Hometown News For Orange County, Texas
Hometown News For Orange County, Texas
Sorted by date Results 26 - 48 of 48
Union Pacific's Big Boy No. 4014 steam engine train arrives in Orange Thursday for a whistle stop at 9:30 A.M. at Holly Lane crossing. The engine was built in 1941, during WWII. The smaller steam engine train played an important part in my childhood and the coming of Big Boy prompted me to write about it. I loved those old trains. Our house, a one-room shack, rested next to the railroad tracks and an old sugar cane derrick. The derrick was a beehive during sugar cane...
This is for those youngsters who will be graduating this month, who will be leaving the protection of home and striking out on their own. You have absolutely no idea what the future has in store. You will have great things happen, and you will also get a lot of hard bumps. The bumps will seem harder to you than they really are. Your parents, up to now, have been taking many bumps for you, sheltering you against them. Later, you will do the same for your children. Time will...
Memories of the past are a reflection of the road we've traveled and where it brought us... In my mind, from time to time, I go back to times of my youth. Raised on Young Switch Road, named after the railroad switch station, less than 150 yards from Mom and my grain storage shack we called home. It was salvaged from a farm and drug to our spot by a team of mules, pulling our shed on a sled. That little one-room building was our castle. It had room for one bed. I slept on a cor...
I was watching CNN just before 10 p.m. Sunday, May 1, 2011, when a newsbreak announced President Obama would be addressing the nation. A newsbreak this late on Sunday made it evident to me that this was going to be something big, but I didn't imagine how big. Osama bin Laden, 53, Al Qaeda leader and chief architect of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the United States was shot in the head, killed and his body buried in the ocean. It was a great plan, over many months,...
Bridge City today is far different than it was 62 years ago when the Penny Record first hit the streets in April, 1959. My roots run deep in Bridge City soil. My dad, Clay, first located here in 1928, when he established the Silver Slipper Club on Lake Street. At the time, Lake Street was the main road and was an extension of Ferry Dr. The Bailey's had settled on Lake Sabine around 1926, near the ferry crossing to Port Arthur. In 1946, after World War II, dad put in the...
After what little supper we had was eaten, the chores of another day put away, we gathered on Grandma Avelia's little front porch. She rocked in her favorite rocker holding her rosary. That rocker today is a prized possession of mine. It sets proudly in my bedroom where it's a constant reminder of those simple days of my childhood. Spring was a favorite time for porch sitting, with lightning bugs glowing beautifully and a cool breeze usually blowing. Porch sitting wasn't only...
The Civil War had come to its conclusion. The year was 1865. Dr. Stephen Dunn had been one of its casualties. He was survived by his wife, Sarah Jane, and one eight year old son, Allen. Alone and penniless, the mother made a decision to take her young son and travel to Eastland County, Texas, where she had a brother. Allen, his mother and an aunt traveled by covered wagon from Searcy, Arkansas. The trek took several months and they were met with many hardships and delays....
On February 19, 1959, 62 years ago last Friday, my father Clay Jackson Dunn died on the operating table. He had a gallstone lodged in an unusual duct and had turned jaundice. The doctors at the big Dallas hospital said surgery to remove the stone was the only options, even though his cardiologist advised against it. He had suffered a major heart attack earlier and his doctor said his heart would never stand major surgery. The operation was set for 9:00 A.M. In order to get the...
Several events, as of late, got me to thinking about my longtime friend Johnny Preston Courville, Jr. My mind is wandering back over 60 years to a period that is unique. The Gulf Coast Sound or Swamp Pop music was born at a time between big band, Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Frankie Lane, the arrival of Elvis and before the Beatles came ashore. A group of talented young musicians, most with some Cajun background, sprang up down the coast from Beaumont to Abbeville. Feb. 3 marked...
There was no way of knowing our late years would get down to isolation because of a life threatening pandemic. It's certainly not the way we wanted to spend our final years. However, after being in lock down for the past few months, after 66 years of marriage, Phyl and I have found a silver lining. It all started when Phyl started writing down the names of everyone we could remember who we had crossed paths with or were dear friends. Most who were our ages, 84 and 86, had...
Long Ago Cajun Christmas, Town and Times Remembered Christmas will be different this year than our normal gatherings with an economy that allowed us to have many gifts under the Christmas tree. In a way it won’t be much different than the hard times we had during the Depression. Today, a pandemic prevents us from gathering safely but many people are also hurting financially because of a big downfall of jobs in this area. We have diversified industries that help lesson the b...
As we travel down life’s highway, we encounter events that mark that place, where we recall what we were doing and what was going on around us at the time of their happening. Many of us recall where we were and who we were with when we heard the news of President John F. Kennedy’s assignation in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, Neil Armstrong’s landing on the moon in 1969, 9-11, Martin Luther King’s murder, Katrina, Rita or Ike. I recall an event that occurred 79 years ago. I was jus...
