Introduction by Mrs. J. M. Elliott "I would like to introduce Dr. Maurice C. Waltrip, the son of  S. P. Waltrip, for whom this high school was named. Dr. Waltrip will speak about his father's life, and also tell us a little bit about the city of Houston and our Heights area during his father's time."

    "Steven Pool Waltrip was born in Molden, Missouri on December 17, 1878, and was a child when his family moved to Texas. At the age of sixteen, he was teaching school in Walnut Springs, and later at Buffalo, while still pursuing his own education at the University of Texas, where he graduated with excellent signs and masters signs, and where he was elected a member of the Phi Delta Kappa fraternity, and that's an educational fraternity. His favorite subject was mathematics, in which he was very proficient. In the year 1910, S. P. Waltrip lived in Houston, where he served as superintendent of schools in Harrisburg, Gruenen, (out West End), and Houston Heights, all later annexed by the city of  Houston. When the Heights was annexed by the city in 1918, S. P. Waltrip was named principal of John Reagan Senior High School, and continued in this capacity until his death. S. P. Waltrip received his degree #1O37, and was raised as a Master Mason on March 17, 1920. He was elected and served as Worshipful master of Reagan Lodge from the year 1923 to 1924.

    Dad married Addy Clone, and this marriage was resulted in the birth of yours truly, Maurice Waltrip, and a twin brother, Robert E. Waltrip, now deceased and passed forth . . . . AAONMS, which stands for Ancient and Arabic Order Nobles of Domestic Shrines. This is simply the Shrines.

    Dad was fond of the great out doors, and spent time walking in the woods of his day - now the bustling city,(the bustling Spring Branch section of the city of Houston.)

    As a hobby, he enjoyed carpentry and was skilled in cabinet making. In the prime of life and the peak of a burning career, Stephen Pool Waltrip died February 2, 1932, at the age of 53. A Mobil Monument has been erected to commemorate the fact, fidelity on the time of death, Stephen Pool Waltrip.

    S. P. Waltrip was of Welsh decent. His brother was known as J. W. Waltrip, and this J. N. Waltrip was a judge somewhat to the approvement of Roy Bean. Waltrip's ancestors came to this country from Wales, back in the 1800's, and the line of Waltrip was descended from a brother by the name of  Mastin Waltrip. No Waltrip that I know of descended from Mastin. They came from Luke and John.

    At the time that my father first started at a school here in Texas, the superintendent of the schools name was Mr. X. W. Horne. He was later replaced by a Mr. R. B. Kearn. And Mr. Kearn was superintendent of the school at the time that I graduated from Alexander Hamilton in the year 1922.

    My father was fond of getting in the woods, and communing with nature, and he advised me to do the same thing, and I did try that. He said, 'Learn to be a good company for yourself.' This sounded easy until I tried it, and I found out it wasn't as easy as it sounded. It was, never-the-less, good advice. I recall, also, that he had the habit of advising you to get your trouble out in the open and come to grips with it.

    I mentioned before about Congress Avenue. It used to be the Main Street of Houston, when all the streets were so narrow. That was about the year 1915, and the first capitol of Texas was on Congress Avenue, and of course, now it's in Austin.

    I have here the name of J. B. Morgan, who was the mayor. Now he must have been followed by M.L.O. Andrews. And at one time Dave Barker was mayor too. His daughter, Mrs. Gale, is still teaching. I have here the name Or Mr. James C. Donavan, the father of Marcella Perry of the Heights Savings and Loan, a very good friend of my Dad's. He was an attorney, and a member of the Heights City Council. The first Heights High School was on the corner of l2th and Yale Street on an old Heights play ground. And that later burned down. And so then the building was erected on the corner of 20th and Heights Blvd. The school was named Alexander Hamilton Junior High School. First, Heights High School, and then Alexander Hamilton.

    Dad was principal there, and Dad also taught night school, and I was in the habit of going to school with Dad, and then at night I studied typing and Spanish to keep Dad company. I also got a degree in music, and I still can't read one note from the other. I took music for four years.

