Texas State Capitol Memories

Texas State Capitol
Austin, Texas

A novel is fiction. It's not true. Pure imagination. Right? Well, yes, but... I suspect every novel contains some little something from the author's past. Where Love Once Lived is no exception. While I didn't make the same mistakes Brian did, there are events in my life I wish hadn't happened. But I trust God lead me to where I am today.

In the following excerpt, I describe a scene at the Texas state capitol that I had with my mother and dad and sisters when I was a child. Photos reminded me of the event for years after it happened. My dad tricked me into drinking the sulfur tasting water that day cementing the memory forever. I also remember a time when I wondered if people were staring at me and a fellow marine who happened to be black as we traveled from California to Texas.

When we reached my parent's house in Austin, I was concerned about their reaction since, as far as I knew, Bill would be the first black person in our home. However, he was accepted graciously. My dad even drove us the rest of the way to Houston, saying we were probably too tired to drive further.

I tied both of these incidents into the book.

In this excerpt, Brian had asked to meet with Mr. McCullough, the 78-year-old father of Brian's best friend Phil, because Brian wanted advice on being close to God. You'll have to read the book to find out more. I only included enough here to describe the setting.

“You know,” Mr. McCullough said as he and Brian walked through the capitol grounds, “a few years back, ever’one would be staring at us.”

Brian was six foot two, and Phil’s dad was five two or three at the most. Mr. McCullough had just gotten off work at the Driskill and still had on his white shirt and bowtie. Brian wore shorts and Birkenstocks. Still, Brian knew Mr. McCullough was talking about race, not stature or clothing. Mr. McCullough was from a time in history Brian could never fully understand, but he’d read about how blacks suffered. It was a time of segregation.

Mr. McCullough looked around. “When I was jus’ a kid, nine or ten I’d say, my parents brought me here.” He motioned toward the spot where they sat. “My daddy told me to drink from a sulfur fountain that was here. Said it’d be good for me and make me healthy. But there was a problem. Back then, you see, we had separate drinking fountains. One marked ‘white’ and one marked ‘colored.’”

He paused, but Brian waited for him to continue. “There was only one sulfur fountain and it wasn’t marked one way or ‘nother, colored or white.” He laughed. “Didn’t matter. We sneaked a sip when no one was about. Only once, though.” He shook his head and made a face. “Terrible stuff. Smelled like rotten eggs.”

See: http://sidneywfrost.com/capitol.htm for photos of the area where Brian and Mr. McCullough may have been.

I would love to hear from you. Do you have family memories about visiting places like the state capitol? What caused the memory to stick in your mind? Have you experienced racial segregation? Have you ever felt people were staring at you because you did something out of the norm? Please comment below or email me: sidfrost@suddenlink.net.

Moving to South Austin

In Where Love Once Lived, one character lives in the Clarksville area of Austin, Texas. There are references to my own experience living next to the neighborhood that was restricted to blacks only back when I was there. I lived on a white street, but our backyard was adjacent to the backyard of a black family. I don't remember anything about the parents of that family, but I remember talking to the children. We would often meet at the wire fence and stare at each for a while until we finally got into a normal childhood conversation. I'm not sure how old I was, but since my family moved from there in 1946, I had to be about nine years old.

World War II had ended and the economy was improving. We moved to a nice neighborhood with a modern house on Josephine Street south of the Colorado River. South Austin seemed far away then. I bought my girlfriend Lajuana Jolly a necklace and told her goodbye. I thought I'd never see her again, but we met up again when we got to the one white high school in town. However, the spark was never reignited. We had grown apart.

After the move, we only ventured north of the river to go downtown where Dad worked or to see a movie. There was one movie theater in South Austin, but it was way over on South Congress Avenue. Checking Google Maps today, I see that it was only 2.3 miles from where we lived at West 9 1/2 Street to the South Austin address on Josephine Street. Today, I regularly walk further than that for exercise.

