There we go, so I'm sitting here speaking with
Leslie Reeves on March the 29th, something like
that, 30th, okay, in his kitchen.
His wife Mary is here too, you hear a female
voice come in.
So he drove an old Buick with the back cut off
to haul his seeder in?
Yeah, they put a bed on it and that's what they
hauled seeder on.
Doing those seeder breaks, cut the seeder with
an axe, you know, and haul it in.
What was his name?
George Thomas Reeves.
And he was the seeder cutter most of his life?
Most of his life.
Where did he grow up?
Oh gosh, most of it was here in Austin.
I can't remember.
They live down off of Bull Creek there, down in
that hollow, like you go down 22, 22, down
there and make that curve and it goes back up,
like Mount Vanille? Yes.
They live down in there, Roy, Christine, from
what she told me, Roy, Christine, Dale, and
Jesse, and your mom and dad, y'all all live
right in that area there.
You know where the old city dump used to be?
Isn't there a barbecue place there now?
It's all changed.
I don't know, there's so many things there now,
it's so built up, houses all over the hills.
So Christine had married Roy by this time, so
Roy and Christine were living down there, and George?
And George and Lily Mae, her name is Lily Mae,
Miss Reeves.
I see.
And they all lived down there because he went
to school down in that area, that's what I've
been told, down in that area with his family.
And then that was before they moved to New Braunfels.
Yeah, that's where we lived when we moved to
New Braunfels.
I see.
There was 11 of us in the family, 11 kids.
That's a big family.
What number were you?
I was the last one.
The youngest, huh? Uh-huh.
Now, when we lived down there where she's
talking about, down below that hill, as you go
down that big hill on 222, that county bends
this way and goes and that creek runs through there.
Well, all this, right in here is where we
lived, in that place.
And we, I don't know how many years we lived there.
It was quite a few.
And we went to school, I don't know if you
remember, Kim, Tom Houghton? Yes.
Boy Scouts, yeah. Uh-huh.
Used to be at a school sitting up on the side
of the hill there.
I don't remember the school.
We said, well, no, at Lou, it goes through
there now, it wasn't there then.
But there was a school, it was sitting up, they
called Pleasant Valley School, on the side of
the hill there.
And that's where we started a school there.
I see.
And there was a...
Was that just an elementary school? Yeah.
Yeah, it wasn't great, it went up to, but it
was just elementary, it was just a real small school.
And we always played on those kids that had a
big bluff going through there where they,
overlooking the creek down there.
And we'd always go there and throw rocks and
stuff up in the water.
Did most of your sisters and brothers go to school?
At that time, I had two brothers and two
sisters and myself when we lived there with Sue
in school.
The rest of them was married or passed on.
But I was, I don't know, from there all the way
to Camp Tom Wooden and where the school was,
many a day we walked in.
But usually the teacher...
Thank you very much.
Did you put anything in it?
I have a little bit of milk maybe.
Okay, let me get you...
Or either milk or...
With that powdered fruit in there?
How about just a little teaspoon of sugar?
Thank you.
Usually the teacher would come when she went,
she'd pick up a bunch of kids.
But lots of times we'd start out, we'd walk all
the way before she ever would come pick us up.
How far was that?
Oh, that's a good...
I won't say any more.
I never have...
Probably about eight to ten miles.
Oh, my goodness.
That's a long walk.
But we'd just take off walking, walk all the
way to school.
Didn't think anything about it.
Barefooted, no shoes.
Is that right? Yeah.
We had one pair of shoes and we wore those on
Saturdays or Sundays. Uh-huh.
First time.
Thank you very much.
Most of those kids weren't barefooted.
Did you go to church on Sundays?
No, not back then we didn't.
But my dad and my mother, you know, religion,
but at that time they didn't go to church. Probably.
There wasn't one that close.
No, there wasn't.
But there's, like I say, the old city dump used
to be on top of that hill just for you
when you go down 222.
And a lot of us kids would go in that city dump
and we'd look for marbles.
And we'd come out of there sometimes with great
big bags of marbles.
It was amazing.
Did your...
Where did y'all go on to school, to junior high
school after that?
Well, I forget.
Right here we moved to New Brunswick.
I see.
And from then on, most of my schooling and I
guess myself, my sister, and two brothers,
we finished our schooling in New Brunswick.
I see.
And of course, daddy, he chopped cedar down
there too after he got down there.
Is that why he moved?
Because he ran out of cedar?
Not necessarily.
I had some other sisters already down there in
this family, and I think daddy just moved
down there.
Of course, they're all buried there in the
cemetery between New Brunswick and Sigeen
and the cemetery down there.
What was your dad like?
He was about 6'1".
I wish I had some pictures to show you, but I don't.
I really, it's hard to describe him.
Was he a wiry man?
Because I mean, that cedar cutting is a tough business.
No, he wasn't really a tough man.
