1930 :: Death of Mrs. Mary Neely Thompson

Rockdale, Texas, Oct. 3. -- Funeral services for Mrs. Mary Neely Thompson were held from the family home, the Rev. G.B. Carter, pastor of the Rockdale Methodist Episcopal Church, officiating. Burial was made in the new City Cemetery. She is survived by a son, Jess Thompson of Rockdale; a daughter, Mrs. Blanche Russell of San Antonio, and her mother, three brothers and five sisters. Dallas Morning News, October 4, 1930 

1874 :: News from Rockdale

Milam County. -- The Messenger says : "The claim of Jesse Stancel, as attorney in fact for Media Thompson, to the William Allen survey, upon which the greater portion of Rockdale is situated, is spurious and illegal. 

We have fully investigated the matter and find that the International Railroad Company has a perfect chain of title to the land in question, and deem it our duty to warn the public against this unjust, unwarranted and shameless resort of these unprincipled land sharks, to deprive them of their legally acquired rights and property. There is not the slightest cause for alarm, and no one, unless sadly demented, would either make or accept an offer of compromise." 

The writer is not half so emphatic about the "Jesse" as was J.B. Simpson when he wrote of him. . . . A snake, nicely coiled in one of the cases of the Messenger office, and which had been out of use for several days, was discovered by one of the compositors, who was looking for a certain style of letter. The reptile immediately died a violent death. Galveston Daily News, July 7, 1874

You're an old Rockdalian if you remember . . .

Rockdale Reporter. In June of 1996, Bill Cooke published the following list of rememberings as originally shared by Wiley Gilmore while addressing his RHS Class of 1951 reunion on the 8th and 9th of that month . . . Bill said that . . . Wiley's words will rekindle memories for the natives of our town and will serve as a history lesson for the non-natives . . . 

You're an old Rockdalian if you remember . . .

• taking piano lessons from Mrs. Sledge, Mrs. Perry or Miss Catchings
• buying a block of ice from Mack Davlin's little ice house across the street from the post office
• when the Rockdale economy was influenced more by the weather than by a corporate decision in Pittsburgh
• when the town's Aggies ate a side order of crow along with their turkey after Thanksgiving (this menu has included more beef in recent years)
• your choices for swimming were a stock tank, the Gabriel or the pool in Cameron
• the Plunkett Stage Show which came to town for a few days every summer
• when Rockdale had three movies theaters -- two indoors, one out
• when the Rockdale football team made the front page of The Reporter just for scoring, much less winning (that was, of course, before the Tigers of '50 & '51, who were strong)
• when the fastest-traveling (good) news in town was that Ashby's Confectionery had gotten a shipment of Hershey bars
• the only real barbecue was cooked by Mr. Lee Caywood
• George Sessions Perry -- two bonus points if you knew the real names of the Rockdale people George wrote about in his novels
• the unique ammunition Stricker's Variety Store advertised once -- & only once -- in The Reporter (editor's hint -- the item involved the word 'shotgun')
• barber Arch Holley giving you your first barbershop shave free (applied only to boys, of course)
• Maxie's Sweet Shop, Stein's Bakery & Red Smith's Place -- also Weems, McVoy's, Backhaus Bros., M&T, and Holley's Red & White groceries
• riding a school bus driven by Mr. Beard, Mrs. Kirchenwitz, Mrs. Lynch, Mr. Alford or Mr. Gross -- in my case it was Mr. Dewitt Kornegay's bus, with the ever-present threat of a roadside breakdown or getting whipped by Toughy Hunt
• when the girls who were the best dancers went to the Baptist church & the girls who were the best piano players went to the Church of Christ
• when people uttered the words Republican & communist with the same tone of disgust
• playing racially integrated baseball on the playground of the old Minerva school long before Jackie Robinson set foot on Ebbetts Field for the Brooklyn Dodgers
• special teachers, including but not limited to Mizz Dee McCoy, who loved you like a grandmother before moving you out of fifth grade & into the hostile world of junior-high -- Mr. Arthur Winkelman who dispensed a lot of citizenship skills & compassion along with occasional whacks with his board Excalibur -- & Loween Malachek reading Damon Runyon's short story about Dancing Dan every year the last day before Christmas break -- I owe her many debts I can never repay
• special childhood friends -- mine was Frank Poncho Thompson who later made the supreme sacrifice for his country in Korea -- Poncho & I rode the school bus together, did crazy things like give each other models of German & Japanese airplanes for birthdays & Christmas -- he & I competed fiercely for everything -- once, in the third or fourth grade, we had a 'rasslin match for the favors of Nan Jones -- she spurned us both, grew up & married an engineer & served many years on the Austin school board
• the start of World War II -- I was seven years old when America got involved -- we attended a little Methodist church in Minerva & one of the young men of the congregation went off to war -- he asked the members, as a commitment of support, to sing God Be With You Till We Meet Again at the close of each Sunday service until he returned -- Charles Hickman Trotter & his brother, Billy, both returned from the war safely

And as we go separate ways from this reunion today, it may be appropriate to remember the words of that hymn & to ask that . . . 

God be with us all . . .
until we meet again . . .

Singer's Grill

The Rockdale Reporter, June 7, 2001. Singer's Grill by Bill Cooke. . . . Back in the late 1940s, Tommy Thompson and Vera Prestridge Thompson Miller’s downtown Singer’s Grill featured a country / western band every morning. The 30-minute session was broadcast live over KTAE radio in Taylor. . . . Veteran musicians Bill Dowdy and Jimmy Hester of Lexington played rhythm guitar and sang in that Singer’s Grill band. Dowdy remembers most of the others who played too, including the late, and legendary, Perk Williams of Chriesman. Williams later was the fiddler / vocalist with Jimmy Heap and the Melody Masters of Taylor, a band that also broadcast live over KTAE for a half hour each weekday at noon, and became Central Texas’ top dance band. 

The Singers Grill band was called "Tommy Thompson and the Boys" and it played from about 1948 through 1950. "Tommy wasn’t a musician," Dowdy notes, "but he ‘fronted’ the band with his cigar." Dowdy remembers most of the musicians who came and went. In addition to Williams the list includes Jay Bird Thomas, drums; Hub Sutter, clarinet; Bill Dessens, fiddle (now with the River Road Boys of Houston, a premier western swing band); Smoky Wilson, lead guitarist; Wally Bryant, bass; and Cotton Collins, fiddle. "Most of ‘em, but not all, have passed on," said Dowdy, who is 79 going on 39, still playing several times a week. 

Singer’s Grill was so named by its first owner, Charlie Moore who loved to sing and did so at the drop of a hat. He even organized and led a short-lived Rockdale community chorus. Vera and Tommy bought the cafe from Moore and moved here from Franklin in 1947. Vera ran the restaurant and a dress shop next door for many years. Both businesses burned in 1973 and Vera moved to other locations. NBC Bank now [2001] occupies the space where Singer’s Grill and Vera’s Heaven to Seventeen were.