My Genealogy Home Page:Information about Ruby Elaine Kay
Ruby Elaine Kay (b. October 10, 1915)
Notes for Ruby Elaine Kay:
The following is an interview with Elaine Kay Collum Glenn made on 24 Feb and 21 Apr 1997 with Shirley Mills Fischer in Silsbee, Texas.
In 1935, Elaine's and J.B.'s first home was a small house in Shelby County, Texas on the Logansport Road, belonging to J.B.'s grandparents, John F. and Bettie Collum.The house was to the side of John's and Bettie's home, but closer to the road.It normally housed school teachers.Bettie's brother, William Bolton, had also lived in it at one time.It was a three room house with a porch across the front.Two rooms were across the front with the third room the width of the house across the back.The larger of the front rooms had a fireplace.The back room was the kitchen and dining area.There was no gas, water, or electricity.There was not a well, and the water was brought from John F. and Bettie Collum's well, a three city lot distance.Elaine's and J.B.'s first child Shirley was born in this house 19 Jan 1936.
On 12 Feb 1936, Bettie Collum died.J.B.'s parents, John Allen and Alice Collum lived across from Allen's parents.They moved into John Franklin's home to care for him.J.B. and Elaine with one child moved into J.B.'s parents' home.This house had the same layout as their first home, but it was larger.Elaine's and J.B.'s second child, Pasty Ruth was born in this house 5 Mar 1937.
In 1938 with Patsy was a little over a year old, J.B. and Elaine took their children and went to Michigan to pick fruit.They were gone about six months.When they returned, they moved into another small house on John Allen's property.Elaine's and J.B's third child, Betty Sue, was born in this house 7 Feb 1939.
Initially, after returning from Michigan, J.B. was hired to work on a highway construction project, the highway from Center to Teneha.Then he changed to selling magazines with ___________ Biggarstaff.The two men were glad to recieve money, but if the potential customer did not have any cash, they accepted chickens.They sold the chickens to Elaine's Uncle Dock Bounds.
Elaine became very ill with the mumps.During this period, she and J.B. moved to San Augustine, San Augustine County, Texas while J.B. was still selling with Biggarstaff.They lived in an apartment in a two story house on the old highway between Center and San Augustine. Shirley and Patsy stayed with Elaine's parents.Elaine was too ill to even warm the baby's milk, so J.B. would fix the bottles before going to work each morning.Betty thrived on the cold milk.She became so used to it, she would not accept even luke-warm milk when traveling.
John Franklin Collum died when Elaine and J.B. were living in San Augustine.Word finally reached Elaine through a telephone message to the grocery store across from their apartment, a young girl was sent to the house.However, J.B. was out selling.He first heard from someone who expressed sympathy, but he did not know what they were talking about. Then he was told his grandfather was being buried that day, and it was too late for him to attend the funeral.Elaine and J.B. were upset they were not reached in time.They were both close to J.B.'s grandparents.
The young couple was in San Augustine only about two months.With all three children, they went to Navasota for about six months, and then they went to Gatesville.They also lived in Carthage and Center, Texas and Coushatta and Pleasant Hill, Louisiana.
At some point before World War II was declared, they moved to Shreveport, Louisiana.J.B. was a route salesman for the Standard Coffee Company. They lived in two different residences in Shreveport.The first was a duplex, and their neighbors were Bill Nettles and his wife.Bill was a song writer and a musician.He would sit on the front porch and play and compose.Elaine remembers the time he spent on "You Are My Sunshine." However, Bill got into some trouble, maybe jail, and his cousin and future Governor of Louisiana, Jimmy Davis, bailed him out for the price of the song in his shirt pocket, "You Are My Sunshine."
After moving into the second residence, Elaine's sister, Epsie, came to stay.She had been living with another sister, Happy, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.She was looking for work, just out of secretarial school, and secretaries were not highly paid.An ammunition plant was hiring in Bossier City, Louisiana.Elaine, J.B., as well as Epsie applied.Only Elaine was accepted.Epsie and a friend learned of an airplane factory in Indiana was hiring.She left Shreveport for Indiana, and she went to work building airplanes.She had left Elaine a written note, Elaine had to call their parnets with the news.
