Browse Items (13 total)

Beatrice Mayes Clabon and her brother Curtis Mayes are long standing residents of Texas City. As with all African American families at this time, they lived south of Texas Avenue. Clabon is the oldest of seven children and was the only girl until…

Betty Adams Jones talks about her home in Texas City, her family, and being an only child, (though she had two stepsisters.) She discusses what it was like to live with both of her grandfathers who were complete opposites in personality, and the…

Mary Parker talks about her childhood and being one of the three largest families in Texas City. She tells how her father was a World War I veteran and much older than her mother. She talks of her time going to Wharton in the summer and how her…

Martha Payne Darden discusses how she and her six siblings were born and raised in a segregated neighborhood south of Texas Avenue in Texas City. Darden talks about her childhood, her big family, and her education attending Booker T. Washington…

Bernia Hall talks about moving to La Marque (West Texas City) in 1952 with her family. She talks about her parents, childhood, and having twin sisters. She describes her early life as busy with studies, chores and taking care of her sisters,…

Lee R. Gordon talks about being descended from a family of sharecroppers and why they moved to Texas City in 1946. He describes his neighborhood, parents, family life, and growing up in The Projects, a segregated low-income apartment complex. He…

Rear Admiral Osie V. Combs (Ret. USN) talks about his siblings, parents, extended family and growing up in a neighborhood within a ten-block radius south of Texas Avenue. He discusses Booker T. Washington School and the different teachers that…

Dr. Lynn Ray Ellison shares how he grew up in Texas City with six brothers and two sisters. He talks about the economy and how people migrated to Texas City for work. Ellison states that there were 502 families living in their community, and that…

Daisy Buster talks about growing up in a family with seventeen children, her community, and attending Booker T. Washington School. She talks about visiting her grandparents in Louisiana and how her sister, Rose, was almost like another mother to her.…

Reverend D.N. Benford officially recognized as “the longest-serving pastor of a single church" by the Guinness Book of World Records, shares insight into his 72 years of experience as a preacher for the Rising Star Baptist Church. He talks about his…