(See Pictures of Edwin Davenport to left)
The life of' an owner of a country news paper in a small town is good in some ways and not so good in other ways. People pay their subscription to the paper with eggs, butter, milk and in produce and other farm products. So they had plenty to eat, and the stores that advertised let them take out in merchandise what ever they owed, so they had nice furniture and clothes. A big coal company ran big ads so they had plenty of fuel, they also had passes to all the shows and circuses that came to town, even passes from the railroads. After five years in Bessemer he received an offer from The States to take his foremanship back. He left with his family for New Orleans, so as. he said, "Could see and feel some money again". After a year his third son came. He was. named Louis Bolet Davenport, Louis was another brother's name, and Bolet was his mother's Family name.
(See Picture of Edwin and Louis to right) When Louis was three years old his father lost his job on The States and we moved to Pensacola, Florida. We lived there about two years and went through a hurricane and spent the night in the post office building. We were all safe but loss some in property damages.
We then followed our father to Charleston, South Carolina. He had a rented house awaiting us. We all liked Charleston, though the kids there called us Yankees. There are many historical things to see, and you can see Fort Sumpter from the famous Battery or sea wall, also many monuments and statues. While we were living there we had the misfortune of going through an earthquake.
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The earthquake occurred at night about nine thirty, there were three shocks at intervals of about five minutes, We had a window slam down and break and a few pictures that fell , our two story house shook and trembled but it held together, the real damage was outside water and gas pipes broken big cracks in the pavement, and many bricks buildings tumbled into the streets, There were few killed but many injured.
Mr. W. Judson, my fathers partner in Bessemer, wrote him a letter asking him to come back and run the plant there, as he was getting old and wanted to retire. He decided ta take another chance with the project, so he left for Alabama, leaving the family to pack and follow him later,
I was in the 5th grade in South Carolina, but they put me in the 7th when I entered school in Bessemer, Though the school I had attended were way-ahead in most studies, I missed two years of arithmetic that the other students had. and this hurt me the balance of my school life,
The next Summer my sister Louise and my mother, visited my aunt (Melanie Bolet Gutzeit pictures to right), Mrs. C. X. Gutzeit, in San Antonio, Texas. My-sister contacted Typhoid Fever and was seriously ill. My mother wired for us to come there. My-father decided to leave at once, He told Byron and I to pack and crate the furniture. and ship it to Texas; that he would get a job over-there and we would live in Texas. He took Louis with him, and left the task of packing the household goods to Byron and myself. We did, and how! We had barrels and boxes to put dishes and books in, we started crating the rest of the furniture, Byron took the mirrors off the dressers and buffet and put them in between the mattresses and then crated the mattress-, The moving man that took the stuff to the freight depot, says he never saw as many crates in all his time, he said you are shipping more lumber than household goods,, in those days they put your stuff in a freight car and held it until they had the car full, so it may be a week or 3 months before your car left on the rail road, The R. R. notified you of its arrival.
After visiting in San Antonio and Louise had fully recovered, We went to, Beaumont where my Father had taken over the foremanship of the Beaumont Enterprise, the morning paper, They-rented a large house, 2 stories and 20 rooms they, took in roomers and boarders. Most of the people worked on the paper, one of them was Teff Welborn and his bride Elsie, he was a monotype operator on the Enterprise, Also W. J. Slade a telegraph operator, met and wooed my sister, and latter they-were married in that house, and Byron fell in love with a French girl, Ethel Leger, and they were wed, and lived in Beaumont. I had a job on the paper as galley boy. When my father had a run in with the editor, and resigned, he had an offer from The Times in El Paso, so we were on the move again. Mother played it smart this time she sold A1 the furniture and took Lewis and I .and left for the west, I was an apprentice on the Times composing room. My father didn't stay in-El Paso but six months, and left for Temple Texas.
I stayed in El-Paso and finished learning my trade.,I was given a card before the allotted time was due. and drew a traveler, and hit the rails with linotype. operator named J. Arthur Grant, This is not an easy life, This bumming it on Freight trains slow dirty, bumpy and disagreeable, so it didn't take long for me to get enough of it, so I headed for Beaumont, after Grant was accepted and I was turned down by the Canadian Army. I tried to get in world war 1. In the meantime my father was living in Houston, And was surprised when I heard that my mother had another girl, They named her Coralie.
In Beaumont I roomed with Byron and Ethel, and showed up for work on both newspapers, getting 4 or 5 days a week, and one night when I showed up at the Enterprise the foreman told me I had a situation, and lunch time I ran over to the Journal to take my slug off the board and saw that I was hired straight up, that meant that I had 2 jobs 6 days a week on both papers, well I held them both down for about 4 weeks, when an extra sub showed up
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Ethel and I visited Houston to see the new baby Coralie. Ethel made over the new baby, as she and Byron wanted a child so much, My father told me he had an offer to go to Austin, as a makeup and assistant foreman. he said he was going to accept it. He left the next day, in the meantime, Ethel and I were getting too friendly, and I decided not to go back to Beaumont before something serious happened to our platonic friendship. I went to San Antonio after visiting the folks in Austin. I had a Job in a commercial shop and not much experience in this kind of printing. The reason I lasted until after the Telephone Directory went to press, was that the owner of the shop, Mr, Kirschell was a friend of my uncles. Then I received a call from my Dad saying there was an opening on The Austin Statesman and I took it up at once, and came to Austin.
