Oral History Interview

Mr. W. W. Mears

By Russell Crump

Mr. Mears Memories

201"s fast run

Mears: 201 left longview about 8:00 am and got to Beamont about 3:30 P.M.

Well Beaumont had a professional baseball team in the old Texas League the Beamont Exporters and it was opening day of the ball season and the conductor on 201 was a big ball fan, baseball. And it so happen that the train was about 2 hours late leaving Longview on Sunday morning opening day of the ball season in beaumont. Well the engineer was also a baseball fan. Ollie Penel was the conductor and when they came through Pineland they were about an hour late. The dispatcher was L. C. Porter. The agent at Pineland was lon Wright. When the train started to leave Ollie told Loune to tell Porter that the we will be in to Beaumont on time we are going to the ball game. So they made up another hour between Pineland and Beaumont and they went to the Ball game.

Telegrams & Segrigation

I knew most of the colored folks. We had both the white and colored sections of town. The colored section was across the tracks across here. The colored were down behind the mill while the whites were across the highway and tracks. One day the sheriff from San Augustine came down to get somebody, a colored fellow. He asked the postmaster were he could fine this fellow. The postmaster said he did not know were he livid but if anybody knew Mears at the depot would know. So he came down to the depot and stated his business and asked me if I knew were the colored fellow he was seeking livid. I said yes I knew were he livid. The sheriff then asked if I would come down with show him where he livid. I said I rather not. The agent said sure you can go why not, why don't you want to go. I said I have to depend on those fellows down their to tell me where so and so lives to deliver the telegrams. If I came down their with the Sheriff they would not give me the time of day. They both understood. I said shoot if you would like I will draw you a map showing where the fellow he was seeking livid but would not go down their with him.

I had been down their and worked for the commissary for a number of years and knew most of the colored folk real will. I would go down their and see one of the colored fellows I knew real will and would ask him where so and so lives. And he would say no sir I don't know him. Then I would reach in my pocket and pull out a telegram and say I have a telegram for him that I sure need to deliver to him. Then he would say will let me see. See they would not tell me where anybody was until they knew what I wanted even though they knew me. We have come a long way that was segregation then. We had white and colored waiting rooms and jim crow car in the doodle bug.

Russell: Even in places like Pineland you had separate waiting rooms?

Mears: Oh! yes they couldn't eat in the restaurants, they went in the back door in the restaurants. They had their own schools and everything segregation 100 percent back then, that was sad it really was nothing right about it.

The late Pastor

We had a fight between a couple of black folks and one of them was killed and they shipped the body out on the Santa Fe a day or two latter. The under taker made the arrangements came up to the depot they were going to have services in Porter. At their church in the morning they would have services in time to bring the body up to the depot catch the train. My job was to get the casket on the express wagon and wheel it out and load it on the baggage car.

Pouring down rain!

They waited as long as they could. The colored pastor was out of town and due back that morning and he did not show up. The fellow that was killed was a deacon of the church. They waited as long as they could down at the church but the pastor had not shown up. They had to bring the body up to the depot to ship. Their were no white folk waiting for the train so the agent told me to open up the white waiting room and tell them to come in and wait their. Feelings were running pretty high they did not know weather they were going to lynch the pastor or fire him. I do not think he stayed their much longer because he was late for brother Toms funeral. Anyway the train came. About the time the train pulled to a stop the pastor showed up. He jumped out of his car and come running over to me and said I have got to see brother Tom one more time. You mean you want me to open this casket so you can see brother Tom. Yes sir I got to see brother Tom. He went to talk to the agent as I started to load the baggage car. I kind of looked over at the agent and the agent said load it. So he did not get to see brother Tom.

I do not know what type of services they had maybe the pastor had to go to the caskets final destination.

The Telegram

Joe was stabbed Tuesday funerlized Sunday come and bring a good pocket Knife.

Lay Joe off

Their was a colored women on the phone to the crew caller at Silsbee the conversation went :

Women: I wants to lay Joe off.
Crew caller: What's the matter
Women: He's dead
Crew caller: What happened to him
Women: I shot him

Mears: She did not want him to miss his call she wanted to lay him off.
Russell: did they have a guarantee if they made all their calls
Meaars: No he would be in trouble if he missed his call he would have to see the trainmaster and explain why he missed his call. He was marked up on the board as available. If he missed his call he would be in trouble. The women shout him but she did not want him to miss his call and get in trouble.

Where Blacks could work

Mears: At that time Blacks were limited in Train service to Trains on the Longview , Conroe , Somerville and Oakdale Districts anything on the G & I except the brakeman on the passenger train
Colored people were limited to brakeman on freight trains only all conductors and engine crews were white. It was in the rules. Somewhere down the line they decided this was discrimination and did away with the restrictions.

Transcribed in altered form for the Web By Russell Crump

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