The nearest grocery store to the Josephine house was on Kinney Avenue and it was the size of a current day two-car garage. Maybe smaller. Mother would send me to the store nearly every day to get groceries. We had a charge account there. The grocer would give me what ever was on the shopping list and then Dad would go in on Saturday to pay for the week's purchases. I would often sneak in a candy bar that wasn't on the list so I didn't mind doing the shopping.

One day, a neighborhood friend went with me and he showed me a shortcut to the grocery store through a wooded area. Right in the middle of the forest he stopped and pulled out a knife. I didn't know what was going on and thought I better get out of there. But before I could move, he grabbed a piece of dried grapevine and cut off a few inches of it, stuck it in his mouth and lit the other end just like adults did with cigarettes. He took a few puffs, coughed, and passed it to me. I tried it and started taking that shortcut every time I went to the store

Other memories from the time I lived at the Josephine house include the day the house caught on fire, renting out my room, learning to drive. I'll write about these adventures and others later.

Sitting in My Dad's Barber Chair

My dad, Sidney Henry Frost, was my only barber from the time I got my first haircut in 1937 up until I joined the marines and moved to California in 1956. I have many pleasant memories of the haircuts and the barber shop visits. Dad was different at work, as are most of us. He was outgoing, talkative, knowledgeable, the kind of man others turned to for advice and opinion. He knew all the latest jokes as well as news and financial reports. He knew what was going on in town and around the world. All this with a 7^th grade education.

But, there was more to it than that. Cutting my hair was our private time. I didn't have to compete for his attention the way I did at home. My sisters didn't have this opportunity, but perhaps he found another time for them. He'd talk to me about what I was doing and what was going on in my world. He'd brag about me to the other barbers and to his customers.

Even when I didn't need a haircut, the barbershop would be a regular stop for me. Sometimes I'd go see him to get some money to buy the latest toy or go to the movies. There was a movie theater across the street from Travis Barber Shop on West 7^th Street where he worked for many years that had Saturday morning serials that couldn't be missed. There was another theater down the alley from the shop on 6^th Street across from Scarborough's. The one on 6^th Street would occasionally have cowboy movie stars there to sign autographs.

By the time I'd moved back to Austin in 1976, my friend Jack McCowan had become a barber and opened his own place on Congress. He was a hair stylist and I was drawn to getting the latest styles so I started to going to him. His wife, Doris, would wash my hair and then Jack would cut my hair with a straight razor while it was still wet. Then he'd blow dry it and cover it with a net to shape it while he sprayed it with hair spray.

I have to admit I felt guilty not letting Dad cut my hair any more, but I convinced myself it was for my career. I was working for Bob Bullock when he was the State Comptroller in an important job and needed that professional look Jack provided.

Later, I'd go back to get a haircut from Dad when I needed an old fashioned look for a part in the opera.

Dad cut hair until he was 90 years old. The Sportsman Barber Shop held a birthday bash for him, but he was back the next day, still working. 

State Confederate Home in Austin

In Where Love Once Lived, 78-year old George McCullough is telling about a time when the parents of a white boy he'd been playing with told their son not to have anything to do with George anymore because he was black.

“After that, we started meetin’ over at the ol’ Confed’rate Soldiers’ Home.” He turned to Brian. “Did Cindy show you where it use’ to be? Down at the end of Nine and a Half Street? We hunted birds and squirrels with our slingshots and sneaked around trying to find an old Confed’rate soldier. Never did.” He laughed. “That white family moved away, and I never saw that kid again. Bobby. That was his name. I’d forgotten that. Isn’t it funny how names can pop into your head after decades of not thinkin’ about them?”

George McCullough is a fictional character, but in real life, I lived on Nine and a Half Street and sneaked into the grounds of the old Confederate Soldier's Home with my big sister or next door neighbor. I remember a wooded pathway from the end of our street that led to facility. It was as if the denseness of the forest would protect those inside. As I remember it, we were afraid to get very close to where the old soldiers might be, but I do remember seeing a large brick building.

