TRANSCRIPT
INTERVIEWEE: Geraldine Watson (GW)
INTERVIEWERS: David Todd (DT) and David Weisman (DW)
DATE: October 12, 1999
LOCATION: Warren, Texas
TRANSCRIBERS: Lacy Goldsmith and Robin Johnson
REEL: 2056 and 2057

Please note that the video recordings include roughly 60 seconds of color bars and sound tone for technical settings at the outset of the recordings. Numbers mark the time codes for the VHS tape copy of the interview. “Misc.” refers to various off-camera conversation or background noise, unrelated to the interview.

(Misc.)
DT: My name is David Todd and it’s October 12, 1999. I’m here for the Conservation History Association of Texas, at the Watson Preserve near Warren, Texas, in beautiful East Texas. And we have the good fortune of talking with Geraldine Watson who’s been intimately involved in learning and teaching about the Big Thicket and saving many, many pieces and parts of it. And I want to thank you for spending this time with us today.
0:01:55 – 2056
GW: Okay. I guess to tell you about my involvement with Big Thicket I need to go a long way back. I was born and raised in this area, spent my childhood in the woods along the streams. In the days before the lumber companies said, “Cut it out”, the woods were still virgin. And, it’s been my memory of these forests and this land that have inspired me to try to save a little bit of it, little bit of what’s left. And in my own preserve here, to try to restore a little bit of it as it once was. Quite a few years went by before I became really involved in the environmental movement. And, I guess it all started when we were going to have children. We wanted a little bit of woods for them. So we bought this little bit of woods. And—and I put trails through it and—and planted Azaleas and Ferns and all that sort of thing. And they decided to make a big bypass of Highway 96 and guess where they took the bypass, right across my woods. So, I was pretty upset over that. Shortly after that I saw a notice in the paper that Lance Rosier was going to reorganize the Big Thicket Association. And that anybody that was interested to come to the church building there in Saratoga the next Sunday. So, I was pretty fired up at the time, so I was there. And, that was—began my involvement with Big Thicket cause. And…
DT: Before we get into Big Thicket, could we…
(Misc.)
DT: Could we please back up just a little bit before the Big Thicket controversy grew up, and talk about your childhood and how that might have influenced your interest in conservation?
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GW: Oh yes. I grew up in the, as I say, these beautiful woodlands and everything. And on Sunday afternoons my mother would take us walking in the woods flower-picking. And we would pick Birdfoot Violets and Winecups and all those things. And mother would point plants to us that her mother had made medicines from and dyes from. And she would tell us stories all about how they made their own cloth and all that. And, then I learned the trees from my father who worked for a lumber company. And, the mill there at Doucette was a large mill at that time. And he was a machinist there. But, he loved the outdoors … big fisherman. And I followed behind daddy up and down the streams and through the woods and—and all. And, so I learned to appreciate, to understand and appreciate what was there when I was very young.
DT: Can you describe some of the virgin woods that you mentioned before?
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GW: Oh yes. The uplands were widely spaced, very tall, Long Leaf Pines. Underneath was grasses and wildflowers. And then in the swales were, in between the uplands, were wetlands with carnivorous plants and Orchids and Ferns and—and all that sort of thing. And then there were many small spring branches. And along the slopes to these spring branches were Beeches, Magnolias and, you know, mesic slope forest habitat. So there was a lot of diversity in—in that community.
DT: And, as you grew up you were saying that some of these forests changed. Can you explain how that happened?