    My Dad still has a brother and a sister living in Smithville, Texas. And his sister's name is Exer Denman. My brother and I were about the age of five when we made a trip from Lark Texas, by covered wagon to Navasota, Texas. As I recall, it took us two days and nights. And on this trip, my father was accompanied by his father, my mother, and my brother and myself, and we had two dogs hitched on to the bottom of the wagon. I learned to despise salt pork on that trip. I never-liked it since, we had so much of it then. We slept on a bed of straw on the back of that wagon, covered by canvas, and at the time, oh, it was uncomfortable, but it felt pretty good after that trip, bouncing around in that wagon. It was an uneventful trip but certainly an experience, and I realize now as I recall that trip was over a hundred miles, and I thought that was really traveling like going to the four corners of the earth.

    One of Dad's firm beliefs, and he advised not only me but others, was to get with yourself, commune with nature, and by yourself learn to be good company for yourself. This sounds easy, but I can assure you it's a very difficult thing to do. But I, not only did Dad like it, but I have learned myself, that it's a powerful lesson. Learn to be good company for yourself, and learn to be with yourself and enjoy your company, and see how you like it. And you would be surprised how disappointed you are when you try it. I know I was. We had a Sunday school teacher say practically the same thing one day. She said, 'Look in the mirror and take a look at yourself, and see how you like yourself, and you will be surprised how disappointed at yourself, you are'. And I said you would be too, to find out what poor company you keep. If you take a real honest, and fair look at yourself, and you do think it is entirely wrong, you have no one but yourself, and God, and your family to tell. You HAVE to. And you wind up sometimes thinking 'well, I'm a little short.' And then you begin to wonder how you can right it.

    My father insisted that I keep going back to the woods, walk in the woods, look at nature, study the trees, the grass, and animals, reflect on these things, and learn to observe and get some lesson from all those things without concentrating too much on yourself, and when you can learn, or if you want to learn, to devote your attention to things other than yourself, then you're getting somewhere. Now I hope that this lesson is clear, and as I said, it's one of the hardest things we had ever had to learn, and my prayer today is that I have learned that and will continue to practice it until the end of my Christian life. Say 'please' and 'thanks again.'

    Dad always believed at doing the best that you can with the tools you had at hand. For example, he would say, "Here we are in the woods" this was kind of late when we'd be camping, and I'm thinking now of once when we camped up on the LLano River up near Junction, Texas.  I said, "If we had," and he'd say, "But we don't have that, so you can just forget it, and we are not gonna get that, so now what do you want to do?" I said, "Well, we want to fish, and we want to get something for supper." "All right," he said, "then do the best job you can with what we've got." And I said,"Well, by the way, Dad, I've run out of cigarettes." He said, "Do without." I said, 'That simple?" He said, 'That simple." I said, "All right." (I thought well, the first opportunity I get, I'm going out and get some cigarettes, but I didn't.) will say that any vicious habit can be quit if your desires are sufficient in whatever that might be. I know this might be questioned, but my experience is that when you are completely faced to face for the situation where you have to do without, it is amazing what you can do without if you have to. It can be done.

    I mentioned before Edgar A. Guest simply because one day at Alexander Hamilton High School, Dad came over to a desk I had in a chemistry laboratory. At any rate, I met Edgar A. Guest. He said, 'Son, I want you to meet Mr. Edgar A. Guest, and Mr. Guest looked to me like any other person. I didn't know who Edgar A. Guest was. So I acknowledged his introduction, and Mr. Guest talked a while and asked what experiment I was formulating. And I noticed that Mr. Guest was a victim of poliomylitis, and was crippled, but in spite Or that handicap, he became one Or the greatest Or American poets, and certainly my Daddy admired him, and I admired him too.