Elaine was ready to take the factory job.However, the War had begun, and once hired, an employee cound not just quite.Instead, J.B. got a job in New Orleans working on a harbor fire ship.Elaine, with the children, returned to Shelby County, Texas to stay with her parents until J.B. could find housing in New Orleans.They were there when potatoes were dug that year.
After getting to New Orleans in the summer, the couple was there only about six weeks.J.B. at work fell off the ship on to the dock hurting one leg.The leg was put in a cast, and J.B. was on crutches.While his employer did not want him to leave the city until the leg was healed, the $18 a week was inadequate for the family.Having sold their car before J.B. went to New Orleans, the couple with the three children returned to Shelby County and J.B.'s parents' home by train.
A week after arriving in Shelby County, J.B. received a card from R.T. Nutt offering him a job.J.B. met Nutt in Center.Nutt was wanting him to join a selling team going to Kansas.J.B. reminded Nutt that he did not own a car and that he was on crutches.Nutt responded by offering to get him a car and to show him that crutches would help J.B. sell not hinder him.The caravan to Kansas included: Elaine and J.B. with three little girls, R.T. Nutt and his wife with two little boys, Ruth and _________Bredford with two girls and one boy, and Nutt's newly we brother and wife with no children.
By September 1942, Elaine and family were living in a garage apartment in ________, Kansas.Shirley started school in the first grade.At some point, the family moved to a second Kansas town outside Kansas City, Kansas.However, gas was rationed by the federal government, and the house to house selling ended.The family returned to Texas.
Elaine and the children rented a garage apartment in Nacogdoches, and Shirley transferred for the third time that school year.J.B. went to work in the shipyard in Orange.J.B.'s and Elaine's fourth child, Sherwin Kay was born in the hospital in Nacogdoches 16 Dec 1942.By this time, more than gas was being rationed.Condensed milk required by Sherwin was needed, but it took time to register and get ration books for each member of a family.Finally, a salesman in a grocery store heard Elaine's tale of woe and let her purchase a case.
R.T. Nutt came back into the picture.J.B. was not satisfied working in Orange.Nutt suggested he join him at the Houston Shipyard.The change was made with the family moving into a summer house outside of Kema of Galveston Bay.While the house had electricity, water came from an outside handpump, and there was an outdoor toilet.Shirley transferred for the fourth time that year to a two room school house in Kema.She rode a school bus to school.
In June of 1942, a huricane hit the Texas coast.The storm blew all the houses on the Bay into the water.J.B.'s and Elaine's house was saved because it was about a block back from the Bay, and it lodged against their car.Again, Elaine and the children returned to Shelby County.In Center they rented a garage apartment in back of Dr. Oats.In September, 1943, Shirley began the second grade in Center, and Patsy began the first grade.
J.B. went to work in Texas City for Monsanta Chemical Company.The War was on, and he was working construction as a boilermaker welder eighteen hours a day.He rented for the family a house in a goverment project (over one hundred small and quickly thrown together houses) with water but no bathroom.Instead there were communal bath houses and laundry houses.Shirley and Patsy transferred to the Texas City public school. They walked to school each day.
J.B. then went to work for the Texas Shipyard in Galveston.The family moved into a government trailer park (over one hundred units with water, but with no bathroom, they had communal bath and laundry houses). Shirley and Patsy transferred for the third and last time that year into the Alamo Elementary School.By this time, Shirley had developed the know-how of checking into and out of school.She registered herself that first day.Elaine later brough Pasty to the school to register her.
This trailer park was located on Broadway Blvd across the street from a government housing project, the Oleander Homes made of cinder blocks painted white.This was much more substantial housing than that in Texas City or the trailer camp.J.B. and Elaine with other families in the military, construction, and essential civil jobs were on the waiting list.Eventually, they moved into a new upstairs apartment with two bedrooms, living room, kitchen, and bath.They lived there through the War until 1947.Shirley, Patsy, and Betty continued school at Alamo walking the five or six blocks each day.