0:06:09 – 2056
GW: Oh yes, they cut everything. There might have been a few s—cull Long Leafs on the uplands and a few scraggly Scrub Oaks, but everything grew up to brush. And, you see in the old days, there was periodic wild fire. Everybody just accepted it. And the Indians burned the land and then when the white people came along, they continued it. Because it was good for their stock and, you know, fresh grass and—and all of that. And then the Lump(?) company started planting Slash Pine, which wasn’t a pyric species. See, Long Leaf Pine has to have fire. But, the other species can’t stand fire. That’s why you don’t find Loblolly Pine and things like that up in the uplands. But, the lumber companies began to plant Pine plantations in the place of the Long Leaf—Long Leafs, and all. And so, they began to suppress, you know, well, Bambi made fire a bad, you know, a bad word. And so, fire was suppressed. And so, all the land grew up very densely and brush and thickets. And, the—in the old days there were some thickets and wetlands that were too damp for mature trees to reach a, you know, before they’d reach
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mature size they’d fall. And so, the—it would be a perpetual thicket situation. But, those were areas where—that were too wet to burn. But, after they suppressed the fire, then everything grew up in—in brush and you lost many, many of the—of the rare, you know, forest floor plants and grasses and wild flowers and everything. Then, as time went on, the lumber companies were using chemical control of the brush, herbicides, pesticides, fungicides. They were having a lot of trouble with things like Pine Root Rot that would migrate through the root systems and all that sort of thing. So, gradually, they came back to using, very quietly, to using fire. It was a whole lot cheaper and it didn’t damage the environment like all the chemicals did. So, they began to come back to the use of fire.
DT: I understand that a lot of the woods were cut selectively and that, as years went on they were more cut for even-age management or clear-cut.
0:09:22 – 2056
GW: Yes, that’s true.
DT: Can you talk about when that change happened?
0:09:25 – 2056
GW: There were some companies, I know Temple was one of them, that did more selective cutting. And, then Kirby did a lot of—of the selective cutting. And, you could go into Temple woods and some of Kirby’s woods and you would swear it was virgin forest. But, it had been periodically, selectively cut. But it’s—when they began to grow Pine trees in plantations, the ch—they made the changes.
DT: Did that come about because of forest products that they wanted to change, they wanted more paper, …?
0:10:08 – 56
GW: Well, I think it was because all the land began to be acquired by all these huge, multinational corporations. And, with headquarters in Chicago or New York or somewhere. And the land was managed by computer somewhere to—to decide, you know, maximum stems per acre, or—of, you know, for maximum profits. And, no consideration was given for wha—whether this area is the right soil type, is the right pH, the right, you know, slope, topography and all of that. And there was a lot of bad things came from that.
DT: I guess as more and more of the forest became commercially developed, special places like the Big Thicket became more and more valuable. And, maybe you could pick up with what you were explaining about Lance Rosier and his efforts to restart the Big Thicket Association?
0:11:16 – 2056
GW: Yes, the Big Thicket Association began by, well, like every other organization, everybody involved had their own ideas about what needed to be done. And, there was a—a faction that wanted 10,000 acres in the, what we call the Traditional Thicket, which is, you know, dense, thickety wetland. And then there was another faction that was interested in the ecological Big Thicket. You know, maximum diversity of habitat, that sort of thing. And, there was sort of a—a war that went on between the proponents of the preserve, at the time. And, Ned Fritz and I were pro the ecological Thicket, and there were certain other people who were pro the other way. But, we did manage to get together and come to a compromise with something to present to the Park Service and Congress to where we could all stand together on it. And, Ralph Yarborough, who was Senator, or Senator Ralph Yarborough, was very active in promoting—he wanted a 100,000 acres. And so, it came down to a plan of a number of different, scattered Units, amounting to, oh I forget, 70,000 something acres. But, we managed to work together on it.
DT: Can you talk about some of the tensions and discussions and compromises that led up to developing this consensus proposal?
0:13:13 – 2056
GW: I suppose it was the fact that we all really wanted to see the bill passed. And we realized it would never get passed as long as we were fighting one another. The lumber companies who were our—our—our bitter enemies, were saying, “How can you expect us to save the Big Thicket when those people can’t even agree on what, where and, you know, should be saved.” So, we all realized that, that was the important thing.
DT: What were the lumber companies’ views about the Big Thicket’s protection?