    The flag which originally flew over the S. P. Waltrip Senior High School was presented to that school by congressman, Mr. Albert Thomas. This flag, Albert Thomas told me, once flew over the nation's capitol at Washington, D. C., and he gave the flag to the Waltrip High School, and this flag flew over the school for a number of years until it was so tattered and torn  it was finally retired. But at any rate, I thought that was a noble gesture of Albert Thomas. It may of interest to note that the flag pole or S. P. Waltrip Senior High School is the tallest flag pole in this area. I would say in this part of the state.

    I remember the riot - what we called the Negro Riot of 1917. The soldiers were under the command of a Sergeant Henry. The colored soldiers were bivouacked across the street from the Old West End Junior High School. Tthis Sergeant Henry could come across the street and more or less pick on the children and tell them they had to wash his motor cycle and various other jobs. A night or two after the children had learned who Sergeant Henry was, my family was sitting on the front porch in Gruener, Texas, what is now West End, when we heard rifle fire, and we thought at first it was blank ammunition, but later it turned out to be real ammunition. So my father said, 'I bet that's real shells. Those are not blanks. We'll take the old Ford, and we'll drive to a friend of mine where we can get some real fire arms.' So we got in that Ford, and we drove until we got to San Felipe and they were armed. It happened to fall on my Dad, S. P. Waltrip, to capture the first rioting Negro that night that was turned over to the police. This fight continued for two or three days. The first night probably being the very worst. Some of Dad's teachers called him and said, Fess (instead of professor), what shall we do?' Dad said, 'There's soldiers running around outside, so get out of your houses and crawl under them and hide. I can't come out there, they will kill me.' At that time a friend of congressman Albert Thomas, a Dr. Rieckert's sister, Alma, was shot. She did survive, but I saw the bullet, the cartridge of the bullet, she was shot with. Captain Maddox was called from Fort Crockett at Galveston, and he was to bring several truck loads of soldiers. When the Negro soldiers were told to stack arms, they wouldn't do it. Instead elected to fight. They were defeated, and after the defeat, Sergeant Henry committed suicide. Sargent Henry, before he did commit suicide, was severely beaten up by a Corporal Baltimore, and that did not occur on Main and Texas, but it did occur in the San Felipe section of Houston. The riot was finally put down. Captain Maddox was killed. T. A. Binford, who later became sheriff and served probably as long as anybody else in that department, ended that riot, and on the strength that he killed several Negroes, was elected sheriff and allowed to serve as long as he wanted. C. V. "Buster" Kern has closely come to his record, but not quite.

    I understand, I asked former Chief Morrison if he knew where these soldiers came from. He said, 'That battalion of soldiers,' and I said, 'By battalion, do you mean just a group of union soldiers?' He said, 'Yes, it was the 24th infantry comprised of enlistees from both northern and eastern states. And they didn't come from any particular section. Conglomerations, more or less like the veterans of World War II.' Incidentally, I was a member of the Air Force stationed in Mississippi, and our dental corps was comprised of 95 dentists from all over the country, not only from north to the east and the south, but everywhere. So, I presume that these soldiers were delegates from everywhere, too.

    I want to say that any discrepancies when I have mentioned James Donovan, Dave Barker, M.L.O. Andrews,the doctors in the Heights Sinclair, Durham, Hatfield necessarily I certainly have omitted some names, but this has been a mistake of the head and not of the heart.

    Now Dad was a great believer in being liberal, 'giving live and let live' was a policy of his, and he has gone I guess to the big church. But he was actually a member of the Methodist Church. So was the whole family, my Mother and myself. Dad would go to church and spend a great deal of his time studying, and I recall that he would go out on the sleeping porch and would take books and spend a great deal of his time studying. I thought, at the time, too much, but he seemed to enjoy it. And he tried to pass on some of his learning to me. It was, anyhow, a time I look back on with some very fond memories.

