Double Bayou, Texas

I've been told by folks who know and love the community of Double Bayou that the entire South could have taken lessons from this secluded little town where blacks and whites treated each other as family long before integration was instituted.  If only the rest of the nation had hearts like theirs! 

By RYAN MEYERS ~ Beaumont Enterprise Feb. 11, 2007

Double Bayou -- Sitting in a small wood-frame home on the town's main street, Elga Jackson points to names on a page copied from her father's Bible.

The faded list includes family members born in Double Bayou well before slavery ended. Some family members, like her grandfather, George Rivers, helped build the oldest remaining structure in the placid Chambers County town.

"Several former slaves got together and built that church, and it's been added onto ever since." said Jackson, who turned 87 in December.

St. Paul United Methodist Church was built in 1869 and served as a black schoolhouse from the 1880s to 1920, according to the Texas Historical Commission.

The church unified the black community in the western part of the country in a settlement that even today is undefined by clear town limits, Jackson said.

Named for the fork in a bayou that leads to Trinity Bay, the community grew around pioneer cattleman James Jackson's ranch.

James Jackson established a 26,000-acre spread in 1847 near the present day intersection of Farm Roads 1985 and 562, about 50 miles southwest of Beaumont.

Many living in Double Bayou today are descendants of Jackson and his slaves, who became ranch hands after the Emancipation Proclamation and Juneteenth, according to The Enterprise archives.

In the 1930s and 1940s, Double Bayou hosted black league baseball games with teams from Nome, Honey Island, Shiner, and Dayton, providing a welcome break from backbreaking farm and ranch life.

And about this time, another tradition was developing in Double Bayou that would carry the town's name across half the world. 

  Down the street, a building that won’t be coming back to life has collapsed. “It was a black school for a good while, Double Bayou School,” Elga Jackson said. “My mother and daddy and my three sisters and one brother went to school at the church, but I was the youngest and went to school at the school that used to be over by the church," she said.

"Then they built Double Bayou School, the one that's fallen down, and I went there."

Desegregation rolled in about 1956, and the black school became a Masonic Lodge and an American Legion Hall before slowly falling in on itself.

"Integration went all right, wasn't a big deal," Jackson said, recalling little interest among the town in the civil rights movement. "I remember hearing about it on the radio, and I guess some on television, but it's always been pretty integrated here, not like there were different neighborhoods (for blacks and whites.)"

"Life was too busy and the work too hard to focus on what didn't directly affect you," Jackson said.

"We all had a job. After school I had to get home and grind corn," said Jackson, whose family raised cattle and chickens and grew a sampling of produce including sweet potatoes, mustard greens, and onions.

"You'd put your vegetables on a boat to Galveston. The white folks had their boats and we had ours," Jackson said. "You could also send for things from Galveston on the boats. They were sailboats first before they had motors and getting across the bay could take them a week if there wasn't a wind," she said.

The 1990 and 2000 Census recorded 400 people in Double Bayou, and depending on who you talk to there, the population today is anywhere between 300 and 600. Because its unincorporated, precise demographic information isn’t available. But several people in the town estimated a black majority of about 80 to 90 percent. “I know there’s not as many young people as there were a generation ago,” Regina Lewis said while cutting onions for a weekly senior citizen dinner at the town’s most recently abandoned school, now the community center. “Well, I know there are not nearly as many of us as there used to be,” Jackson said. “Most of us at that cemetery now, out next to the church.”

Taken from the Tribute to Pete Mayes and the "Houserockers" video.  

The original dance structure erected in Double Bayou around 1920 was simply a raised wooden floor with chicken wire around the edges to keep the dancers from falling off. In 1946 the wood from the old dance floor was used in the construction of the now familiar Double Bayou Dance Hall. From 1946 until 1943 the Dance Hall was owned by Manuel Rivers Jr., known to his friends as ‘Cap’, ‘Skipper,’ or ‘Tanzy.’ He was a Gentleman’s Gentleman. 

 Bert taught himself how to play the piano at age 13 without ever knowing how to read music…Bert was nicknamed “Mr. 88” because a piano has 88 keys…

Robert Murphy was the band director at the segregated George Washington Carver High in Anahuac for five years before becoming the drummer for Pete Mayes and the Texas Houserockers around 1956…Robert attended Xavier College and UCLA, majoring in music…originally a trumpet player, injuries from a tragic train accident required him to switch to the drums. 

Robert became “the skin man” when a carton face was painted on his bass drum. Each time the bass was hit the cartoon’s nose would glow. 

Robert came from a musical family. His father’s band, “The Satisfied Five” backed top names like Ray Charles…his mother played the violin…Not only did they play throughout the south, at the Chicago Blue’s Festival, and California’s Long Beach Blue’s Festival, they toured Holland, France, and South America as well…they tell stories of what it was like playing in ‘white’ clubs in the 50s and 60s….they had to enter and exit through the back door and never mingle with the crowd. 