0:13:55 – 2056
GW: Well, they had full page ads in the ad—local papers telling the local people that if the Big Thicket bill passed, it would take their homes, they would lose their oil royalties, those that had oil royalties, you know, on their property, and there were quite a few that did. And that it would stop all hunting and fishing in East Texas. And all sorts of things like that. And, of course, it would bring a hoard of all these Yankees down and the Southeast Texas and especially the Big Thicket area is a pure, unreconstructed rebel. The—the Civil War isn’t over to—to most of them. But, anyway, in the Federal Government were the Yankees and all. But the people were really stirred up. All those who lived in the areas of the Units thought they were going to lose their homes. That they were going to be—everything was going to be taken away from them. And they going to be paid for ‘em. So, everybody hated my guts. And, you know, spit at me when they’d pass me on the…all—all that sort of thing. And, I really don’t want to go into it here, but, of our ten years that we were trying to get the bill past, my children, who were growing up in that area the—the persecution, it would take a book to tell how they were treated. It was—it was pretty bad. If I had known then what it would mean to my family, I would have never got involved in Big Thicket. You never go—go against the powers-that-be in an area that has a one-product economy, because they control the schools, they control the law enforcement people, they control the courts, they control everything, the economy, everything. And nobody is going to go against them. Nobody is going to, you know, the teachers at school are the wives or daughters of the executives of the lumber
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companies. And they can really make it hard on—on kids. And, well, my—my youngest daughter, her—her life-long friend said, “Regina, I’m sorry that I can’t invite you to my party, but I’m sure you understand it’s because of who your mother is.” And, that was one of the milder things. Before, just before I was to go to Washington to testify at hearings, I got a—a phone call from a forester, who said that Rosier Park, that was a little park near Saratoga that belonged to the Big Thicket Association, had Pine Bark Beetles in it. And we were going to have to cut the trees there. And I said, “Well”, I said, “I am not an officer in the Big Thicket Association”, I said, “You’ll have to talk to Maxine Johnston about that.” Well, he kept on and on about it. And, I said, “Look, they had that area checked out by an entomologist who said there was no Pine Bark Beetles there. And he said, “Well”, he says, “I am a forester and I say they are and you better do something about it or—or we’ll sue you.” And I laughed and I said, “Hey look, you can’t sue me. I’m as poor as Job’s turkey and the—the Big Thicket Association doesn’t have any money.” I said, “Just call Maxine [Micky] Johnston.” And I hung up. Well, I was in Micky’s office the next day and the boy at Enterprise called. And, he had gone up there and given them this terrible story about how this terrible infestation of Pine Bark Beetle was spreading to all the private landowners. And they were going use—lose millions of dollars, and all that sort of thing. And when Geraldine Watson, head of the Big Thicket Association, was told of the plight of, you know, she merely laughed. Well, by my n—I said—Micky said, “Hey, she’s here now.” So, I talked to him. And they said, “Well, this is clearly a case of harassment.” You know, “We’ll forget about it.” Okay, a few days after that, my daughter, who was fourteen, and my son, who was about fifteen and a half, never in trouble in their lives, you know, real good kids, were in my VW van and they were stopped by the police and they—I—I have a box that I had some specimens that I’d taken to University of—of—University of Texas Herbarium to—to work on. And, they claimed that the re—the remnants of that were marijuana. And, they claimed that they found the medium for growing psilocybin mushrooms in my carpet. I had been carrying some manure from my flowerbed, you know. And they threw my two kids in jail. They beat the snot out of David. They put Eden in a cell between the cells of convicted men criminals. For two days, we couldn’t—there was nothing we could do. We did everything we could to get them out and—and all of that. And, we—when—when we finally did, every time the case would come up they’d say, “Well, we’ve misplaced the evidence.” Or one thing and the other. So it’s over their heads for—for two years. Eden was the first to break down. We had the—she had to spent time in a psych—psychiatric hospital. In the meantime they were being really badly treated by the other kids and all. David lasted ‘til he graduated, then he—he broke down. David couldn’t walk down the street without the police grabbing him up and—and harassing him. After the—after the bill got signed, that was the end of it. But, this is just one—one incident of what the family went through. And my husband who was really conservative, conservative Republican, somebody began to tell him that all these people I was associating with were Communist. These liberal Democrats who were promoting the Big Thicket were Communists. So, that was a problem between us. And, I didn’t intend to get off into that. That’s beside the point. But,…
DT: Well, how do you think that it was that the powers-that-be exerted that kind of control? I mean, whether it was the schools or the police force, how did they have so much leverage?