    I think that Dad considered himself an average man, and he realized that he had shortcomings like we all have. But that it was his duty to himself and the Maker to make the best of what you had. I have exercised that, and I suppose that's one of his great beliefs. My father, just before his death, while he was in the hospital, one day said, 'Son, come here. I want to tell you something. I know that I am going to die.' And this was a shock to me. but I had on a watch chain, and he took hold of that chain, and he said, 'But I want to tell you something that I want you to remember.' I said, 'All right.' He said, 'I am not afraid.' I said, well, I wouldn't think that you would be.' And he said, 'Now I want you to remember that. Will you remember that?' I said, 'Yes.'

    Well, I was so shocked and hurt and, incidentally, right after he had said that, Dr. Durham walked into the room. He said, 'Maurice, you better come with me.' and I said, 'No, I'd rather stay.' So Dad then in a few hours expired. The thought came to me that he tried his best to impress on me 'Son, I am not afraid, and don't you forget it.' So I didn't, and believe me that was a world of consolation then and still is.

    When the Allen brothers first came up off Buffalo and decided that Houston a place to start a big City, it was quite a vision. At that time, a man as I recall by the name of Price, bought from the Allen brothers, the section now known as the Heights, for one dollar an acre. This, of course, later advanced to a much higher figure. Now, of course, for an acre of land out in the Heights would be out of sight. But in those days a dollar an acre as the price that was paid to the discoverers of Houston. And that is the best I can recall.

    I might say that the old First Hospital in the Heights was originally a hotel across from the Hart's Drug Store in 1917. This was where Dr. Sinclair settled and organized the first hospital. That later burned down. And that became the Heights Clinic which was eventually begun by Dr. Sinclair and later by Dr. Mylie Durham. Dr. Charles Durham is deceased along with Dr. Mylie, his father. But Dr. Mylie, Jr. is still practicing, specializing in cardiac patients. Dr. Debakey, incidentally I noticed, said that he was not going to do any more heart cases, be cause they eventually die. Dr. Denton Cooley, our famed contribution to Heart Surgery, was a Heights boy, and his father was an insurance salesman, and he lived on Heights boulevard.

    Heights Boulevard was probably the prettiest section of the city, and it still is. Sam McDanna, conductor on the Heights line, was voted the most likeable conductor of the Houston Transit, and was given an en graved gold watch. Approximately three years ago, a party was held and Sam McDanna, very much to my surprise as I thought that he was not living, was there, and he still had his watch. He showed me that watch, and I said, 'I am surprised, I remember how well the family, my Mother and the kids felt toward you. This is really something. To think that here's this watch. I've heard of it! At any rate, as far as I know Sam McDanna is still living and still has his watch.

    I could go on to remember this about Dad. He started from scratch The old Heights Funeral Home as I recall was originally started in a two-story frame house that was owned by some people by the name of Hunter. The Hunter boy was a football player on the old Heights team. We were all taught by Miss Ferguson. Red haired, wild, woolly, Miss Ferguson. Children just worshipped her. I wanted to go to the circus, as I had been exempt from tests. My grades were sufficient. I said, "Miss Ferguson, I'm going to see the circus.' She said, 'Maurice, you go to that circus, and I'm going to fail you, so you have to take the exams." I said, 'I don't think you will do that.' She said, 'I will.' And I said, "Well, I'm going to see the circus." I did and I came back, and she failed me. I said, "well, Miss Ferguson, you said you would fail me, and you did." She said, "Yeah, I did." So I had to take all the exams, but we were good friends. She was good natured about it, and I think she kind of had a soft touch and made the exams easy for me. I know she could have failed me.

    I know at one time my Father said, "I've got two boys in this school, and I guess they are as dumb as any kids in the whole school." My brother took a spit ball and shot one of the teachers in the back of the neck. The teacher complained, and Dad expelled him. My father expelled my brother. Later he said, after worrying about it, 'Dad, how can I get back in school?" Dad said, 'Don't ask me. Ask the teacher that expelled you." Well, he knew that he wasn't bad. He wouldn't let my brother in and wasn't going to take him back. So he said, "You go talk to her." So he did. They had already decided what they were going to do, but they let my brother sweat it out. He said, " Well, what am I going to do?" I said, "Don't ask me. I don't know." But he finally got back in school.