I'm optimistic that by next Thanksgiving the times we are living today will seem like a bad nightmare. We will wake from this bad dream, on a bright new day. We will still be struggling to leave this past behind but in time the abscess will subside. Here at home we will still have to take care of our own. Our basic lives must be cared for. We have children to raise and to ensure they get a good, competitive education in our own school yards. This brings me to something I've be...
I came into this world as Franklin D. Roosevelt became the 32nd president, in the mist of the great Hoover depression. Hoover, a wealthy New York businessman with no experience in government, had somehow gotten the Republicans to elect him. He had taken over a healthy economy and then had people jumping out of high-rise buildings and off of bridges. The businessman totally destroyed the country and put everyone in the poor house. FDR started the process of rebuilding the...
One's mind can't imagine the marvels of the future or the dangers that lie ahead... Sometimes I yearn for days long past, when the pace was slower, people more compassionate and murder was seldom heard of. No one tried to keep up with the Jones's, because the Jones's didn't have anything either. We were too poor to pay attention to the fact that we were poor. Days came and days went: we didn't complain. We welcomed the new day and got on our knees and gave thanks at day's...
Some 95 years ago my father, Clay Dunn, started building the Silver Slipper Club. New Year's Eve, 1925, he opened up the club on Lake Street, then known as the Ferry Crossing Road. The building, probably the oldest building in the city, stood for many years but was finally destroyed by Hurricane Ike. Later, in 1946, he built the Midway Motel, which included a restaurant and liquor store. The motel was Bridge City's first and only motel. The motel and the liquor store remained...
I got a call from Neighbor Cox, my friend of 25 years, who I spoke with nearly every day. My son Mark had introduced me to him 25 years ago, when we operated the newspaper from our BC office, The Creaux’s Nest, in “Neighbor Cox’s neighborhood. Back in those early years Doug Harrington operated the drug store; H.D. Pate had a law office; Dr. Mark Messer had a dental office and Bill Nickum, the insurance man, had an office on Texas Ave... Today Bill is the only one in the neigh...
In my mind, from time to time, I go back to times of my youth. Raised on Young Switch Road, named after the railroad switch station, less than 150 yards from Mom and my grain storage shack we called home. It was salvaged from a farm and drug to our spot by a team of mules, pulling our shed on a sled. That little one-room building was our castle. It had room for one bed. I slept on a cornshuck pallet. Two boards nailed side by side was our table. Nail kegs, with feed sack...
Down Life’s Highway Ten Years have gone by since we lost Buddy Moore, I still miss him. My friend Buddy Moore and I covered a lot of life’s terrain together, starting out as young men and it was quite a trip. Buddy died Feb. 13, 2009 at age 80 after suffering a heart attack Feb. 11. Buddy became publisher of the Kountze News in 1974, sold to him by his employer the famous publisher Archie Fullingim. Buddy was from the same mold of publisher as Archie and they often spoke the...
Down Life's Highway Our entertainment center changed my life, and maybe, helped make me who I am today. When the French-speaking people of Nova Scotia were banished from their homes, those that didn’t die at sea or were sold on the slave blocks, made their way to Louisiana. They wove their way down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers and floated the bayous into South Louisiana, where they had heard people from France lived. They banded together, after arriving 6,000 strong, in o...
Down Life's Highway Long ago summer evenings on Grandma's porch after what little supper we had was eaten, the chores of another day put away, we gathered on Grandma Avelia’s little front porch. She rocked in her favorite rocker holding her rosary. That rocker today is a prized possession of mine. It sets proudly in my bedroom where it’s a constant reminder of those simple days of my childhood. June was a favorite month for porch sitting, with lightning bugs glowing bea...
Down Life's Highway Everyone who has a grandparent should spend some time with them. After all, we are a part of them, and they are a part of us. Availa Duplantis was a special person in my childhood. She was my grandma. With a strong arm and a strong will, she was a Cajun whose heritage included German, Spanish and Acadian French. Like most people exposed to the Cajun culture, her ancestors were absorbed into the Cajun way of life. She spoke only French. She had been with...
Pictured are the 10 original Dunn’s of Rising Star, Texas. This picture is believed to have been taken in 1936 at the old home place in Sipes Springs. The gathering was to mark Allen and Laura’s 60th wedding anniversary. My father Clay was 43 years old. They are lined up by age standing left ot right: Pearl, Minnie, Robert (Rob), Carl, Clay, Hobson (Hobby), Ernest and Ellis. Seated are Mom and Dad, (Allen and Laura.) Down Life’s Highway My bloodline is my rabbit’s foot My...