0:21:28 – 2056
GW: You talk to the people up in the—the Spotted Owl territory and see what they’ve gone through. And every area, it’s the same thing. Believe me they do have the power. You know, a mother who wants her children to associate with the right set, to be invited to the right places, they are not about to offend the—that class of people by befriending your child and inviting your child to their parties. I mean it’s that sort of thing.
DT: Were their any allies in the media? Any newspapers to speak up for protection…?
0:22:15 – 2056
GW: (talking over David) Well, there was a local paper, a weekly paper put out by two lawyers in Silsbee, Houston Thompson and Gene Berrington. And they were going to change the political situation in Southe—Southeast Texas. They were going to take the power away from the forest products industries. See, the County Judge had been, for—for, oh I forget how many years, twenty, twenty-five years, was on Kirby’s payroll. You know, that sort of thing. There was no way you could have a—a case involving land ownership, or anything like that before the local courts and get justice. And, anyway, they decided to get new—a new Judge and County Commissioners elected. And so they started this newspaper called The Pine Needle. And, so I wrote a weekly column called The Big Thicket, Past, Present and Future. Which I dealt with the—the history, the, you know, legends, the biology, every, you know, all the aspects of the Big Thicket, hoping to educate people as to its value, what it was. And, oh the office was fire-bombed and Houston was beat up in a courthouse lobby. And—and they—there was a group of people up in the Neches River bottom who for generations, many generations, had traditionally hunted and fished that area. Okay, the lumber companies leased all of that land to Hunting Club. The Hunting Club closed it off and opened it up to membership from people from the cities. And all these people were closed off from their traditional—they lived off the land, that sort of thing. And, they believed in hunting with dogs. The Hunting Club, you know, was against it. So, Gene and Houston got them to organize. They had some—the people there were—were ignorant, but extremely intelligent, if you know what I’m talking about. And, one of them, named Ernie Spell, who had a barber shop up in there, and knew everybody, was very intelligent, they organized a group called the Hardin, Tyler, Polk, Jasper County Dog and Wildlife Protective Association. They were called the “Dog People”, out of derision, you know. I still have my membership card—or membership card. But, these people helped us. If we needed—when we were trying to get them interested in including the Jack Gore Baygall area, the Neches bottom Unit, all that, if I needed five boats on the river at five o’clock in the morning and five boats—men to man them, they were there. Those people stuck with us and helped us all through—through the fight. Well, we got a new County Judge elected and new County Commissioners elected. But, things got pretty bad, I forget now what, oh, they—they started a really vicious campaign. They claimed that Houston was homosexual. They claimed that he had broken up homes. And they claimed that Gene Berrington had—the churches, they got the churches all up in arms to fight against these evil liberals.
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So, then they lost the—the elections because all the churches were up in arms, fighting a, you know, really organized against—against them. So, then Gene started representing these people up in there who had lost their land to the lumber companies, one way or the other. Kirby contro—got control of all that land through hook and crook, and there’s a lot of stories I could tell you all about all that, which I won’t go into. But, Gene got the cases handled out of the County. And was winning one right after the other. Okay, then Gene was killed. He was 34 years old, brilliant, he was going to change the world. He devoted his time to the helpless, the downtrodden, the hopeless, all of that sort of thing. And he was killed. And it was a one car—one car accident. And so, the—the Sheriff claimed that he was drunk. Well, the mortician embalming the body said that he wasn’t drunk, that they can tell, you know. And that he was dead before the car crashed, because there was no blood and all the, you know, cuts and everything, that he had died from a blow at the base of the skull. Well, you know, that was just the way it was. And nothing—nothing could be done about it. But that ended the—the great effort to, you know, bring justice to Hardin County and the—the Big Thicket area. And…
DT: Wasn’t there a newspaperman that was quite an advocate for the Big Thicket area?
