Miss Hazel's Finishing School

Miss Hazel learned that John Phillips Sousa was coming to the College with his U.S. Marine Band for a concert. Sousa toured with the U.S. Marine Band all over—even in small towns like Commerce—for a number of years. In the newspapers there were some interesting ads about it.

Incidentally, a few years ago, I found those ads in the archives at ETSU from those old Commerce Journals. There was a contest: the best scrapbook of those ads would earn two free tickets to the concert. Miss Hazel and I got to work immediately and made the best scrapbook. I won the tickets and $6, which was a ton of money back in the twenties.

I spent $3 for Mother on a locket which was lost. I bought Miss Hazel a nut bowl for $3. Many years later, after we moved to Fort Worth and Miss Hazel had died, her mother, Mrs. Draper gave me back that nut bowl, and it is being used at John Dan’s house these days.

Miss Hazel and I went to that concert, and I was on cloud nine. It was the most wonderful thing I had ever heard. Sousa carried about a hundred men-musicians on that tour, and of course they played all of his rousing marches.

Another evening, we went to the Country Club for dinner, and there was dancing afterwards. I thought that was the most exciting thing I had ever seen, and the music was wonderful.

Another day we were invited to visit a poet who was vacationing. His name was— I can’t remember, it may have been Fellows. He lived in Missouri in the winters, and in the Arkansas mountains in the summers. He was a dear old man, looked a little like Santa Claus, and he read us his poetry. It was great.

Mrs. Draper and Miss Hazel also took me with them to Dallas for a weekend once. We stayed at the Baker Hotel. What I remember about that trip was the breakfast in the hotel. The little domes that they covered the bacon and eggs were amazing to me. That’s all I remember about the trip. We went by train, I’m sure.

Aunt Eva also used to go to Dallas to shop by train—over in the a.m. and back in the p.m. All of their family had passes on any railroad because of Uncle Bill’s work for the Cotton Belt Railroad.