Grayson County TXGenWeb

Lester H. Maurer

Interviewed by Mavis Anne Bryant (MB) and M. David Bryant, Jr. (DB). Also present: Joanna Bryant and Mrs. Betty (?) Maurer.
Sunday, August 14, 1994, at the Maurers' home, 498 Lockloam Court, Denixon TX 75020

LM: I was in a band, and went to Cedar Rapids to broadcast. Then I left there. My schooling was accounting. So when I quit the band and had a family, Wilson & Co. hired me at an office. The guy that I replaced in that office got a call from Dick White to come and work for this company [Denison Poultry and Egg Company]. I don't know just when that was. He was Isaac Burkes, he's dead now.

DB: His wife was Louise Burkes, my fourth- and sixth-grade teacher.

LM: She was our church organist for years. She had a stroke two or three years ago and can't - When the war quit, I said 1951 - during the war they were making frozen eggs for the army. I don't remember the connection, but Dick White knew Isaac.

DB: Dick had worked at Wilson & Company.

LM: Yes, from Wilson & Company. I went to work in the office that Isaac was the manager, and Dick White called him down here. Then in 1951, Isaac went out on his own in public accounting. And when Ray Clymer said who can I get to replace you, Isaac said why don't you call Lester? So one night I get this phone call, and Isaac and Ray were both on the phone wanting to know if I'd be interested. I talked to Lou and Isaac about how they liked it living down south. The winters were pretty mild compared to up north. So then I came in May 1951, and my wife came when school was starting. I was Ray's right hand man, so to speak, in the office. It seems about a year and a half I was there. It was a bad time for me, so your mind tries to forget it. Ray called me in his office one morning and said, "Lester we're moving the company from here to Center and we won't need your services. Here's a six-week paycheck." Well-here you'd moved down here, and meanwhile I'd gotten a house under construction and it was 95% ready to move into, now what would I do? So I went ahead and finished the house and sold it and stayed in the building business.

Did I tell you to call on this guy that was a driver, Harold Teague? HT drove, I don't know whether he bought or was just a driver - they had set up routes and would go out and buy poultry and bring it in. Whether Harold was a buyer in that way, or whether he was just a driver delivering, I don't know. But Harold's dad was the night watchman -had been for years - the watchman the night that it burned. Jimmy Evans was the hide buyer. You know where the place was, we had two - the office was separate from the other place. No, that was later. All were in the same building, yes. It was Pancho and Ray.

An amusing incident. I started working on Monday morning. Saturday noon I closed up the books, closed up the safe, and went home for lunch. Monday I said to the girls, "Hey, did you girls you go home for lunch?"

"No," they said, "we work all day Saturday."

I went in to Ray, and I said, "No, we don't." If you get the work done, you don't have to. From then on, we worked five and a half days instead of six.

MB: You were very progressive.

LM: Up home we never worked on Saturday afternoon. So I just went home.

DB: Was it pretty common to work Saturday morning then, or was that unusual?

LM: Oh, yeah. Unless somebody says let's change, as long as that was the custom, the management's not going to change. So Ray never thought about it, it had always been that way. If you get the work done, so what? Go on home.

The big thing I remember then was - when I said a year and a half, it had to be more than that - The point is, Ray and Pancho bought out the family. It was a family affair, of course, at that time. So they took what they wanted to buy, and stuff that they didn't want stayed in the company, in the family, for them to dispose of separately. They bought the business of what they wanted, and supplies or buildings that they didn't want stayed in the family. I had one sweet problem accounting-wise; you've got a ledger here that says this is the company; now I've got to set up another ledger taking stuff out of here and putting it over here, but paying for it, so to speak - it was only figures, of course-but paying for it over here, so that the family got paid for it, is what I'm trying to say. You do ordinary accounting, that's one thing. But this - I got scared and had to go to the library and study. At the end of the year or whenever it was that they hired an outsider to come in and look at the books, he said, "Well done, Maurer," and that made me feel pretty good.

DB: Was this 1952 or 53 when they did that?

LM: It would have been late 52 or early 53, I can't remember exactly. Maybe six months later, Ray and Pancho decided there wasn't enough business here. Center, Texas, was the center or heart of poultry raising, and they decided to move the business there rather than trucking. Of course, when the building burned, we had already moved the office up to the Barrett Building, so fortunately, when the place burned, the offices were not involved. I imagine it was because, from Ray's standpoint, it was a lot nicer, air-conditioned, a little more, uh, up there in the office building than down there in that ramshackle frame building that we used to have, you know.

DB: When did the building burn? After they had split things up with the family?

MB: Had they already decided they were going to leave?

LM: When it burned? It wasn't before. Because I didn't know they were moving until that day when Ray called me in. Is that running?

MB: We can turn it off. [Recorder turned off. LM then stated that company employees thought it was awfully convenient that the building burned when it did and wondered if it had been deliberately set. But there was no proof of that.-MB]

DB: Was Dick White still involved in the business then?