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GW: He became an advocate, Archer Fullingham. Unfortunately, Archer Fullingham started out as an advocate for the lumber companies. And, he managed to get into debt, you know, to where they had control, so he would run full page ads, you know, telling all these horrible things that were going to happen to everybody. And I am pretty sure what happened was Houston paid all his debts for him. And he turned and became an advocate. But, I suppose this is the first time this has ever been said. Archer, you know, was a strong advocate of it, and his last years and all, but that’s the way it was. He—his newspaper was called the Koontz News.
DT: And what sort of stories would he write to try and promote protection of the Thicket?
0:29:35 – 2056
GW: Well, he advocated the preservation of the traditional Thicket, and he called it the Holy Ghost Thicket, because he said every time he got there he felt like he had the Holy Ghost. Archer was one who, you know, used, oh, extravagant phrases and all that. He—he wasn’t particularly interested in—in too many facts and—and all of that. But, he was an advocate in his last years.
DT: We talked a little bit about the effort to protect the Thicket and the campaign to publicize the Thicket. Can you describe what it is that’s so special about the Thicket that makes people care so much about it?
0:30:28 – 2056
GW: Well, before I go into that, let me add that without people like, well, Lance Rosier started it. Okay, we were all just simple people who didn’t know which way to go or where to turn. And Lance got Dempsie Henley from—from Liberty [mayor of Liberty], to come and help us. And we made him the President of it. Dempsie had a lot of contacts with the political people. And, so he got Ralph Yarborough involved. He got Justice Douglas down. And got … really got things going. Without Dempsie Henley, we would have never got off the ground. Okay, then when I—I was talking about the difference between the people who wanted to preserve the ecological Big Thicket, the larger idea and the smaller, Dempsie ran for Congress. And, the forest products industry paid his expenses. So, when—he didn’t win. And then came the pay off. So, he came out front page of Beaumont Enterprise, without advisory consent of the Board, promoting the—saying the Big Thicket Association supported the lumber companies ideas of the 10,000-acre deal, that sort of thing. So, then there was the split between us. And, but like I said, we eventually came—came back together. And, what—what saved Dempsie, redeemed Dempsie, Maxine Johnston got it into her head to save—to raise some money to fix the headquarters there in Saratoga. And so, George Jones was a native of—of that area. His sister lived in Saratoga. His mother lived in the area. So,…
DT: Is this the country western singer?
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GW: Oh good night, George Jones, you don’t know who George Jones is? My god man, where—ya’ll know who George Jones is, don’t you?
DW: The famous George Jones.
0:32:54 – 2056
GW: The famous George Jones, you know, and Tammy Wynette and all that crowd. Okay, so, we rented McDonald Gym, at Lamar, the biggest place available, you know. Sold tickets. It was sold out, standing room only, you know, and all that sort of thing. Well, okay, George Jones and Tammy Wynette and the Jones Boys Band, they all got to Beaumont allright. But—but, George got drunk in the motel room and passed out, and here it was time for the—for the concert to start. And everybody’s just, you know, they were going to see George Jones, their—their idol. And Geyata Ajilvsgi and I were taking up tickets in our evening dresses, you know, the whole bit. And.
(Misc.)