There was a Mr. Grubb who was the foreman of the composing room, and he had a radical bunch of men working for him, some of their nicknames would give a clue to what they were like, Dirty-shirt Williams, Hi-Ball DeCrocker and a guy they called 'the Whip? Marshbanks and his brother the Slugger were some Of his crew. My Dad was proofreader and I was the make-up man. Mr. Grubb was a tyrannical sort of guy. He came to work each evening laid a pistol on his desk and yelled out orders to different men. My father told me that the reason he carried a revolver was because one of the men he had fired recently pulled a knife on him and threatened to kill him The man Sam Hill was still in town and was going to be at a chapel meeting the next day, they held the meeting in the back room of the Iron Front Saloon, I voted with the majority to re-instate him, much to the dismay of my dad and Mr. Grubb. They had proven that Mr.. Grubb.; had turned the clock up 5 minutes, and then fired the man for being 5 minutes late to work, He never came back to his job. H he said it was the principal of the thing he wanted to prove..
Mr, Grubb ,invited me to his house to supper and I met his daughter who was-a real attractive outdoor girls Annette and I went Horse back riding and canoeing, About this time Byron had moved to Austin and Ethel and her brother Leo, were renting a few doors down the street from us on East First Street. Our next door-neighbor-were the Me Garritys and they had their niece from San Marco visiting them. Their daughter Imo Bess about ten years old, introduced me to her aunt Lillian Moore, I fell for her on the spot, and made a date with her for that night, and when I got home mother told me that Annette had called. I was in a predicament. I had forgotten I had promised Annette to go someplace, so I called Leo and asked him if he wanted a date, he said yes, So we flipped a coin to see wich one he would go with, and I got Lillian.
Lillian and I hit it off like a pair of love birds. We had a date every evening until one night *we took a boat ride on Lake Austin and the boat broke down at the head of the lake and we did not get home until 2 o'clock in the morning Mac never believed our story that the boat had engine trouble and he told "Citty" as he called Lillian, to pack up and go home. And every week on my day off,, I would take the train and go to San Marcos to see her,, I was sort of timid guy. and that was a brave thing for me to go to a boarding house full of girls and court her, but I never missed a week and some times twice a week. I received a letter from her telling me about her room mate a girl named Secondina, and she wanted me to be real nice to her the next time I came up, well we decided to go boat riding, I guess 1-was to attentive to Secondina, when I looked back at Lillian she was not smiling, so I decided to pull into the dock, and I helped Secondina out and reached-back to help Lillian. She informed me that she didn't need help. and one of the laces from her high shoes caught on the boat and the next thing she was in the water, I had to jump in clothes and all to pull her to shore. Secondina was convulse with laughter, as we made our dripping way back to-the house, my suit shrunk so that I never wore it again and Lillian gave me a pair of trousers from Brother Tom about 3 sizes to big, and then we
went back to the Mill Dam to find my coat which Lillian had been holding, luckily some man had retrieved it with pole and I had my watch and ticket to get home, and we parted that night as true lovers forevermore.
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Lillian lived in a boarding house, operated by Mr. and Mrs. Tom H. Sevey. It was near The Southwest State Teachers College in San Marcos. Mrs, Sevey on the day we fell in the river, was in Santa Rosa Hospital in San Antonia, undergoing surgery for gallstones and after her recovery and return home, she told Lillian that her nurse at the hospital knew me. This was a queer turn of fate for all the nurses in San Antonio she would have the one that I used to go with, when I lived in San Antonio, a Miss Cunningham, Annie told her that her sister was going to marry a man from Austin, Ed Davenport. The nurse told her that I was once her beau. I had asked Lillian to marry me but this was the first time that I had known that she had consented, . I wanted to set the date next month, but after talking it over with Mrs. Sevey we set the date for two months Off, Christmas Day, 1915,
1 had Byron go with me to get our marriage license as I was only Aarhus old. Byron was my best man,, and Secondina was maid of honor, Miss Anna Clara Karnes played the wedding music, and Sam Moore turned the music at the piano for her, they had just met that day, and were married the next year. We had a nice wedding and reception afterwards, Mv Uncle and Aunt from San Antonio, Mr. and Mrs. G. X. Gatzeit, and all of my family from Austin in fact we all came over in my uncles new Automobile an Aspersion, " Jack Rabbit". I .think that BIS shiny car took some of the attention from our wedding,.