I've seen some tough times, but I guess he was
kind of like me, you know, just easy going.
And he cut with an axe?
Yeah, he and Roy both cut with an axe.
Where did y'all haul your cedar to?
Oh, Gosh.
I don't remember just where they took the cedar.
It was right here in Austin.
At that time, I think it was a place in Leander.
I think they had a cedar yard there, but I'm
not sure.
Oh, I know they did.
I'm not positive.
Dick Boatwright had a yard there, for one.
And I think there was a yard up at what they
call Hooper Switch, which is in that, sort
of, that's where Mopac, you know, the railroad
track is.
And Floyd Cantwell grew up there.
I don't know if you knew Cantwell.
I've heard of the name, and I know that
Cantwell's a dawn on a person.
They have these junkyards around here, the cattle.
But he's cut cedar, you know, all around.
He's cut it down between, down below where we
live there.
That whole area was, there was a guy named
McCarty owned all that land.
And he offered to give Dad some of that land if
he had to stay there and work, you know,
take care of the place.
But he wanted to go to New Brunswick.
And, gosh, if he had took that land, it would
have been worth some money.
So he didn't own the land that y'all were
living in at the time?
No, we were renting.
Actually, I think, I don't know if they ever
paid, actually paid money for it.
But they helped McCarty take care of the place,
did stuff like that for him. Right.
Did y'all have running water?
Did you have piped water in your house?
No, I think we had a well at that time.
We didn't have water.
I know when we moved out near Brunswick, we
didn't have water there for a long time.
We hauled water from where my sister lived to
where we live there.
My sister had built them a new house.
And the old house they were living in, they
called it Caddell Lane now.
They moved that house to the way up on the end.
And there wasn't no water.
It had electricity, electricity, but didn't
have any water.
So we hauled water to drink, and also my mother
washed clothes and stuff like that.
Had one of them old timing machines that would
ring him out.
Yeah, that's real common.
The Cutters that lived on Barton Creek,
Westlake area, or on the Bull Creek area, for
the most part, didn't have a well.
They just hauled water from the Creeks.
And this man I talked to, Luther Pierce, Pierce
is a, that's a Westlake name.
He didn't have electricity in his home until 1954.
He remembers when he, I went to school with him
and he would read by a lamplight to do his homework.
That's something. Amazing.
To look back at the times, we didn't think that
much about it.
Because I grew up, well I was born in Wimberley
and then moved to Hidalgo, Mom and Dad moved
into Austin.
We lived on Hidalgo.
I don't know if you remember that street.
I don't.
What was your maiden name? Wisnat.
Is that a German name? German.
My mom was German, so I'm very familiar with that.
Yeah, that's German.
Every Saturday we'd go to town.
They'd trade it at, get groceries at the ATB
down there on 6th and Red River.
I remember that way back then.
And Dad would give each one of us a quarter
apiece and we'd go to, we'd call a picture show
back then.
And we'd pay our way into the show and get a
bag of popcorn or soda water and still have a
nickel left.
Do you remember the name of the theater you
would go to? Ritz.
The Ritz, right.
I remember it.
The Queen, the Ritz, the Paramount.
Paramount's on Scott Ritz.
And there was two of them on 6th Street.
I can't remember the name.
The Queen.
I think it was the Queen. Queen.
Yeah, I believe so.
Ritz and the Queen was on 6th Street.
But we always went to the Ritz because it was
right there across the street from ATB before
they'd get groceries while they were shopping.
We'd go to the movies.
So y'all go into town once a week?
Once a week and be on Saturday. Yep.
Do you remember what time your dad and Roy
would start cutting?
Would they get up early and cut?
Oh, yeah.
They'd be out there sometimes at daybreak.
I remember a few times that I went with them
and I'd carry the post out.
Not a big post because I was just.
You were the baby.
I wasn't even going to school at that time.
But they'd cut a little post so I'd carry them out.
And most of the time, also, if they cut the
cedar and they couldn't get to it, they'd cut a
road to it. Right.
And take that old building and I'd get it.
I bet they had some tire problems, didn't they,
back then?
You know, I can't remember that part, but I'm
sure they did.
And there was a couple of times.
I never did hear about daddy cutting his leg or
anything, but Roy had cut his ankle and his leg
a couple of times pretty bad.
They'd wrap it up and all them into the doctor
or hospital.
I don't know just where they took them at that time.
He'd cut his leg a couple of times pretty bad.
With axes for sharks?
Swinging those axes.
Would your dad cut a load every day and take it
in to sell it every day?
Sometimes he'd cut a couple of days.
And that's all the money, you know, what they
took in for cedar.
That was all the money that they lived on.
So it was a pretty tough time back then.
Well, you know where the Marshall Ford Dam is
and the river.
All that brush is back in there.
He helped cut all that cedar out there when
they were building that dam.