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.
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