During the War, J.B. left the Texas Shipyard for the Todd Shipyard.He also joined the U.S. Coast Guard Reserve, serving on a P.T. boat once a week.
Wednesday, April 16, 1947, the day of the Texas City Explosion, Elaine and her family were still living in the Oleander Homes in Galveston.At 9:12 A.M. the ship The Grand Camp violently exploded followed seconds later by an even more violent explosion, Shirley, Patsy, and Betty were in school at Alamo.Elaine was working in a liquor store on Broadway Blvd a few blocks from the Oleander Homes.Sherwin was with her.J.B. had resigned his job with the Monsanta Chemical Company the day before and was in Houston.It was several days before J.B. could get in touch with Elaine to assure her he was okay.Elaine believes that all but one man on J.B.'s crew at Monstana was killed in the explosion.
Shirley remembers that following the first explosion, the school had a fire drill.The sky was black.Although the War had been over for several years, Shirley in the fifth grade thought that Fort Crockett had been attacked.After returning to the classrooms, there was at least one more fire drill before school was let out and the children sent home. Someone sent for Shirley to go to Betty, a second grader, because she was crying.Shirley, Patsy, and Betty walked with other children until they reached Broadway Blvd.Mothers from the Oleander Homes were there to get the children across these streets that now wer filled with all types of vehicles carrying the dead and wounded one way and carrying supplies the other way.The three girls went home to the apartment and ate their school lunches.Since the family did not have a telephone, the decided they were not going to stay alone in the apartment.Instead, they would join their mother.They went back to the Blvd and crossed to the other side without the help of anyone.They spent the rest of the day in front of the liquor store watching the heavy traffic and listening to the adults talk about what they were learning.
After closing the liquor store, Elaine and the girls returned home.As night approached, there was much exchange between the apartment dwellers. There was no television, only the radio, for news.Elaine and the girls could see the Texas City fires from their kitchen window.There were rumors of more explosions to come and of gas that could blow from Texas City to Galveston.At 1:10 A.M. another ship, The High Flyer, exploded.
When Alamo school resumed, perhaps the next Monday, many children were missing.Shirley remembers a sadness.Almost everyone either had family or friends that had been in the disaster.She remembers the school administration, apparently sensitive to a general feeling of sadness, allowed the students to take their lunch trays outside the cafeteria into the rose gardens that were on both sides of the building.
The death toll from the Texas City explosion is not known, however the count given is 576 persons with over four thousand injured.Propety damage was in excess of $67 million.This worst industrial accident in American history was a tramatic experience for all members of this family.
In the summer of 1947, J.B. and Elaine bought a small, second-hand, silver trailer and left Galveston.Construction work was slow and they decided to take their children north and pick fruit.First they picked strawberries in Kentucky, and then moved on to Watervilet, Michigan, to pick strawberries at a farm where they had lived and worked in 1938. When strawberries were finished, they relocated to a farm outside of Benton Harbor and picked raspberries.The family stayed on after the other pickers had left and caned the bushes.They moved south outside of Tipton, Indiana, and picked tomatoes.Shirley, Patsy, and Betty began school.
When the tomatoes were finished, the family moved south to Nacagdoches, Texas.The children all entered school, and J.B. was selling.They then moved to Galveston, and the children transferred for the third and last time that year.Shirley went to Lovingburg Junior High with Patsy and Betty going to Alamo Elementary School.Initially the trailer was parked behind a service station on Broadway Blvd, close to the Olaeander Homes. Later it would be moved into a smaller trailer park several blocks from the beach owned by an Italian family, Imbrogoulio.
When school was out, the family made its third trip north to pick fruit. They got a job at the Warsko farm outside of Watervilet, Michigan.They picked black and red raspberries followed by the sweet and sour cherries. They relocated outside of Grand Junction, Michigan, on the Thomas farm and picked blueberries for the first time.They then went south outside Whiting, Indiana, to pick tomatoes, corn, and beans.The girls began school in Whiting.The trip south that year, 1948, took them to Houston, Texas.Shirley transferred to a junior high school with Patsy and Betty in an elementary school.It was in Houston that Betty won a five-year art scholarship to classes in the Houston Art Museum and Pasty's leg was shot with an arrow.
