A Love Story

A LOVE STORY

Chapter 6 – The Sweetwater Quartet

            In August of 1950 it was time to have the annual Emert reunion at Stephenville, Texas.  The Emert family was my mother’s family. There were many cousins and uncles and aunts and in-laws and we cousins always had a lot of fun together.  The reunion was held that year in the city Recreation Hall.  I was living in Sweetwater at the time with Philip and Willie Ruth and the kids.  So, I rode with them from Sweetwater to Stephenville for the reunion.

           Now, in those days there was no I-20, no four lane freeway.  The Interstate Highway System did not begin until 1956 when Dwight D. Eisenhower signed it into law.  Old highway 80 was just a two lane highway and had some dangerous spots in it.  One of these was what was called “Nine Mile Curve,” you guessed it, 9 miles out of Sweetwater toward Abilene.  We did not leave Sweetwater that Friday night until after all got off work and got packed up.  We ate supper on the road that consisted of wieners and mayo rolled up in a piece of bread.  We called it light-bread.  We were eating our bread and wieners when we came upon an accident at “Nine Mile Curve.  A car carrying three men had crashed into the side of a semi-truck and trailer.  Two of the men were killed on the spot and the other was injured very badly.  We were one of the first cars there on the scene but there was nothing we could do to help.  Later we would discover that the injured man was a close relative, maybe a nephew, of Isaac Conway whom we knew from the church in Ballinger.  He was never really able to overcome his injuries.

            This 1950 Emert reunion was one of the better reunions that we had.  In fact, the reunion began to wane after this one.  Most of my Emert cousins were there and there were lots of pictures made.  There was a picture studio in Stephenville called “Baxley’s” and the owner, Mr. Baxley, came and made a photograph of the entire family. Robert still has that photograph and I think Philip finally was able to name every person in the picture, most of whom are gone now.

            When summer was over, Jewell, Leon, Mary and I were all living in Sweetwater.  We would sing almost every night and weekend and work during the day.  Leon worked for Yellow Freight with Earl DeBusk, sold Singer sewing machines and worked at Safeway.  Jewell worked at Montgomery Wards (who later dropped the word Montgomery) and Southwestern Bell Telephone as a repair clerk where she met Bill and Wilda Jones who are now part of our church here in Irving.  And me - I was still working at International Harvester.  But singing was what we loved most. And, yes, we had a name.  We became known as The Sweetwater Quartet.  How original is that?

Sweetwater Quartet - 1950

 

            We sung at all the local singings.  We sung at churches, in community buildings, schools and homes wherever we got a chance.  One of the highlights of our singing career was singing at the Abilene Jamboree.  This was an amateur revue of sorts broadcast on an Abilene radio station.  Slim Willette was the emcee of the program.  Slim Willette was the one who wrote the song “Don’t Let The Stars Get In Your Eyes.”  This was the song that was popular in the early 50’s and was recorded by the likes of Perry Como, Patti Page and lots of others.

 

            In preparation for our gig on the Slim Willette show we met a young man named Tracy Ratliff.  Tracy was one of the best piano players I ever heard up to and including Henry Slaughter who played for the Stamps Ozark Quartet out of Wichita Falls.  Tracy made us sound so good.  We had some memorable singing trips and most of the time we would sing acappella.

            My dad always wanted us to come to Stephenville to sing.  It so happened that there was a community singing at the county court house once a month on Saturday night.  Dad always wanted to go – he loved gospel music.  He wanted us to come and sing so one week end we went to Stephenville on Friday night after work.  My brother Chris and his wife Cleo lived out in the country.  We though how much fun it would be go out to their house and wake them up by singing at their bedroom window.  So, sure enough, we got there about 1 or 2 in the morning and tiptoed up to their window and begin to sing.  They both came out of there wondering what in the world was going on.  We still laugh about that.  Then on Saturday night we went to the monthly singing in the court house.  It was held in the court room. (I don’t think that could happen now, but it was great then.)  People filled the chamber chairs along with all the jury seats.  And we sang!  Again Mr. Baxley was there to take our picture.

Leon, Jewell, Mary and Monroe sing in the
courthouse at Stephenville, Texas

            One of our more memorable trips for singing was going to the State Singing Convention at Stephenville.  Leon was working at Safeway and had to work until 10 o’clock.  Jewell, Mary, Leon and I were going to drive to Stephenville, spend the rest of the night with mom and dad, go to church the next morning and then on to the singing on Sunday afternoon.  We were scheduled to sing that afternoon.  Dad had already signed us up for a singing spot.  We picked Leon up at 10 and headed off to Stephenville.

