Las Sabinas, Volume 33, Number 1, 2007 Page: 3
44 p. : ill. ; 28 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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"I learned to drive on it," Mrs. Dunn said.
A car salesman in Orange drove it up to them.
"I paid $60 for it. Nothing down and $16 notes with $4 interest."
Mrs. Dunn went to work at the paper bag factory in Orange, for a while, earning
$4.95 a week. When she worked, they could afford to go into the city, Orange, on
Saturday nights to watch a movie at one of the four theaters in downtown-the Strand,
Bengal, Royal and Gem.
"Everybody went downtown on Saturday night. Fifth and Main Street was the
place to be," she said. "Now, it's dead there."
Their oldest child was born in 1940, with the second three years later. Dunn was
drafted toward the end of World War II, leaving behind Mrs. Dunn with two little ones,
plus she was pregnant with their third.
By the time, they had a small house on their property, with what was the highway
running right in front of it. She had other women neighbors with husbands in the service.
He didn't fight, but went to France, Switzerland and Germany, working in the
service company "mostly patching up old machinery" like jeeps.
He was back in the States, preparing for the invasion of Japan, when he was
allowed to go home for the birth of their third, child, Derry. He was born on August 2,
1945, and the U.S. dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan four days later. The war soon
ended.
Mauriceville boomed with World War II and the influx of shipyard workers into
Orange. Even the hotel was full all the time.
After the war, in 1947, Dunn applied for the job of postmaster of Mauriceville,
and after taking a test in Beaumont, he won the appointment. He stayed as postmaster for
30 years in the days when Mauriceville didn't have home delivery. Everyone had to go
to the post office to pick up their mail.
By that time, the post office was on the main road with the hotel, a cafe, and a
barbershop. People called it "Silk Stocking Avenue."
Being postmaster had its pluses and minuses. The Dunns went on to have six
children, with all of them earning college degrees and being on the honor roll at
Mauriceville School. Derry Dunn, a retired high school principal who is not an Orange
County justice of the peace, said the Mauriceville principal went to the post office every
day to get the mail. If one of the Dunn children had misbehaved, their father found out
immediately.
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Orange County Historical Society (Tex.). Las Sabinas, Volume 33, Number 1, 2007, periodical, 2007; Orange, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth312939/m1/9/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Orange County Historical Society.