The Online Handbook of Texas says the Texas Confederate Home opened in 1886. The complex on twenty-six acres of land on West Sixth Street had several buildings, including a large administration building and living quarters, a brick hospital, and private cottages. The last Confederate veteran died in 1934 at the age of 108, before I was born. After that, the facility was home to Spanish American and World War I veterans and their spouses as well as "senile" mental patients. The area was razed in 1970 and is now used for University of Texas student housing.

The old Confederate Home made quite an impression on me as a child, and now it's gone. I think that's why I included it in the book. Do you have places like that from your past? You may want to write something about it before it's lost forever.

The First Place I Lived in Austin

SIDNEY HENRY FROST
1908 -- 2001

My father, Sidney Henry Frost, is listed as a roomer living at 304 ½ West 9^th Street in Austin, Texas on the census report taken on April 11, 1930. According to the report, he was twenty-one years old and single. He was shown to be a barber who owned his own shop.

There were three other people at the same address. One was Mable Lewis, a thirty-two year old single female press feeder at a print shop. The other two were the owners of the $6,500 home, thirty year old Paul and his twenty-four year old wife Moselle Warren. Paul, a shoe store salesman was from Kansas, with parents from Oklahoma. All the others were from Texas with Texas parents.

My mother, Eva Lee Williams, was shown on the April 21, 1930 census to be living in Lampasas, Texas, living with her parents, two sisters, a brother and an aunt. She may have been in nursing school by then, however.

EVA LEE WILLIAMS FROST
1908 -- 2001

Dad's residence was close to where my parents lived when I was born, 1409 W. 10th Street in Austin. Since I had to get a secret clearance once and had to report all places I lived I asked my parents and was told that I lived there until the next year. I have no memory of the time, of course, nor do I remember the next house, 909 West Lynn Street. 

The first house I remember is located at 1004 Eason Street. I was there for the 1940 Census. The report, dated April 9, 1940, shows that I was three years old and my sister Barbara Ann was six years old. Dad was thirty-one and Mom was thirty. According to the census report, we had a boarder. It is hard to read the handwriting, but I think her name was Lurline Smith, a forty-year-old secretary for a Baptist Church. I remember her and I have many other memories about living at this place and I'll tell you about them in future articles. 

All of these places were close to each other. We moved one more time in the Clarksville area before moving to South Austin. I'll tell you about that later.

Growing Up White Next to a Black Neighborhood

That's me in the middle

The area of Austin called Clarksville is different than it was when I was born December 6, 1936. At that time, and up until the time we moved to South Austin in 1945, the former slave neighborhood was located between West 10th and Waterston Avenue with West Lynn Street on the east extending west to the railroad tracks that are now in the middle of MoPac.

It's hard for my children and grandchildren to understand that time in Austin's history when schools and neighborhoods were segregated by race. Only blacks lived in the area called Clarksville and the children didn't go to Mathews Elementary where my sister and I went.

My family lived in four different houses just outside the black neighborhood. At one house our backyard was up against a black family's backyard. That's where we lived when I was between five and nine, and I remember talking to some kids over that fence there often, or until my parents told me not to. Since most other blacks lived east of Austin, living where we did gave me an opportunity many white kids didn't have. I got to know some of my black neighbors, even though I had to keep it a secret from my parents.

I grew up in a segregated town, not really understanding why, and it wasn't until I was in college in 1954 that blacks in Austin began to be reluctantly accepted in some places. I left Austin in 1956 to join the marines. One of my friends was a black private from Houston. In California, we could go to restaurants together and the beach and just about anywhere we wanted. My friend rode back to Texas with me once and by the time we got to Austin, without discussing it, we started getting our food to go.

Perhaps due to my early experience growing up in Clarksville, I've always believed in equality of the races. I included a character in my novel, Where Love Once Lived, who is about my age and is black. I gave him my experiences, from the other side of the fence, however. Several scenes take place in the neighborhood, including memories of the neighborhood, Mathews School, the Confederate home, and what it was like to live in a segregated area. There is also an interracial marriage in the book.