After the War

After being discharged from the Army, Bill had ridden the train to Oklahoma City, then the bus to Konawa.  No one was there to meet him, so he walked the last dusty mile down Thunder Road to the old house where he had grown up. 

When he walked in the door, he was greeted like he had never been gone. Returning to Oklahoma was not what he had hoped it would be.  Jobs were scarce. The only one he could find right away was managing the drug store. 

Bill in front of hte drug store in Konawa, Oklahoma

His mother had given away all of his clothes, and his sister, Nora, had let the engine block freeze on his beloved old car.   He was ready to blow that town, but here he was working at the drug store hoping for a future.    

He went back to First Baptist Church, where he had grown up, and where a single adult Bible Study class had been started.  There he met Faye Emerson, a teacher at Konawa High School.  She had made quite a reputation for herself.  She was teaching Spanish, Home Economics, English and sponsoring the Drama Club.  It was quite a teaching load and on top of that she found out a coach, who was teaching only one P.E. class and one history class was making more money than she. After talking to the principal about it, he told her she would have to go to the school board....which she did.  They had no answer and gave her a raise.  Bill was impressed with this educated fireball of a lady, and they had started dating.

It wasn’t long until Bill’s job inquiries started producing some results.  His experience in the war qualified him for an engineering job.  He got a letter back from Ford, Bacon and Davis. They had a job for him in Jal, New Mexico starting in July.  He accepted the job but he hated to leave Faye and the relationship he had come to enjoy.  He proposed.  It was June.  She accepted. 

Faye and Bill after they announced their engagement June,1946, in Prague at The House on the Hill.

They decided to marry the following June in ‘47.  

Faye had made more money while teaching in Kansas. Since Bill was going to be working in Jal, New Mexico, and the school year finished, she decided to go back to her old job in Kansas, to pay off some debts. Bill left for his new job and a month later, Faye took the train back to Kansas.

The next February, about the time Bill's job in Jal was finishing, his aunt in Texas City told him Brown and Root was hiring in Texas City.  There was also a possibility for a career employment once the construction on the chemical plant was finished, so telling Faye about his plans, he took off for the coast. 

Bill worked 12 hour shifts at the plant and picked up extra jobs at the docks or on the ships when he could find them, saving as much money as he could.  From his rented room, through the thin curtains on the window, as they fluttered in the humid Gulf breeze,he could lie in bed and see the flares from the plants. It was temporary, he had put money down on a nice apartment a few blocks away for June after the wedding, when Faye arrived. 

The night was hot and sticky. There was hardly a breeze from the one little window. Bill couldn’t sleep and decided to go out to the plant early, before his shift started 7 am. 

Once there he heard a fire had started down at the docks, one they were having some problems with.  There had been fires before on the docks, but it had never been much to worry about, in fact it had been a sight seeing adventure for many in town. Being a firefighter at the plant, he had been told to be ready to go.  About 9 a.m. the fire on the Grandcamp got completely out of hand and the ship blew.  Bill stayed put and worked his shift since they felt they were far enough away to not be in danger at that time.   When he got off work, with no one being allowed back into town he headed for the Blimp base in Hitchcock where everyone had been evacuated.  On his way out of town he saw flat bed trucks with the injured being taken to Galveston.  

He returned to work early the next morning.  No one knew what had happened to their homes, apartments and in many cases family members.  No one was being allowed in to town. On the radio they were hearing all that had happened, how far reaching the explosion had been, that people as far away as Louisiana had felt it. He knew the place he had been living had to be gone. And the apartment he had put money down on was gone as well.  Then he thought about Faye, and realized she had probably heard about it too.  He drove to the telegraph office in Galveston, got in a 6 block long line to send a telegram to Faye.

In Kansas Faye was teaching school.  It was improper for a single woman teacher to have an apartment alone, so she was living in the attic room of the superintendent of schools.   She had not yet come downstairs when the superintendent and his wife heard the radio broadcast of what had happened in Texas City.  They pondered it for a moment, and decided to keep the radio off when she was came down, and give notice to the teachers to not say anything to Faye.  She had been teaching there during the war, when her first fiance, a pilot, had been shot down over the Sea of Japan.  Surely this could not happen to her again. So they decided to not say anything, and pray that there would be word from Bill.

Two days went by and no news from Bill.  The morning of the third day the superintendent and his wife decided, after school, they would have to tell Faye what had happened.  With no notice from Bill, he must have been killed or badly hurt in the explosion.

With dinner on the stove, several other teachers invited for dinner, and heavy hearts they all sat down in the living room to advise Faye of the disaster.  No one knew exaclty where to start the conversation. The superintendent decided to just turn on the radio.  It warmed up, and as the voices were starting to become clear, there was a knock at the door.  They all braced for the worst.  It was a telegram for Faye....from Bill.

Faye was stunned at what had happened and that she had not known.  She felt shocked and relived all in one breath.

Six weeks later in Prague, Oklahoma, Bill Greenlee and Faye Emerson were married at her parents home.

They started their new life in a town reeling from the worst industrial disaster in the history of the U.S. They made friends helping people put their lives back toether, as they started their own new life.

