River Oaks Resident Gives Personal History at ROAHS

I love history, especially the history that involves the area where I grew up and where I live. That is why I enjoy our River Oaks Area Historical Society meetings so much and I believe all our members share that feeling. The August meeting certainly turned back the clock to a time when life was simpler and less stressful. I should probably clarify that statement by saying that life then didn’t have as many distractions as today’s world, because you will certainly read today about a process that was anything but simple.

ROAHS President Mary Earwood welcomed the crowd, made a few announcements and called on Program Chairman Mearl Ellis to introduce the speaker for the evening, Mrs. Joseph (Ethel) Waggoner, a 67-year resident of the River Oaks area. Mearl gave us some great background on Ethel, stating she had been a long-time member of the Castleberry Home Demonstration Club, was a Past Worthy Matron of the Castleberry Chapter of The Eastern Star, was a former Castleberry PTA President, is in her 50th year to serve as election chairman in River Oaks and has been involved in many other community activities. Her late husband, Joseph, was a Scout Master with troop 143 for 16 years. They were the parents of Roger, North Side High graduate, and Carol, who graduated from Technical High, both before Castleberry High was built. Waggoner Lane was named after Joseph’s parents, just as many of our streets bear the names of early settlers. Mearl asked us to look at all the displays of pictures, news articles, letters and receipts which Ethel had brought with her. She felt there was something of interest to everyone who was present and she was certainly correct.

Ethel began by telling us she was one of those people who got to Texas as soon as she could. She was a Yankee, born in Illinois, where she met Joe and they married in 1935. He brought her back to Texas in 1936, to spend Christmas with his parents who were well known community members and they moved here soon after that. She said she considers herself a pure Texan. 

She began by telling us an early experience in PTA when Castleberry Elementary was holding a carnival which was the big event of the school year. It was during the war when meat was rationed, and resident Frank Fortnam, who had a meat business,  donated a ham to the PTA, which in turn, decided to raffle it off at 10 cents a ticket. Ethel said they were making money right and left till a well known preacher in River Oaks told them they were gambling and made a pretty good issue of it. School Superintendent, the late Mrs. Irma Marsh came to Ethel. knowing that the intent was certainly not to gamble, but with her little mischievous smile (which we have all seen from that great lady), told her that they better call off the raffle. Ethel laughed about the incident and went on to say she loved every minute of working with the PTA for many years.

When Joe and Ethel first rented their own place in River Oaks from Mr. Halligan, he asked her to work in his real estate office. She served as a notary there, notarizing documents and that was how she became greatly acquainted with the community. She told us that she was part of the team which served at political elections in the area and named other people such as Mrs. Tom Box, Peggy Hite, Rose Martin, Marie Stafford, Anna Sanders, Johnnie Carpenter (who is always at our ROAHS meetings), Nell Barnes, Vera Unruh and Marguerite Bloomfield. She also worked River Oaks City elections with Lucille Neal, school board elections and also water board elections. Ethel is now serving in her 50th year as election chairman in River Oaks. She said that to her knowledge, there had been no complaints through those years, but there was one instance when she denied someone the right to vote because he produced a list which had been provided to him by another party and it contained recommendations to vote for certain candidates.

She told of the early days when voter registration was listed and filed by a number, but when computers came out, the county decided to switch it to an alphabetical list which was much better for record keeping. She and several from the area were asked to work on that crew which took several months to convert the voter registration system. She also worked with the group which set up absentee voting for the county and now thousands vote by absentee ballot.

We had been told about Mrs. Waggoner’s experience with Home Demonstration Clubs and she was glad to share those enjoyable times with us. She gave us some history of the beginning of those clubs which originated before she was born. Home Demonstration Clubs were funded by county, state and federal governments and began in 1912. It was in 1914 that Tarrant County organized some clubs which they most often called “canning clubs”. A county agent would ride in a horse drawn buggy over rough, dirt roads to get to the different communities, usually meeting with one club in the morning and one in the afternoon for five days a week, living out of a suitcase and the generosity of community families, and not arriving back at the county office till late Friday evening. The original equipment for canning was a wash tub for washing the fruits and vegetables and a dishpan for cooking. They were canned in hot water canners and the cans were sealed with capping steel and a sautering iron, beaten on a charcoal furnace in someone’s front yard. After a few years, a steam pressure cooker was introduced, a big canner holding 24 number two size cans. This was also used in people’s yards on an open fire, making it very difficult to regulate the pressure.

In 1921, under the direction of County Agent Miss Sally Hill, the Castleberry Home Demonstration Club was organized. There were 10 charter members, but the club grew to around 35 active members. (Miss Hill was able to attend the 50th anniversary of the club in 1971.) The purpose of the club was to keep the women of the community supplied with the best available information on producing, preparing and preserving foods of all kinds, landscaping, home decorating, and many other topics of interest to women. The Castleberry Club was one of 24 clubs in the county and met bi­monthly. Ethel had an unbelievable list of items canned by just one River Oaks resident, Mrs. R.E. Cunningham, in one year. It included 981 quarts and pints of food from sweet corn, green beans, English peas, hominy, lard, apples, sweet peppers, jellies, chile, chicken, steak, roasts, as well as hams, sausages and bacon which were smoked.

Ethel said the clubs certainly served a social need of the ladies, but there was also much work they did and they learned something new at every meeting. She and other members would meet at county-wide events sponsored by Leonard Brothers, Lone Star Gas Company and Tarrant County Health Department and would bring back information to the club. The Castleberry Club gave scholarships each year as they went to the homes of 4H-Club girls to judge their work and were always amazed at the young girls’ abilities. There was a council for Home Demonstration Clubs formed in 1925 and Mrs. J.B. Hassett of River Oaks was the first president of the council.

The local club met for a while in a small building they purchased for 4600, sometimes met in the Castleberry Schools, but in later years met in the Scout building at River Oaks United Methodist Church. They attended state and national conventions and paid their expenses to one convention by selling a cookbook which he ladies had put together. She said it was a complete sell-out and they could have sold a lot more if they had just printed them. The Castleberry Home Demonstration Club was disbanded in 1995, but Ethel still continues to attend some functions of other clubs. She recently attended a fashion show where a county agent gave some food tips which featured a special way to make a sandwich out of tacos which Ethel said was quite tasty.

Ethel certainly shared some great memories with us, some which triggered my own early childhood memories when my mother was a member of a Home Demonstration Club on the North Side. Before we adjourned, Mrs. V.D. Hallum, a former officer in the Castleberry Home Demonstration Club, who had been brought that evening by her son and daughter-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Aubrey Hallum, shared a few memories of those years in the club. The Hallum family, also early settlers in the area, have a River Oaks street named after them and Aubrey, a member of ROAHS, has been a very interesting speaker at a previous Historical Society meeting. We met Mrs. Waggoner’s daughter, Carol, who came with her that evening and spent a good while looking at all the historical items Ethel brought. We are always in total agreement that River Oaks is full of wonderful history and vibrant residents.