            Little did we know the problems we would have with my old ’41 Ford that night.  All went pretty well until we got to about Abilene.  Then my old car began to get hot.  The radiator was overheating.  We stopped by the side of the road and found some water, poured it on the radiator to cool it off, refill it and start out again.  About 20 miles further down the road the old ’41 got hot again. One problem was that the wind was out of the west (a usual occurrence in west Texas) and we were trying to travel east. That just compounded the problem.  So we stopped by the side of the road again.  We had to let it cool.  Leon and I got out and sat down in the middle of the highway.  Leon had brought his guitar along and right there in the middle of the highway we sang and played at the top of our lungs.  Suddenly we heard a dog barking at us for a farmhouse down the road.  So Leon and I ran back, piled in the car, turned it around and headed back to Sweetwater into the wind.  But our troubles had just begun.

            When we drove into Abilene my car radiator was still hot so I pulled into a gas station to get some water.  When we were ready to go again, I put my foot on the clutch pedal (this was before automatic transmissions) and BAM.  My foot on the clutch pedal went all the way to the floor.  The shaft through the transmission that operated the clutch plate broke off smooth with the outside of the transmission housing.  We didn’t have a clutch so I could change gears.  I told them all to just hang on.  I put the car into low gear, turned the key on and pressed the starter button.  That old car jumped and coughed and started down the driveway and out onto the highway.  To shift to second gear and third gear I would shift out of the previous gear, rev the engine until it meshed with the speed of the next gear then slip it into that gear.  Fortunately we did not have to make many stops and starts on the way back to Sweetwater.  We made it back about 2 or 3 that morning. You would think we had learned our lesson.

            But we were tenacious.  We remembered that some people we knew in Sweetwater, the Piersons, were also going to the Singing Convention at Stephenville.  They had told us that they were going to leave about 4:30 on Sunday morning.  We decided just to stay up the rest of the night and call them about 4:30 and ask if we could ride with them.  So we all got comfortable.  We were afraid to go to sleep because we did not have an alarm and would probably not wake up in time to call the Piersons.

            We were at Philip and Willie Ruth’s house in Sweetwater where Leon and I were living at the time.  Philip and the family were not at home.  They had gone to visit Willie Ruth and Jewell’s parents down on the farm at Wilmeth.  We were hungry.  The only thing in the house to eat was Velveta cheese and bread so we filled up on that.  I don’t think any of us could look a grilled cheese in the face for a long time after that.

            Finally, 4:30 came, the Piersons agreed to let us ride with them and we were on our way again.  The only trouble was that the Piersons’ car was a 1949 Plymouth two door coupe and all four of us had to sit in the back seat.  Mr. Piersons was a little mousey kind of man and she was a rather heavy set lady who was handicapped.  I think she had polio when she was young.  They had to sit in the front.  Mr. Piersons just about made Leon and me nervous wrecks as he drove.  He constantly jumped from one side to the other and turned the steering wheel with every jump and all four of us were crammed into the back seat.  We did finally make it to Stephenville and in time for church.

            Now, in those days, it never occurred to us not to go to church.  In fact the little church we went to was meeting in the Girl Scout Hut that was just about a block from the Recreation Building where the singing was being held.  This was the little church that Philip and Willie Ruth had helped start when they still live at Stephenville.  By this time, though, this little church had been taken over by an old brother named Elmer Payne who was a retired professor from Texas A & M University.  Believe me he was a pain.  Of course Jewell, Leon, Mary and I were exhausted from the traumatic night and trip.  But this old brother thought he had to preach the whole Bible every time.  He droned on and on it seemed for hours.  We could certainly sympathize with Eutychus from Bible times.

            Eventually we did get to sing at the State Singing Convention.  We were the only acappella group there.  We were well received but we didn’t do our best because of the all night stuff and the bad preaching we had been through.

            One last tragedy of that trip was yet to happen.  When we started out of the back door of the stage where we had just sung, Jewell slipped on the top step and fell.  In those days there was no ADA to regulate steps.  There were eight concrete steps leading down to the sidewalk.  Jewell slipped, broke the heel off her shoe, tore her hose and worse, bounced down all eight of those steps on her hips. She was so embarrassed but more than that she injured her hips and suffered with it all the way back to Sweetwater.  (We drove Mary’s little Model B Ford back to Sweetwater.)  Then she told me later that she was black and blue for months afterward.

            All in all this was not the most pleasant or enjoyable singing trip that we made but I know it was one where Jewell and I became much closer.  We moved on and the Sweetwater Quartet became extinct.