0:33:52 – 2056
GW: We couldn’t tell that he was going to be there. We had to wait until thirty minutes after he was supposed to be there. So, thirty minutes after and everybody’s stomping and hollering, you know, for him. And so, whose going to get up there on that stage and tell them that George ain’t going to be here? So, Dempsie said, “I’ll do it.” So Dempsie got out there and he had a sheet of paper, a blank sheet of paper, and he said, “I have here in my hand a contract between George Jone’s agent and the Big Thicket Association saying that he will be here, you know, this date, this time, this place, for a concert.” He said, “I’m sorry to say, George Jones is in Beaumont allright, but he won’t, he…”. Everybody knew, because he—he made of habit of that, you know. And, so he said, you know, “We have…”—Micky had gone over to the Library and got a whole bunch of envelopes and passed out the envelopes for people to write their names and addresses and have the—the, refund the money and everything, you know. But, Dempsie had done such a great job of—of saving us on that occasion, there was no riot or anything, that he redeemed himself. And he became a very wise, capable person, he became a—a Judge, County Judge there. And, I suppose you shouldn’t bring up all these things that happened in the past, but it—it’s part of the history, you know, all of this that went on. But, without Dempsie we’d have never got off the ground. Okay, without Ned Fritz we would have never got the bills passed. Ned had all of the knowledge of how to deal with the, you know, politics and—and legislation and all of that. Okay, without Maxine Johnston we would have never made it, because Maxine was great at knowing how to write reports and—and, you know, all this information and everything for the right—right people, and all of that. So anyway, it was—those people that we were able to get a Big Thicket National Preserve.
DT: Was Bob Eckhardt involved?
0:36:28 – 2056
GW: Yes, Bob Eckhardt was—he promoted it and, of course, Ralph Yarborough, and, oh lets see if there’s anybody else.
DT: Was Charlie Wilson involved?
0:36:43 – 2056
GW: Oh yes. Charlie Wilson was—he—the—the dog people and all the old people loved Charlie Wilson. He, of course, he was owned by Arthur Temple, you know. He was Arthur Temple’s boy. And, whatever Arthur Temple wanted was what Charlie stood for. But, Micky and I were trying to talk him into something and he said, “Wait a minute.” He says, “I’m going to take care of my rednecks.” He says, “They’re going to come first. I’m going to take care of my rednecks.” But, yes, Charlie Wilson was, I suppose we could add him to one who, without whom there would be no Big Thicket National Preserve.
DT: You mentioned the dog people and you just mentioned taking care of the rednecks. Could you talk about some of the traditional residents and users of the Big Thicket and what they cared about?
0:37:47 – 2056
GW: Well, they cared about hunting and fishing and being left alone. That was—that was it. The way—their traditional way of life. You see, when the white people first came in there, there were Indians in there. And the—the—as the white women would die off, they couldn’t stand up to the rigors of pioneer life, the men would marry Indian women. So everybody up in there, you talk to the people now days, “Well, my grandma was Indian.” Or, “My great grandma was Indian.” So, these people were—had, you know, a lot of Indian blood in them.
DT: Were they Alabama Coushatta?
0:38:30 – 2056
GW: No. One was Cree, and let’s see, there was Cree and there was Cherokee. There was, you know, those that had—who had drifted in. The original Texas tribes had been driven out and exterminated. And those that had drifted in were the ones that were… Now there were Indians there originally because you find their campsites and with all the artifacts and everything from—from ages and ages past, in the Jack Gore Baygall Unit. But those that—the people who are there now are related to—they were the—those that had drifted in from the Ea—driven in from the East. But, they are, like I say, they’re extremely intelligent people, but, and very witty. I would have rather sat in Ernest Spell’s barber shop on Saturday evening than to watch, it was like Hee Haw, you know, the… He always kept musical instruments hanging on the wall. People would come in and they had to wait for a haircut, they’d be a, you know, first thing you know the place would be rockin’ with the music, and all that. And, telling stories … and telling stories about Prohibition times and the—the revenuers in the area and the bootlegging, and you could hear just—you could hear it all. You know, at Ernest Spell’s barbershop.
DT: Did a lot of these people know how to survive on what was in the Thicket?
0:40:05 – 2056
GW: Oh yes. Oh yes. They were very, very able. Great hunters and fishermen. Still, to this day, some of my, most of them are dead, but, even their children are, today, some of my dearest friends. I’ve been fortunate. I’ve had friend who were college professors, friends who were millionaires, but my friends back up in the back woods – the dog people, they’re—they’re special.
DT: Can you talk about what interested people from biologists to the dog people, about the Big Thicket? What was it naturally that appealed to them?
