Living in South Austin July 1945 to July 1949

A selfie from the old days

My family lived in South Austin from July 1945 to July 1949. We moved there from the Clarksville area. World War II was almost over. Dad sold his barber shop (Avenue Barber Shop at 819 Congress Avenue) and prepared to join the fight. However, the war ended before his National Guard unit was activated.

We moved into a modern brick house on Josephine Street in a nice neighborhood south of the Colorado River. It seemed a long way from Clarksville to me back then. However, according to Google Maps, it is only 2.3 miles from our old house to the new. Today, I regularly walk twice that far daily for exercise. I bought my girlfriend La Juana Jolly a necklace and told her goodbye. I thought I'd never see her again, but we met up again at Austin High School. However, the spark was never reignited. We had grown apart.

After moving to Josephine Street, 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 near Fulmore Junior High School.

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 whatever 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.

I remember getting to know a number of kids my age in the neighborhood. The only name I remember is Alan Johnson. His father, Gant Johnson, worked at the University of Texas and he got us, Alan and I, jobs selling food and drinks during Texas Longhorn football games. My mother and Alan's mother remained friends for many years, even after my family moved to Pete's Path near 38th and Jefferson. This was considered North Austin at the time.

Alan and I went to Becker School, and then Fulmore. I don't remember much about Becker except being on the safety patrol and meeting Don Holden who became a lifetime friend.

I joined the band at Fulmore and Verna Covington taught me to read music and play the trumpet. That led to a lifetime of performance, mostly in choral music. I sang with the Austin Lyric Opera Chorus for fifteen years and still sing regularly with choruses in Georgetown, Texas as well as around the world. I also play the trumpet occasionally at church. At Fulmore, I was fortunate to spend some weekends visiting Verna Covington's home. Her youngest son,Scott, also played trumpet and we became friends. When we got into Austin High, Scott's father, Weldon Covington, was our band director. Later, Scott and I were both in Navy ROTC at the University of Texas. I dropped out and joined the Marines and lost track of him then.

Other memories of South Austin include the day our house caught on fire, our new 1948 Pontiac, Bartlet's Pies, riding my bike to school, getting a police escort to school because we were late for a band trip, renting a room to a teacher, and much more. I plan to talk about each of these later.

More Austin Memories in Love Lives On

The latest bookmobile novel, Love Lives On, takes place in Austin, Texas, mostly. So why the photo of Bruges, Belgium on the cover? Bruges is where Brian and Karen go for their honeymoon.

I said mostly Austin, because Brian goes back to California a few times to visit his parents. Mainly because the book is about Karen. Also, there are a few scenes in Sunset Valley, which is technically not a part of Austin even though it is surrounded by Austin. The married couple also stop in Hildesheim, Germany for a night.

After the wedding Karen moves into Brian's place on Mt. Bonnell Road near Dry Creek Cafe. If you read Where Love Once Lived, you know this is the place where the Combine rented a cabin when they were students at the University of Texas back in the 1970's.

There are scenes at the Austin History Center, a fictional law office on Congress Avenue, Allandale mall and references to the Austin Public Library, Travis County Courthouse, Wooldridge Park, MoPac, 35^th Street, Sun City Texas, Georgetown, Thundercloud Subs and Dr Pepper, a Texas favorite.

Several scenes take place in Clarksville, where Brian's best friend Phil lives with his wife Kay. His dad George, who played a prominent role in Where Love Once Lived, lives in an apartment out back and manages to help Karen in Love Lives On.

 

Clarksville, Bicycling, and God

A year or so ago, I pedaled around Sun City in Georgetown, Texas for my health. In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have gone quite so far the day after donating two pints of blood. Also, if I had it to do over again, I would have eaten breakfast first or at least had some orange juice. I thought about all this while parked on the side of the road trying to decide if I should call 911 or just throw up. After some deep breaths, staying close to the flower garden at the woodworking shop, I managed to get past the nausea. I had already thought of a way to hold on to the branch of a tree for support if needed. But soon, I felt better and was back on the bike heading for home. 

Perhaps I was delirious, but as I rode the rest of the way (mostly downhill, by the way), I had vivid memories of bike riding as a kid. I remember sneaking off when I lived near Clarksville in Austin, so I couldn't have been more than nine years old. My friend, Bobby Bayer, went with me. We told our parents we were just going to see someone a few blocks away and we ended up in deep South Austin, near the Broken Spoke area. I felt terribly guilty for lying to my mother. But not guilty enough to keep me from repeating the trip again and again.

Those memories and reminders of the guilt I felt, made me think about Brian, the male protagonist in Where Love Once Lived. Don't forget I said I may have been delirious at the time all this was going through my head.

In the novel, Brian had been brought up in a Christian family and attended church every Sunday. What's more, he loved to go to church and continued to do so while he was away from his California home attending the University of Texas. Then, he commits a sin and, even though he knows better, the guilt he feels is so strong he believes he is being punished by God. His punishment is to be in a loveless marriage.

He drops out of church for the next thirty years. This is all leading up to my wanting to tell you this is not a biographical story. It didn't happen to me. I was brought up in a Christian home and my life revolved around the church. I still have friends I met at church and we still get together frequently. I'll tell you more about the Combine as we go. I continued to be involved in church in college and while in the marines. After marriage and kids there were times when I wasn't involved as much as I should have been, but that didn't last long. I may tell you about that period of my life someday, if I'm ever delirious again.

How about you? When did God become a major part of your life? Have you ever dropped out? What brought you back?

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.

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.