LM: No. He was in the insurance business by the time I came. I knew him in town, met him. I didn't know him before I came to town.

MB: Did you work in the Barrett Building, or down at the shop?

LM: When the office moved to the Barrett Building, I went with it. That was pretty nice, come up to that - In fact, jokingly - they did have air-conditioning down there, though, because I can remember days like today, I'd come home from work at five o'clock - let's start over. The wife came the week before school was starting. I had rented a house, the only thing that I could find was an old frame house at 1500 Sears. No air-conditioning, this old frame house like-my mother's expression - you could have thrown a cat through a hole or a crack in it anywhere. I'd come home after 5 o'clock and my wife would say, "Gosh! wasn't it hot today!" and I'd say, "I didn't mind it." She'd get mad enough to clout me. There she'd suffered and sweat. It was one of these summers with 100 degree days, day after day. So Ray gave us a home-made deal. They'd take a washing-machine quarter-of-a-horse motor and put it a fan on it and put it in a box with a screen front and we'd set it in the window so that she had a fan in the house.

DB: That was 1951? I was born September 26 that year. Mother always talked about what a hot summer it was!

LM: That would be a heck of a time to be pregnant.

MB: Did you know Mr. Ducker?

LM: I'm glad you mentioned him. He was in the office, of course. He'd been with them for umpt-teen years. I came in the summer, and I bought his '38 Chevy coupe. Boy, I was proud of that thing!

DB: About how old a fellow was he at that time?

LM: I believe his sixties. Nice old guy. I can remember that prize car. I came down on the train. So gosh, you'd heard so much about Dallas, coming from the country, so to speak, so one Saturday I drove to Dallas. Gosh! A thrill to see that big town looming up. I went into a tavern that night and said, "Give me a shell." Bartender served up a glass and said, "Where you from?" I said Iowa. Then it struck me that that was all I said, "Give me a shell." So I said, "Why did you ask?" Well, the term "shell" for this like a coke glass is only used in Iowa and Indiana, the Midwest I guess.

DB: Who else worked in the office at that time?

LM: Betty, what was Mary's name?

BM: I don't remember Mary, but I remember Doris Pena.

LM: Doris Pena, P-E-N-A, she's still here in town. Doris and Mary were the office persons, they were the ones who didn't go home at twelve o'clock. [Laughter.] Then Doris tried to get me to go to her Methodist church, and Jimmy Evans tried to get me to go to his Baptist church, I ended up going to Isaac's church, Waples Methodist. That's another name you might try to find, Doris, she was there when I came. Jimmy Evans still lives here, too. I know that Mary went with them, so she wouldn't be here now. She went with them to Center. I think she took my job. After all, she would work for half the wages he paid me, that's the way that I figured it.

MB: What was the main business at the time that you worked there?

LM: During the war the main thing was the frozen eggs. When that quit, they went into poultry dressing, that was the main business.

MB: Did they have pickers, picking the chickens down there?

LM: That question stumps me. I may be getting mixed up with Wilson and Company. Maybe they did it in Center. I'm remembering those semi truck loads of chickens going to Colorado and California. And then they would bring back truckloads of potatoes from Colorado and other vegetable stuff from California. Those drivers never obeyed the law to the extent of - because for one driver to go to California, unload, get a new load, and drive back in six days, and then leave again the next week - they did dress the chickens here, didn't they, honey?

BM: It doesn't seem to me that they did. I thought they just bought and sold. But then don't ask me.

LM: Maybe it was just out of Center, then. But I know, gosh, we had hide pits, vats, tanks, as big as this room, one and another. They had thousands of dollars worth of hides that Jimmy would go out and buy.

MB: Cow hides?

LM: Yeah. Jimmy came in one time with a load, and one horse hide. Well, after all, an accident happens, something happens, and a horse - well you wouldn't throw the hide away, okay. Well, a month or six weeks later, he comes in with another horse hide. We finally find out that some - see, most of them came from these locker plants, where the guy brings in a cow and they butcher it and sell the hide. This guy was buying horses, and he could take a 1500 pound horse at ten cents a pound and put it in with beef and hamburger -

DB: He was putting some horse meat in with the beef, huh?

LM: Actually, ground up in hamburger, who would know the difference? He got caught eventually. There's nothing wrong with butchering a horse and selling the meat -

DB: As long as you tell people what they're getting.

LM: Exactly. I remember a guy telling me he was in England during the war and the camp where they were stationed would be out of town, like Perrin Field to Denison, and they went into town to eat and here's this restaurant that had "H.M. Steaks." They had the best supper and were thrilled to pieces. They went back to camp and told all their buddies, and the next week they all went in there. The point was, it was horse meat.

DB: H.M. was not "Her Majesty's Steaks."

LM: Or "His Majesty." A lot of horses are butchered here and shipped to France.

MB: The truckers were employees of the company?

