The Faith and Freedom Club hosted a meeting where Medina resident Sandy Vannatter moderated a meeting where old time residents of the town shared their memories and prepared for the Smithsonian exhibit of local history.
Seven rural areas in Texas were chosen to host the Museum on Main Street exhibition of local history. Bandera was one of rural areas chosen.
Vannatter introduced the guest speakers. She asked the audience and speakers to think about their grandparents and great grandparents. She introduced the group to a round table discussion. Ruby Lorraine (Tootie) Feagan, the founder of the Tootie Pie Company and a 94-yearold resident of Medina and her daughter; Elva Keeling; Roger Bornatt; and Cecil Lestourgeon came together to talk about the history of Medina.
Mrs. Feagan described the different businesses in Medina at the time of her youth. She also described how her grandfather, at age 16, herded the camels at Camp Verde before he went into the military.
Her grandfather was also involved in cattle drives after the Civil War as well. He was one of the primary founders of Medina.
Mrs. Feagan also described the social events of Medina. She described the wedding of Buddy and Norah Hubble who got married at a café in Medina. She talked about the Pate’s gristmill and the rooming house owned by Molly and Dick Walker. She remembered the barbershop across the street from the rooming house and Dr. Bayless’ medical office.
According to Feagan, the new ice machine revolutionized the dairy business that Feagan’s mother ran.
She told a story about how her father would concoct a cornbread and milk treat with the cream chilled by the ice from the ice company in Medina.
Sandy Vannatter talked about the book written by Caroline Hatfield which described the history of Medina. Vannatter remembered what her uncle Terry Stokes wrote in several letters describing various features of the community. He related the events around the measles epidemic in 1934.
Jayne Ramblin read a Stokes letter about the Medina school. The wood frame four-room schoolhouse accommodated many of the town’s school children. The local one room schools only went up to grade 7.
Ramblin noted that due to the measles epidemic the schools were closed for six weeks. One boy, Richard Whitehead, Jr. died from complications related to the epidemic. Mrs. Keeling stated that both her grandparents were lost in the measles epidemic.
Another volunteer read a letter about the itinerant music teacher who visited Medina each year. Vannatter showed a picture of the music students and the teacher who gave lessons. At the end of his stay, the Medina area music students put on a concert at the end of ‘music week.’
Vannatter read a letter Stokes wrote to his graduating class in October of 2008, about Medina before 1942. When he was born in 1920, Stokes noted that Medina still had a cotton gin on the edge of town.
He remembered that the town had three grocery stores, three service stations, one garage, one telephone office, one drug store, one blacksmith shop, one bus line depot, one shoe cobbler, one freight line, the Medina Light newspaper, one movie theater, two barbershops, three restaurants, one doctor, one variety store, and one icehouse.
Up until 1925, Medina had a dentist and a hotel. He noted that the dentist powered his equipment by foot pedal. He remembered the circus visited Medina up until the late 1920’s. With the circus came the gypsies which he remembered vividly.
Stokes also reminisced about when the state paved the road from Medina to Bandera. This signaled the end of growth in Medina according to Stokes.
Stokes talked about where he was on December 7, 1941. Stokes was staying at the Allsup Ranch for the weekend. Mrs. George Allsup rode up on a horse with a battery radio so that they could listen to President Roosevelt’s speech about the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
Mrs. Feagan related a World War II story about two Medina boys who took candy from a Medina visitor. The two boys went to the hospital due to symptoms of poisoning, and one later died. One of the boys’ fathers also went to the hospital and died from poisoning. This same visitor was picked up by law enforcement and turned out to be a spy. He had schematics of the Corpus Christi Naval Air Station sewed into his coat and was a German sympathizer.
Vannater talked about some sample posters about Vernon Williams, the town barber and a World War II medic who provided medical services to the community. She showed some of the Hatfield books about Medina. “These books are just wonderful, it gives you an idea of the words of the people who lived at that time and their stories,” said Vannatter.
She encouraged the group to make posters describing the history of their families for the Smithsonian exhibition.
After an hour, the group broke up. Vannatter encouraged the audience to get involved in the local history project. She said that the group would get together on February 27 to go over their information.
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