    Mr. Woodward lived on 17th, and he had a son by the name of Harley. Harley was given to flying airplanes. Mr. Woodward was a very wealthy individual. He happened to be a friend of Mr. Walter Talley of the Modern Cleaners. I know that once Mr. Woodward sent some trousers to be cleaned, and Talley found, I think a $50.00 or $100.00 bill in those trousers, and he got in his car and sent it back to Mr. Woodward. And Mr. Woodward said, 'For your honesty, you keep it.' Now wasn't that something? Passing out a hundred or fifty dollar bill? I thought, well, boy, that man is rich. Now that was nice of Mr. Woodward, and it was nice of Talley.

I did want to say that any omissions or mistakes are my own. The Heights football team had a mascot who was called "Shine. Shine was reminiscent of one of the old time Chatanooga shoe shine boys. Now Shine was a good friend of Dr. Miley Durham, and he accompanied all the football teams on the trips to the other cities to play, and Dr. Durham was partial to Shine. Dr. Durhma got his start in medicine, I am sure, by attending to the physical needs of the football players absolutely free of charge and gratis. This, I am sure accounted for Dr. Durham's future welfare in the Heights area. Dr. Durham was at one time, president of the Harris County Medical Society.

    The mayor of Houston, or at least the Dental and Medical Corp., decided that the Houston Water Supply should be checked. This was after such cities as Albany, New York, and certain other areas through out the country. They were experimenting with sodium chloride. Our water at that time contained chlorine. It fell at that time on the Professor of Pharmacy, a Dr. Tarr, at the University of Texas, to conduct a survey of our communal water supplies. It was my lot, or privilege, to collect water from the Heights area, and it was found to contain what was called 2 PM of Trojan chloride. That might not mean anything. And there was some chlorine content. At any rate, the water supply that we drank, the content of chlorine and chloride destroys harmful bacteria.

    T. C. Jester was pastor following Rev. E. T. West of the old Baptist Temple. I was told by our commissioner, Squatty Lyons, that he wanted to name Gessner Street Waltrip Boulevard, but due to the fact that there was another Waltrip Street in Houston, he wasn't able to do so. But we do appreciate, and I do appreciate Squatty Lyon's help.

    Our wedding ceremony, by that I mean that of my wife, Thelma, and myself, was performed by Rev. T. C. Jester, and he signed our marriage certificate. T. C. Jester was certainly one of the leading people in the Heights. He was not only a good minister, but was an awfully good man and was a very highly respected individual. He had a son by the name of Bill Jester, who came from way behind to become one of the leading professional men in the city of Houston, and established the x-ray department which is a model for any x-ray department, at what is known as the Baptist Hospital, Memorial Baptist Hospital in Houston. To this day, that x-ray department is second to none.

    A boy by the name of Torence Weygandt had the Heights Theater; he had a father, and I forget his first name, but he was quite a performer at trap shooting (shooting clay pigeons). He was very outstanding. Then there was another family of Weygandts out here in the Heights. I'm sure they were all somehow related. We were friends of the Weygandts, and young Weygandt, who owned this Heights Theater, passed away. He was treated at Heights Hospital by an orderly there. An old, old orderly. But it's strange how many of these Heights citizens were all so close in all the Heights area. T. C. Jester was a fine man, and he will live in the hearts of all the people for a long, long time. And I had the privilege of visiting with him many times.

    The old fire station on 12th Street, here in the Heights, was once the old city hall and also had a jail section. This later was purchased by Grace Methodist Church. The first church was in that building. It didn't last long before a building was built on Yale and 13th. And of course, that is the present site on the boulevard. But I do recall that it is interesting to note, I remember an individual who was quite prominent in the Heights at that time (tho' I can't remember his name.) At any rate, he went to this Heights fire station and engaged in some kind of fight with a man, and was stabbed in the chest. I walked over and said, 'I know him because he's been camping with Dad.' Falthen was the name of his partner and that camping trip was when Dad said, ÔWell, learn to do with what we've got.' They were with us and that was on the South part of the river, and we were camped there, and Dad was fishing for bass. We took our baths out in the water and soaped ourselves and bathed in the water. I must have lost about six bars of soap, and we thought we were gonna run out of soap.