LM: They supposedly got back Saturday and went out Sunday night. As far as my job, part of your office work was the booking and dealing. When the stuff came in, I had to sell it, so to speak - he had it arranged, and the driver would deliver it to somebody and then the billing of it to them. That's the way we got return freight, by what they made on that. It was always part of the instructions to the driver that if you have a problem and couldn't get Ray, to call Lester. So one night along after midnight, a phone call got me out of bed: "Lester, I got a problem. Here I am in Las Vegas and I got the town marshal and he doesn't have any idea where this company is. He never heard of it before." Getting wakened up out of a deep sleep and trying to figure out Las Vegas, I said, "Where are you?" "Well, I'm at Las Vegas, New Mexico." "Well, that's not the right Las Vegas!" So here he still had to go to Las Vegas, Nevada. I can't imagine anybody, you see "Las Vegas," it's automatic. If it was the other way around, I could have understood.

The big history of the company, like Dick White and Isaac Burkes, they're gone. Doris was there ahead of me, so she should know things before I do. I was just sick because I liked the job, moved here, had the house all ready to move into. The way it turned out, of course, it was the best thing in the world for me, cause then I stayed in the house business and nobody else was building in Denison at the time. So we got into it very slowly because I didn't know anything about it, but it gradually snowballed, so to speak. It was an awful shock during that paycheck-what am I going to do, see?

DB: You mentioned that they had routes and would go out and buy the chickens?

LM: Maybe I'm confusing it again with Iowa.

BM: Didn't they bring the poultry from Center and distribute it? I don't remember them ever having a plant here. I knew they did the eggs, but I didn't know they did chickens.

LM: I may be wrong. The Wilson and Co. plant, that's all they did, went out and picked up turkeys and chickens and eggs. What the heck did they do here, then, besides hides?

BM: I think they bought eggs. I don't recall chickens. Course I was busy doing other things.

DB: Freddy the Fryer. They must have been doing some chickens.

LM: There's no questions about the chickens, because I can remember them delivering them. They had not only these semis, but they had smaller trucks for shorter runs.

MB: Do you remember Diamond W butter?

LM: No.

MB: It was a yellow package with four sticks of butter in it, with a diamond on the side. [Tape ends. New tape inserted.]

LM: If you go in there and get a dozen eggs, you're supposed to come in and tell Lester to bill it. One day this manager issued a proclamation that nothing was to go out of here after five o'clock. In other words, an employee might go in there and help themselves.

DB: There wasn't any way to go to the office and tell you about it.

LM: So this manager got home and his wife said, "Did you bring the eggs?" "Oh, darn, I forgot." So he goes back, and of course, the place is locked, and he hollered at Johnny, the night man, "I forgot to take the eggs home." "It's after five o'clock." He stood there and cussed out that man. And he said, "No sir. You told me that nothing goes out." "Well, I'm going to fire you," and on and on. The next morning he called him in and said, "By gosh, Johnny, if you wouldn't let me have them, I don't have to worry about somebody else getting any." That was at Wilson and Company.

BM: Did Mr. Diehlman ever work for Denison Poultry and Egg?

LM: Lawrence Diehlman. He never did come down here, did he?

BM: He used to work for Dick White before that.

MB: Do you know Vernice Atnip McGough? She lives just down here by you. She was an egg breaker and has a photograph of the line.

DB: Can you tell me what the office looked like before it moved to the Barrett Building? How big a place was it? How was it arranged? 'Cause I've never seen a picture of it.

LM: The outside wall there, Ducker's desk was sitting back here, he used to always sit by the wall but behind the desk, my desk was up here in front of him. Safe must have been right over here. It would have been a room comparable to this living room. His desk there and mine and somewhere then the two girls had a desk, but other than that, I can't tell more. You always put the books back in the safe. I closed up my books, got up from my desk, walked over to the safe, and left. It dawned on me after I got home, they didn't follow me.

MB: I remember a big counter as you came in the door.

DB: This would be 1945 or so?

MB: Um-hum, there was a long counter thing, and straight ahead was Uncle Ray's office with glass, and you went through a little swinging door thing to get behind the counter where there would have been desks. But that was a long time earlier.

LM: It wouldn't have changed much. Not that old building. Now that you say that, yes, Ray and Pancho's office was where Betty is. That part I remember. Because that's when they came to talk to me, they came through here. It was quite a bit of space then. You could walk out to the plant.

DB: How far away was it? What was the distance between buildings?

LM: That wall. You just went out and there it was.

MB: It was all in the same building.

LM: You just walked out there, and there were all these big vats full of hides.

MB: My mother wouldn't let me go in there. I was not allowed into the loading dock area.

LM: I can understand that. Little kids ain't always dependable, you say stand there-

MB: It was more like she didn't want me exposed to it, or something.

BM: It smelled.

LM: I don't imagine the smell was too good. Up at Wilson and Co. they brought in chickens and put them in metal carts to wheel around, the noise and all that. Gosh.

DB: Thank you so much for your time.

LM: I feel bad that I can't remember more.

MB: You remember a lot more than we do!

DB: I don't remember much from the 1950s myself.