This digital story recording was created in conjunction with the Smithsonian's Museum on Main Street program and its Stories from Main Street student digital storytelling initiative. The project encourages students and their mentors to research and record stories about small-towns and rural neighborhoods, waterways, personal memories, cultural traditions, work histories, as well as thoughts about American democracy. These documentaries, websites, and interviews are then shared on Smithsonian websites and social media.
Students at Mineola Middle School in Texas developed content-rich websites that explored "journey stories" in their community. Participating students interviewed family, friends, and other local residents as part of their official Youth Access Grant local history projects, supported by Museum on Main Street in 2013-14.
Cleottice Greer Walton (00:01): My name is Cleottice Greer-Walton.
Mathew Greer, Jr. (00:06): Matthew Greer, Junior.
Speaker 3 (00:09): All right.
00:10): And where did you grow up?
Cleottice Greer Walton (00:12): I grew up here in Mineola, Texas.
Mathew Greer, Jr. (00:16): Yeah, we both did.
Cleottice Greer Walton (00:18): As he said, we lived in the country about six miles from here in the section houses. And we didn't have a car for a long time. And my parents, my dad was a hands-on dad where he'd spend a lot of time with us. And I remember in the evenings there was this store, it was called Gillum's Grocery. It was on Highway 80, and we would always walk there and get sodas or whatever. And then we would walk home and sometimes...
Mathew Greer, Jr. (01:04): Go on little picnics.
Cleottice Greer Walton (01:07): Go on little picnics. And there was a road that went there. Across the road, there was a lot of sand and he used to always go over there with us and we would play in the sand a lot. And then, as I said, we didn't have a car. And sometimes on the weekends we would walk from our house out to Highway 80 and we would just sit there...
Mathew Greer, Jr. (01:33): Counting cars.
Cleottice Greer Walton (01:34): And count cars. My mother and my dad, and I don't think our younger brother was born yet, but the three kids, and it was just simple.
Mathew Greer, Jr. (01:52): Oh yeah. And for me it was the train. That's before we moved onto Landers Street. We lived out in the country aways, and in the railroad housing, in the section houses, what the railroad had. You don't remember that, do you?
Speaker 3 (02:14): No, sir.
Mathew Greer, Jr. (02:15): Okay. So the railroad workers lived in these section houses, they called them. And the train ran right by the house. It's like as far from here as the street. And that was one of my first memories, was hearing that train. And it wasn't the trains they have now. It was old locomotives, old steam choo-choos.
(02:41): Yeah. It was noisy and smokey and smelly. But that was one of my earliest memories. In the railroad housing all of the families, our dads worked together and all the kids played together, ate together, slept together, whenever. Well, as we got older, then we had to realize that we had to part ways in a sense, because when you're four or five years old and then you get a little bit older, and then this white kid that you're playing with all day, he catches a different bus to school than you do. Or you come into town and he can go into the front door of the cafe and you have to go around to the back door. But otherwise, when you are at home or when you are out hunting and swimming and having a good time, you're just kids. But then when you come into town, something different. You can't go there and you can't go there. So Daddy always made sure that we felt that we should feel that we were as good as anybody else, even though we weren't always treated that way.
Asset ID: 2022.33.04.a
Find a complete transcript at www.museumonmainstreet.org