That school year the family moved to Galveston.This time they moved directly to the Imbrogoulio's trailer park.This put them in a different school district than in the past.For a third transfer that school year, Shirley went to a junior high school at one end of the island, and Patsy and Betty would go to an elementary school at the other end.
In the summer of 1949, the family made its fourth trip north.First they went to Warskos for raspberries and cherries, and second, they went to the Thomas' for blueberries.When school started, all four girls enrolled in the Lacota Elementary School, a two room country school. J.B. kept the trailer at the Thomas farm while he and Elaine drove each day to the Dilley farm in Lacota to pick apples and peaches.
When the family came south, they located in Beaumont, Texas.They parked the trailer in a small park on Pearl Street across from the wharf and loading docks.Shirley and Patsy enrolled at Crockett Junior High School.Betty and Sherwin attended an elementary school.Elaine worked as a waitress at the Tip Top Restaurant on Pearl Street.
In the summer of 1950, the family made its fifth trip north.During this summer, they bought a new trailer.First they went to Warskos for raspberries and cherries, and second they went to the Thomas' for blueberries.In the ninth grade, Shirley enrolled in the Bangor High School while the other three girls enrolled in the Lacota Elementary School.After school started, J.B. moved the trailer in back of the Dilley's home.Shirley would walk to Lacota Corner to catch the school bus to Bangor.
After the apple and peach season was over, the family returned to Beaumont, Texas, to the trailer park on Pearl Street.Shirley enrolled at Beaumont High School, Patsy and Betty were at Crockett Junior High School, and Sherwin was in an elementary school.
In the summer of 1951, the family returned south to Galveston, Texas and the Imbrogoulio's trailer park.Shirley enrolled at Ball High School. Patsy and Betty were ina Junior High School and Sherwin in an elementary school.
In the summer of 1952, the family made its seventh trip north.They changed their routine and only worked at the Warskos and the Thomas' farms.
August 21, 1952 the family went to Metropolis, Illinois, where J.B. got a construction job.The girls enrolled in the High School, the Junior High, and one of the elementary schools.
In the summer of 1953, the family made its eighth and last trip north. They kept their routine.Shirley, a senior; Patsy, a junior; Betty in ninth grade, enrolled in the Bangor High School.Sherwin attended the Lacota Elementary School.Shirley met and began dating Keith Alan Mills. Patsy left to return to Metropolis with Marvin Yager to get married.
After the fruit season, the family returned to Metropolis, Illinois, where J.B. went back into construction.The girls transferred into the local school system.Shirley graduated.J.B. and Elaine had their last child, Phillip Don, 17 July 1954, in the hospital in Anna. After Phil's birth, Shirley left and went to Lacota, Michigan, and Betty joined her for the rest of the summer.
The family was in Beaumont, Texas, by the summer of 1955.Then they moved to Vidor, Texas, where they continued to live until J.B.'s death 25 May 1972.Betty left the family after marrying Bobby Brister and relocated to Beaumont, Texas.Sherwin left the family to marry Jack Yates relocating to Shelby County, Texas.Phil was just finishing high school when his father died.
Elaine sold the family property outside of Vidor, purchased a mobil home and relocated to Vidor.Phil continued to live with her.She went to work at the White House, a department store in Beaumont.Later she went to work in the Coffee Shop in the Baptist Hospital in Beaumont.
Elaine married Walter Elmer Glenn.They bought some property ouside of Silsbee and moved the mobile home on to it.They later sold the property and mobile home and purchase a house on Third Street in Silsbee.
More About Ruby Elaine Kay:
Record Change: September 12, 2003
More About Ruby Elaine Kay and John Bailey Collum:
Marriage: June 02, 1935, Shelby County, Texas.
Children of Ruby Elaine Kay and John Bailey Collum are:
- +Patsy Ruth Collum, b. March 05, 1937, Shelbyville, Texas.