| Recommended
Books on the Texas Panhandle |
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QUITE
AN EXPERIENCE
by Louise George | |
Ola
Covey moved to Pampa, Texas,
in 1928 when she was twenty-one and worked in the County Clerk’s Office and as
County Treasurer for a total of forty-two years. She grew up in Arkansas and spoke
fondly of her childhood home and her family - except maybe not too fondly of her
step-father, Mr. Norton.
“Mr.
Norton was so strict he would say, ‘There’s no jesting around here.’ He thought
it was sinful to joke and have a good time. On Sunday, I couldn’t even swing a
rope or bounce a ball or anything like that. All we were allowed to do was, we
could read the Sunday school paper or you could always read the Bible. It was
always ‘you can’t do this and you can’t do that.’ I didn’t go to a movie until
I was about fifteen, I guess, except I went to one movie when I was in grade school.
The school recommended it, so mother insisted on it. But, Mr. Norton thought movies
were sinful and dancing was sinful and everything was sinful. He was just a religious
fanatic.
“When I was about thirteen and a half, it was pretty hard to
stay around where Mr. Norton was. It was unpleasant at home and there was a family
there that had two children and I had sat with those children, so this woman wanted
me to come and stay with them. Her husband worked on the railroad and he was gone
quite a bit. She was afraid to stay by herself. She was the biggest coward there
ever was and I wasn’t afraid of anything in those days. I lived with them about
two years.
“While I was living with them, I got to go to the second movie
I ever went to. It was the Sheik of Araby, and I’ll tell you that was quite an
experience. My girl friend’s mother was selling tickets at the theater and so
I had heard about this show and I wanted to see it so bad. Miss Jess, we called
her Miss Jess, she was Mrs. Jess E. Hall, she and her daughter and I were real
good friends, she knew I wanted to go. The tickets were hard to come by because
people were filling that theater to see the show. It was very popular, and Mena
was a small town. You couldn’t get the shows for a small town as fast as you can
now. I don’t know how old the show was by then. But anyhow she got me the tickets
and I got to go to the show. There wasn’t anybody with me, I was by myself.
“It hadn’t any more than started when someone came to the door and said, ‘There’s
been a little trouble up in the control room. There’s a little fire up there.
Nothing to be concerned about, but as a matter of precaution we’d like for the
people to file out of the theater until it’s completely extinguished.’ The theater
was crowded, I mean every available seat, it was very, very crowded. We filed
out in an orderly fashion and when we came out the flames were leaping from the
top of the building!
“From that little fire in the control room, the theater
burned down and several buildings adjacent to it. It burned almost a whole city
block there at Mena. It was an experience. And I didn’t even get to see the movie.
It had just barely started. I saw Rudolph Valentino and just a few scenes in the
movie.
“I guess Mr. Norton would have thought that was fair punishment
for me going to a movie like that.” |
©
Louise George
History by George
- August 8, 2005
Author: Ola Covey is featured in a book entitled
Some of My Heroes Are Ladies, Women Ages 85 to 101 Tell About Life in the Texas
Panhandle by Louise George. She can be reached at (806) 935-5286, by mail at Box
252, Dumas, TX, 79029, or by e-mail at lgeorge@nts-online.net |
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