Even though Donnie and I went to school together for many years and even sat next to one other in Tavia Grey’s typing class, we never dated each other.  Out of the blue, fate intervened, and we saw each other again years later at a Double Bayou Legion Hall dance. That sparked a strong connection that led to our first date which was at the Double Bayou Dance Hall.  Donnie never called it by that name.  He always called it Cap’s Place.  In fact, that’s how we refer to it today.  Playing that night were Pete Mayes and the Texas Houserockers.  Donnie had known Pete Mayes and some of the band since he was a kid.  The keyboard player was Bert Lewis who along with his extended family would, years later, become like our own family and one of Donnie’s best friends. The R &B music was wonderful, and the night was perfect.  That started our 43 year love story which continues to this day.  When our youngest daughter, Lindsey, and her now husband, Quinton Fruge, had their engagement pictures taken, Cap’s Place (long since abandoned) was one of the main spots where they posed.  They had written in chalk DM + DS inside a heart on the outside wall of the Double Bayou Dance Hall, one of my favorite pictures.  We’ve told our daughters and our grandsons the story of our first date to always keep that memory alive.  Since we don’t live too far from the dance hall, we’ve revisited it many times through the years. Sad to see it in the shape it’s in, but it’s still there.  Donnie and I both still consider that building very special and it will always hold the magic of falling in love on our first date.

Attached to the raised platform between the buildings, and sloping down to the bayou’s edge, was a wharf, where the boats from Galveston loaded and discharged cargo. By my time the sail had been replaced by motors in the Double Bayou cargo boats, but these boats were still the primary artery of communication between Double Bayou and the outside world. The boats carried every conceivable type of produce to the Galveston market, fresh fruit and vegetables, blackberries and mayhaws in season, chickens and eggs, and, in the early days of wild game, ducks, geese, prairie chickens, rabbits, hides, and tallow. (I’ve also been told that in the depression years, in order to stay afloat financially, liquor was loaded onto the boats and offloaded onto ships heading to New York before the Double Bayou boats reached the Galveston docks.)

About a mile northeast of us Uncle Bud Moss lived in the old Moss homestead. He was a bachelor and the only one of a large family of children to remain at home. He did his own washing, cooking, and house cleaning. He kept the entire house spotless inside and in good repair outside. At least once a day he rode horseback to the Store on Double Bayou. He had very courtly manners and when he encountered a woman he would sweep his big Stetson hat from his head and make a low bow. Even on horseback he could bow so low that his hat would almost brush the ground. One day, after both Uncle Bud Moss and Uncle George Wilborn were quite elderly, they met on horseback on the road and became engaged in a heated argument. They finally settled it by dismounting and fighting it out. Since neither of them was strong enough to strike a solid blow, they ended up in the ditch, rolling over and over, spurring each other with their cowboy spurs. It was never decided who won this match, as a neighbor came along and separated them before either had given up.

During watermelon season the boat would make extra trips to take care of the seasonal crop. When the watermelon wagons backed up to the platform, a number of men would line up about eight feet apart across the platform, down the wharf, and into the hold of the boat. The man in the wagon would toss a watermelon to the first man in line, who would catch it in his arms, pivot with the momentum of the melon, heave it on to the next man in line, and pivot back to catch the next flying melon. In just a few minutes the men would strike a steady cadence of toss-and-pivot and the melons would move in a steady stream down the line of men and into the hold of the boat. From a distance this watermelon line appeared as a giant green spotted caterpillar undulating down the wharf from the wagon to the boat.

On the day the boat was due to arrive from Galveston, Uncle Bob would put all the children in the wagon and drive to the Store to await the arrival of the boat. The boys would take turns swinging on the back axle of the wagon, cutting furrows in the sandy trail with both heels as the wagon rolled along. At the Store the children would get out of the wagon without making a sound and wait until the oldest boy slipped up to the door and cautiously peeked in to see if a certain elderly female cousin was sitting in the rocking chair. This procedure was eminently necessary, because if the whole covey of children raced into the Store when the cousin was present, they had to go through “The Ritual,” which consisted of lining up, one behind the other, in front of the cousin’s chair to be kissed. Since she was quite elderly and didn’t see well, she would grasp each child in turn and peer intently into their faces and say, “Now which one are you?” The victim would dutifully reply, “I’m James, Guy Cade, or Ralph, Cousin” as the case might be, and she would always say, “My, my, how you have grown!” and plant a resounding kiss on whatever portion of childish face she could reach. To the children this was truly an unpleasant ordeal, because she never knew one child from another and never varied the procedure. One thing must be said for this relative – she was, in truth, a real “kissing cousin.”