It was late that night when we got back to Austin, and my mother said that she had the front room all fixed up for us, but my kid brother Louis had really fixed us up,, he had taken the slats out &f the bed and we fell kerplunk on the floor that really embarrassed a couple on their first night, We left the next day for San Antonio to spend our honeymoon, My Aunt had a few young couples over the first evening for party, and the next day she hired a chafer and turned over the car to us, to go-any place we wanted, We had a swell time going to the parks, shows and shopping with a driver to take us wherever we desired,,
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The Gutzeitts gave a New Years Eve party for us and invited a Jolly crowd, We had a big time and lots to drink., But we got up early the next morning and left for Austin, to look for an apartment, The first place we lived was on Trinity St. We had two rooms and bath, it was furnished neat but was real small, One Saturday night I got off about 3 o'clock and was walking home. The Statesman was on Seventh and Brazos Sts., I passed a bakery and they were making doughnuts I bought a dozen and Lillian and I sat on the side of the bed and ate them
while they were hot and oh so good and the next day we had the worst case Of indigestion anyone ever experienced,, I asked the landlady to call a doctor,
but she gave us both a glass of bicarbonate of soda and in a few hours we were all right, We stayed there about 2 months,
The next place we rented was on the 200 block of East Second St. right off' Congress Ave,. WE had an apartment on the 2nd floor entrance on an outside stairs and a long porch running the length of the building, Lillian contacted Typhoid Fever while we there, and when she recovered we moved, I saw many men coming in there, and figured this was not the right environment for us.
Our next home was on Brazos St.. across from the Capitol building. A Mr. and Mrs.Fred Cobb, were our new landlords, Mr. Cobb was a barber and the state champion chess player, he had his trophies on display in the living room of his house, we had the nicest apartments and real friendly people to associate with, He would spot me a rook or knight when we played chess, he also had some of the finest chess men that I had ever seen,, I think he let
me win once in a while, so that I would play with him. I enjoyed watching him and some of the University Faculty play.
We lived here about a year,, Then bought some furniture and rented a
house on Spence St. about 2 months later we moved about 3 blocks away to a nicer house on Taylor St,-United States had declared war on Germany, and I had to register for the draft, Sam and I had made an agreement that if I was all called he would take care of Lillian. and if he was drafted I would take care of Anna Clara.
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Going back a bit, when we lived on East Second St. and Lillian had Typhoid Fever, I called Dr. Weller he came up and examined her, and said it was a case of typhoid and ordered some medicine for her. He told me to give her a dose every two hours, He said the direction would be on the bottle the medicine arrived, and on the package it said to take one every two hours and follow with Castor oil, I gave her one and a tablespoon of oil, and I gave her four and four tablespoons of Castor Oil, The next morning when the doctor came . she was a good deal better, but awful weak,, The Doctor said the remedy was worse than the ailment and he was glad he didn't say take it in water I would probably gave her the medicine in the bath-tub. anyway she was 0. K. the next Day.
I made application to join the Tank Corp, and was interviewed at the recruiting station, I was a little skinny guy, weighing only 110 pounds, and I think I failed my physical, because the Captain said I made 100 on my test. Any way they told me I was subject to call, but never heard from them,
Mr. Grubb resigned his job on The Statesman, And Mr. Rowze made my, Dad foreman and I was his assistant, and make-up man, Byron was ad foreman, Abe Purcel1 proofreader,.Hugo Rauber, ad man, Jeff Gilbert, A. C Wright, .J. B. TATE Sr, and Walter Bauerfeind were the linotype operators, Zeke Hunt was an apprentice and galley boy. Edmund Travis was the editor and I will never forget an incident that happened one Saturday night. I had the paper all made up and ready to go to press with the Sunday morning edition, but the editorial page was held up because Travis was still writing the lead editorial. I had been in his office several-times asking for the copy. He was drinking heavily. He strolled out to the composing room carrying his typewriter and threw it at the form of the page and said "here is your editorial" and pied the page, I straightened up the type, and called Mr. A. C. Baldwina former editor and friend of Travis, and he clipped out an editorial for me to use. He thanked me for not calling Mr. Rowze, Travis was also thankful and apologized for his behavior, and we were close friends until he left the paper,
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E. F. Davenport Sr. lived at 87 ½ East Avenue after moving from East First St. Before Lillian and I were Married They-had a large six room house on a wide street (now it is The Interregional Highway). At that time there was a park in the center running the full length of each block, A Band Stand occupied the park between 1st and Holly Streets, They conducted Band Concerts and political rallies were held here before election campaigns . and the children of the neighbor hood enjoyed playing on the grass, we lived across the street from the folks, first on Spence and latter on Taylor St, The McGarritty's still were renting on East First. Byron and Ethel lived closer to town and had adopted a baby Elouise, and they seemed to be getting along better. Her brother Leo had gone back to Beaumont. That spring Lillian's niece Ida Mae visited with use and Essies two boys Willie and Herbert came over a good deal, and my brother Lewis was a freguent visitor.