Bill and Faye in Bill's Chevy convertible, that had to be hot wired to start.

Bill and Faye’s first home on 18th Street.   I think it says 21 18th Street

They were forced to buy a house since apartments were almost nonexistent after the explosion.  Their first house, on 18th street, cost $5000.  They were worried about how they would ever afford a $50 a month house payment.

*Some of the details may not be exact.  This is however, my best remebrance of the way they told the story.

The Crown

NEW CAR DAY

There was a time when all cars did not look the same. 
In the 1950s and 1960s the day the new model year car was revealed was something all car enthuiasts anticipated.  

We lived about 3 blocks from the Ford dealership in Texas City on 13th street.   Mom taught school. I went to Mrs. Hudnall’s to daycare except on the weeks that Dad worked the 3 pm to 11 pm shift at Union Carbide.  That week, each month I got to spend the days with my dad. 

Dad and I walked down our street, across a vacant lot, then passed by the ice cream shop called “The Spa” to Oleander Ford Dealership on 6th street.  

Each year, before the new car models were revealed, they would sit in the dealership window with a cover over them.  Everyone would look at the cover and try to imagine what incredible detail the new model would behold.  Dad was no different and in fact, probably anticipated it more than most. If possible, he and I would be there on the day the covers were pulled off.  With lots of ohhs and ahhs, people would swarm around the new model to see the latest features.  Kids that were there....like me.....would get a detailed plastic model of the car to take home....and I had many. Dad’s  cousin in Shawnee, Oklahoma had a Ford Dealership too. He would save the models to give me when we visited.

In 1955 the Ford Fairlane Crown Victoria was an especially fine car.  I was three and a half and  Dad had gone to see the new model without me.  So on the first day of our week together we walked down to the Ford place so I could see it.  It was two tone black and white, with black on the bottom, white on top. There was a slick silver strip that went over the roof from behind the driver seat to the other side behind the passenger seat.  It had fender skirts that almost covered the back wheels.  The inside was all red and white.  An air conditioner had been installed that sat on the hump in the middle of the front floor board.  There was a fold-down arm rest in the center of the front seat.  When Dad and I sat in the car, he folded down the arm rest, let me sit on it, and told me that could be my seat.  I thought it had been put there just for a kid, like me.

We got out of the car and and looked at several other cars in the showroom, but none were as pretty at that one.  When we were through looking he said, 

The Crown in front ot the cabin we stayed in at Lake George, Colorado in 1955.

“Janny I tell you what, you pick out the car you want and I will get it for you.”  I walked over to the Crown and said,

“This is the one I want.” 

“Okay then, we’ll get it.” He held up the keys, opened the door,  I climbed in, in front of him.  The guy at the dealership smiled big at us,  opened the two wide, side doors of the showroom.  Dad started the engine.  We drove it out the door, down the ramp and home.  It was magic...and that started my love affair with cars.

I think I was fifteen before I realized it was all set up....I didn’t really pick it out, Dad had already bought the car and arranged to pick it up that day. In my mind it will always be just the way I remembered it.

Skip to

The 4th of July, Oak Park Neighborhood Parade

I had gone to the store with my dad.  As we were walking to the check out counter, we passed a table with rolls of red, white and blue crepe paper.  Dad told me to pick up a roll of each.  When I asked him why, he said we could decorate my bicycle for the 4th of July.  Sounded like fun, I was all for that.  When we got home he showed me how to weave the colored paper between the spokes on my bicycle wheels, tying them so they wouldn’t come off.  We wrapped the colored paper around the handle bars and tied it leaving the long red, white and blue paper to stream from the handle bars.

I was thrilled!  When Dad and I finished decorating it, I rode my bike down the street and back.  Susan from across the street asked me if we could decorate her bike... so we did.  Before the day was over Susan and I had decorated about a dozen bikes with several moms making trips to the dime store to replenish our crepe paper roll supply.  There were kids from the other part of the neighborhood coming to see what we were doing, some I had never met. 

We were all so excited, we decided to have a bike parade the next day on the 4th.  I laid out the plan. We would all line up down my driveway, say the Pledge of Allegience and then with grandeur, slowly start our ride down each street in the neighborhood. Smiling and waving to the adoring fans waiting to see the parade as we passed each house. 

The next day we lined our bikes up on my driveway.  Facing the flag, on my my porch, we said the pledge.  I thought every one would carefully follow the plan I had laid out.  As soon as we finished the pledge though, everyone started yelling,  jumped on their bikes and took off riding like madmen.  They took off fast to make the streamers fly straight out.  

Pedaling  fast, weaving in and out, no lines, no order, it was nothing like what I had visualized.  I was so disappointed. I didn’t understand why they didn’t want to stay in a line and have a parade like on TV.  I went in the house and cried.  

Everyone else though was having a blast riding through the neighborhood, streamers waving from the handlebars, flying straight back in the wind. The whole neighborhood enjoyed the parade.  Others even called my mom telling her what a great idea the bike parade had been.  The decorated bikes streamed through the neighborhood for the entire next week.  Everyone talked about the decorated bikes and the wonderful 4th of July parade.  It was years before I realized that something can be a success, even if it doesn't go as planned.....