The gas pumps out front don't work, either.  The Jackson's quit selling gasoline in 1978 when gas prices were soaring.  The only distributor who would deliver gas to Double Bayou tacked a nickel onto each gallon, and the Jackson's had to charge so much for it that customers were filling up elsewhere.

A child's picture of a man, shaded in with colored pencils, hangs from a cookie rack.  "For sale $1" is written in the corner.  Roscoe's seven-year-old granddaughter, Pia Singleton, caught the entrepreneurial spirit from the hours she spent at the store and has sold one picture there.  This is her second commercial attempt.  She checks on its status when she calls her grandparents from Sugar Land where she lives with her mother, Connie Singleton.

Calendars from different merchants and suppliers -- and from just about every year of the past decade -- hang here and there.  One calendar shares space with a 1990 Houston Oilers schedule.  It's not that Roscoe is living in the past -- it's just that after a calendar has hung in a certain place for a year, it looks as if it belongs there.  So he just finds another hook or nail and hangs the next year's up.  

A couple of customers come and go.  A pack of cigarettes.  Two canned Cokes.  Roscoe writes down each purchase on a piece of paper to keep up with his sales.  "Where's Tooter?" he asks of one man who comes in about 13 minutes later.  "He's at the house cooking up a  pot of stew,"  the man says, sliding a beer onto the counter.  He pulls a fist full of change from his pocket and lets it loose on the counter, stabbing a runaway quarter with his index finger to make it stop rolling.  Roscoe starts scraping change from the counter into his hand.  "If that ain't enough I'll bring the rest by later," the man says.  

In keeping with his bland diet, Roscoe is eating a boiled chicken sandwich.  The pungent vinegar smell of Trappey's Red Devil Sauce fills the store as he shakes the red concoction onto the next bite of sandwich, turning it red.  He eats all the hot sauce off, chews and swallows, then reaches for the bottle to doctor up his next bit of bland food.  "It gives it a little taste," he explains.

He hears a car out front and glances out the front window to see his wife pulling up.  He starts gathering the things he needs for his errands, the light bill, bank deposit slip, his crutches.  He moves slowly, methodically.  An extra trip back because he forgot something is additional strain on what's left of his leg where it meets the temporary prosthetic extension.

Ruby moves slowly too -- has ever since her heart attack in January.  She takes a seat behind the counter and nods as Roscoe tells her who might come by today: the Bud man, the Coke man, the Pepsi man.  He has a list for each of them.  "Isabelle came by last night, asked about you," he adds.  "How's she doing?" Ruby asks, then nods as he tells her.  "Johnny was 70 yesterday -- he and Daddy's birthday is the same." he continues, clearly the talker in the family.  "Guess he'd have been 100 years old yesterday, or a hundred and something."  Ruby nods.  "Guess I'll go in a minute," Roscoe says several times, but he makes no move toward the door.  Several customers breeze through: two cans of pineapple, a pack of cigarettes, a beer.  Roscoe writes them down.  Ruby asks the last customer about his mother who is down on her back.  An officer on the police radio announces a training meeting at 9 a. m. the following day.  

Ruby has put some links in water to boil for her lunch in the little kitchen in the back by the time Roscoe leaves, announcing his departure once more before he does.  She sits down behind the counter, her link sandwich wrapped in waxed paper, and eats slowly waiting for the next customer.  

  The two, married for 40 years, met courtesy of Uncle Sam.  Ruby smiles when she tells how Roscoe's cousin and her brother went into military service at the same time and returned on leave on the same train.  Ruby and Roscoe were among the family that met the train, and Ruby mentioned an upcoming dance that weekend in her hometown of Raywood, about 30 miles away.  Roscoe and his cousin showed up, as did Ruby and her brother.  She was 17 when she married him and moved to Double Bayou.  Roscoe already had served in the military by the time he met Ruby and was in Korea when the war ended.  One can't talk to him for any length of time without hearing a little about Korea, perhaps because that's the only travel abroad he's ever done.  Roscoe returns from running errands and feeding the calves.  Jerry Lewis shows up with $5 worth of quarters and buys two raffle tickets before he leaves.  Ruby usually stays for a while after Roscoe returns before heading home to shut up her chickens, ducks, and guineas.  Not long after, she goes to bed.  They follow this routine day after day, seven days a week, year after year.  But the timeworn pattern of running the store keeps Roscoe happy.  "I like being at home, seeing the home folks come and go," he says.  "And, every now and then a stranger will come in and I will get to know him.  It's good to be alive, and it's good to be able to move around.  I get my vacation at the end of every day and sometimes sitting right here."  

Sometimes when business is slow, the police radio is quiet, and Roscoe is extra tired, he doses off in his chair.  But it usually doesn't matter.  Customers generally tiptoe to keep from waking him, get what they want, and leave the money on the counter.