "country hicks" until I got to Texas and that was the truth.
I did not know my father well. He was in bad health and spent a lot of time in Hot Springs taking the hot baths. He did come home often. I was too young to remember, but I was told at one time that the family moved to Hot Springs, but my mother was unhappy there and we moved back to Texarkana. Sometimes we would ride the train to Hot Springs and spend the day. It was always on a Sunday.
We lived in a house across the street from the College Hill Baptist Church. Our social life was with the church. Our church parsonage was next door to the church with a vacant lot between the church and the parsonage. Every summer there would be a revival. A huge tent would be put on the vacant lot. Sawdust would be put on the ground and benches brought out from the church. We went to every service and I joined the church when I was nine years old.
Our elementary school was at least a mile from our home. It was uphill all the way. We walked to school and sometimes even walked home at noon for lunch.
I was known as a "Tom Boy," but had a domestic side also. I would often take some embroidery and climb the huge tree in our back yard and sew away.
We were about a block from the streetcar line. When we started to Jr. high and high school, we rode the streetcar to school. We went through downtown and had to transfer. We had no car other than the old one (Model T or A) my father drove. Sally rode the streetcar to work. She could get a pass for a week for $1.00. On Sunday I could take the pass and ride all afternoon to pass the time unless some friends and I spent the time skating. I don't remember how old I was, but I remember the first time I rode the streetcar downtown along to get some material when Mama ran out as she was making Sally a dress.
When I was thirteen, our mother died. She had cancer. Sally, Lloyd and I kept living in our home. Our father kept making his trips to Hot Springs and about a year after our mother died he passed away with a heart attack. Lloyd had finished high school and had a job. Sally was working in the office of Western States Grocery. When she was transferred to Tyler, I went to Rio Grande City to live with my aunt and uncle. Lloyd rented out part of the house and continued to live there.
I finished high school when I was 17. I went to Tyler and stayed with Sally. John was working in the warehouse where Sally and Anson worked. Anson was a supervisor.
My aunt's (she was my aunt by her marriage) great niece <JPC note: this would have been Eileen Thurman> great niece also was with my aunt and uncle. We had some wild times. Our uncle had a huge Oldsmobile. He let us have it any time. Eileen already knew how to drive. She also knew how to disconnect the odometer. My uncle taught me to drive and I got my first driver's license at Rio Grande City when I was 15 (by fibbing about my age.)
JPC note: The above "uncle and aunt" were, of course, Ezra McMullen and wife Ida Ellis. It must have been an interesting time for Dorothy Lou, consorting with perhaps a more "worldly" Eileen Thurman (whose photo is shown on page 2 of the McMullen Family Album). Ezra, a man of seemingly infinite patience with young folks, seemed to vent his frustrations with Eileen and her ilk in one of his written chronicles of family life in the 1930's. He lamented the ways of the new generation, specifically targeting the "cigarette smoking, coffee drinking" person of Eileen, who apparently was insouciant in so many ways, and so foreign to the character that Ezra wanted for the youth of the day. It's interesting to note that Eileen was also elected president of her senior class in Rio Grande City, perhaps suggesting that her comrades in the ageless battle pitting youth against adults had found their perfect role model.
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(The following biography is from this writer's genealogy publication of 1995, slightly updated and edited.)
Dorothy Lou Mathis was born in Arkansas, but moved to Texas "as soon as I could." She was very close to her older sister, Sally Cleo, whom we knew as "Sally," but who most often was called "Cleo" by her friends and associates. Dorothy was also close to her brother Lloyd. Dorothy first wanted to become a nurse, but had her head turned by John Childress, who was introduced to her by her sister's boyfriend, Anson Lee Jones, who worked with John. Dorothy lived in Texarkana, Texas most of her childhood, but moved to Rio Grande city, Texas when her parents passed away from natural causes when Dorothy was in her late teens. She finished high school at Rio Grande City.
Dorothy (Mama) was most assuredly the finest mother in the world, so far as my two brothers and I were concerned. She had a great sense of humor and was not above a practical joke here and there. Dorothy worked very hard as a housewife, a mother and a professional postmaster at the Selman City, Texas Post Office, to which she received her appointment as the postmaster from John F. Kennedy in 1962. She retired from active duty in 1989, having managed to convince the government to build her a new post office building. Mama presided over the grand opening of this new building shortly before her retirement.
Mama loved to fish and ski. She often stated that the happiest times of her life were when Mike and I were in high school and we regularly went to Lake Tyler to ski and spend the night on our fishing barge. Unquestionably, that era in our lives represented what only can be described as "virtual perfection." After my father John passed away in 1977, Mama continued to live in their home in New London, Texas. Shortly after her sister, Cleo Jones, died in 1992, Dorothy moved to Tyler, Texas to live in Sally's house, which Dorothy and her brother Lloyd had inherited from their sister.
For the next five or six years, Mama lived a great life as a retiree. She travelled often to various tourist "hot spots" both with fellow postal employees and with family members. She was active in her church, Green Acres Baptist in Tyler. She rekindled an old friendship with Bessie Lou Mason, whose husband was the superintendent of schools in years past at New London, Texas.
Unfortunately, cancer, the silent killer, crept back into Dorothy Childress' life in early 1998. Having lost one kidney to cancer some decades earlier, the renal cell cancer subsequently attacked her liver and pancreas. In spite of the doctor's prediction of a short life, Mama fought vigorously to survive. Finally, after more than two and a half years of chemotherapy, the killer claimed its victim. The only (and I do emphasize that word) benefit to this period of intermission was the time I personally spent with Mama at her home in Tyler. I will forever be grateful to have been able to spend many hours with her as she gradually came to accept her inevitable fate.
Much is said about a loving, caring and nourishing relationship between a mother and her children. Oftentimes, it is said that a mother must be demonstrative in her attitude of love toward her children, and must constantly reinforce by words her thoughts of love. By that false measure, my mother may well have missed the mark. I can't think of more than a handful of times wherein Mama stated to me her love or affection for me. However, her actions and deeds spoke volumes more than mere words. She was supportive, caring and always there in times of need. Intrusive - far from it. Available - always.
She was indeed a very special person.
View a photograph of this individual by visiting the online family photo album at:
<a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~jpcfamily/">Childress/Mathi s Photo Album</a>
Photographs of many other related individuals also are in the above album.
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