    It was Dad's belief to learn to co-ordinate the use of your hands with your mind was good. And so he had gotten the services of a very outstanding man in woodwork. He headed the manual training department at school, a man by the name of Watts. Dad would go down to manual trying, and then he would engage in making cabinets. Now he made his own filing cabinet that he kept in the school. There he kept paper and his math books. He also had another cabinet that he had made, and it sits in my house now. I locked it, and I lost the key. But at any rate, I did get a key. I have a lot of DadÕs old papers and stuff in that cabinet. I was amazed at DadÕs proficiency in the use of tools. I remember that he had a particular type of screwdriver, that to me looked like a little type of cobra type thing, and here awhile back when my wife and I were in a hardware store, I saw one of those, and I said, 'That is reminiscent of Dad's old screwdriver. I want one like that.Õ I have never used it. I've put it in a tool kit and it's still there, and its never been used, but I can't look at that without remembering Dad.

    Mrs. Crestwall, who was Dean, raised two boys, Howard and Wonell, and she told me that Dad was the best mathematician in Houston. And I said, 'I knew he liked math, but I didn't presume that she'd think he was that good. But never the less, it seemed that to him, math came easy. He knew that it did, he realized it, was grateful for it, but he didn't know why it was easy for him to excel in it. He would work problems and long after I'd gotten lost, he'd refer way back. Incidentally, some of his pages on Logarithms, and Quantitative Analysis, I remember all that stuff was Greek to me, but He would sit down,and I would try to do it with pencil, and he would do it in his head. I said, 'Dad, how do you do it?' 'Son, I don't know, I just do.' And one day I said, 'Dad, do you ever drink at all?Õ I He said, 'I do well to do as good as I do with what I've got. If I cloud it up or foul it up with alcohol and drinks, it's no good. The best I have got is none too good, and I just have to make the best of it."

    Dad's belief was that you should learn to make decisions and abide by those decisions. By doing so,you would eventually arrive at the point where you would make the right decision. And he firmly believed that you shouldn't avoid making those decisions but come to some conclusion and work the thing out to a logical end, and then act on it. Now whether you were right or wrong would be obvious later, but anyhow, learn to do that. And later you will wind up making the right decision.

Somebody said that it couldn't be done,|
But he with a chuckle replied
That "maybe it couldn't," but he would be one
Who wouldn't say so till he'd tried.
So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin
On his face. If he worried, he hid it.
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn't be done, and he did it.
But he took off his coat, and he took off his hat,
And the first thing we knew, he'd begun it.
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn't be done, and he did it.
There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done,
There are thousands to point out to you one by one,
The dangers that wait to assail you.
So just buckle in with a bit of a grin,
Without any doubting or quit it,
Just start in to sing as you tackle the thing
That "cannot be done," and you'll do it."

    I have just quoted this poem as I remember it. It was by our friend, Edgar A, Guest, and my Daddy kept it under the glass top of his desk, and I thought that it was a good poem and surprising enough I have read it enough that what I have done is what I have remembered of it. I hope that it may be of some interest to the listener.

    I'd like to express my gratitude right here to, first of all, Mrs. Elliott, who has been so kind as to give me this opportunity. Also, I have borrowed some of my history of the Houston Heights from a book written by Sister M. Agatha of Incarnate Word Academy. This was printed in 1956, by the Premier Printing Company. I understand that Sister Agatha is now deceased. I would like to express, again, my gratitude for this opportunity. I hope it may be of some interest, and I will conclude this by saying good luck, happy landing, best wishes, God's speed, and a particular thank you to Mr. Elliott.