0:40:52 – 2056
GW: Well, they were beginning to see that the natural areas were all—all being changed and destroyed and everything. And they’re places to study, to take their students to show them how the balance of nature works, you know, it was all gone. And, Richard Harrel was especially interested, Doctor Harrel was especially interested in the waterways which were being badly polluted. And you can credit Richard Harrel with cleaning up the Neches River, which was so toxic that nothing could live in it, from the, let’s see, it’s tidal up to Lake View. When the tides would move in the little fish would swim up the river ahead of it, the—the toxic, you know, water. And you could see crabs crawling up on the bank. And Richard Harrel was largely responsible for—for the work to clean up the Neches. Doctor Aronow was always ready with his knowledge and his information and his support. He was a Geomorphologist. And, some of the other universities, like Stephen F. Austin and Sam Houston, they would only get involved if they could get a—a grant to get money for what they did. But Richard Harrel… And also Paul Harcombe at Rice and Peter Marks from Cornell brought their graduate students down to—to study in Big Thicket. And they supported it strongly, you know, without waiting for somebody to pay them to do so.
DT: What do you see as being biologically unique about the Big Thicket?
0:42:53 – 2056
GW: Well, it was the diversity. Peter—Peter Mark’s graduate student, oh good night, Chuck Muller(?), now Doctor Charles Muller, but Chuck Muller, did his work on the Neches River bottom. And the thing he pointed—he was so interested in was that with a matter of inches in elevation you’d have a completely different plant community. That it was, you know, just the diversity of—of topography and of moisture, of pH, all of these things would result in diversity of habitat.
DT: Can you describe some of the Pine Sand Hills or some of the Baygalls, or some of the other ecosystems here?
0:43:48 – 2056
GW: Well, like I’ve already said, the Long Leaf Pine uplands were originally open with grasses and wildflowers and tall, widely spaced Long Leaf Pines. And, the lower slopes, toward the little streams, had mesic slope forest, the Beech Magnolia, White Oak type of thing, Loblolly Pines. And—and the stream floodplains, the largest stream floodplains, like Village Creek, Neches River, there are a series of terrace levels. Because of changing sea level and changing—different changing things. You’ve got different terrace levels and abandoned channels in some of the upper terraces have acquired organic debris and become extremely acidic and have—they have become Baygalls. Bay—they say comes from the—the White Bay—two of the dominant plants, White Bay and the Galberry Holly, Baygall. And, but anyway, they—they became acid swamps and, oh let’s see, in the uplands where you have alternate ridge and swale topography, in the swales you have wetland savannahs, where the trees don’t grow but you have a lot of, I suppose there are more species of plants in those communities than any other, all—all the other communities. Grasses, sages, brushes, forbs, all that sort of thing. But, Doctor Marks, in an article that was, no it wasn’t, it was Peter, let’s see, Peter Mark’s professor that was down here, wrote an article for Science magazine and he said that in the Big Thicket, you could stand in one spot and face one way and see Pine Lands like you’d see in, you know, the uplands of—of Georgia and—and North Carolina, and all that, and then turn another direction and see sand hills with arid desert plants, Cactus and Yucca on them, and then turn a little more and see mesic slope forest with Beeches and Magnolias and—and that sort of thing. And that there was nowhere else in the world, and he gave all the reasons why, nowhere else in the world would you find this diversity in such a small area. And, that—I think that is the thing that makes the Big Thicket unique, more than anything else, is the diversity within a small area.
DT: Is that what you mean by this being the “biological crossroads”? I’ve heard that.
0:47:15 – 2056
GW: (talking over David) It’s been called the “biological crossroads” of North America. It has been said that, and—and this wasn’t true, but they still say it, but, if a thing grows west of the, let’s see, east of the Mississippi, west of the Edwards Plateau, it can be found in the Big Thicket. Well, that’s not always true, you know … there were a lot of things that were claimed that couldn’t be proven.
DT: Well, are there geological reasons or climatic reasons that this is such a diverse area?
0:47:52 – 2056
GW: (talking over David) Yes, I think the main—the main cause is its geological history. All of this land was laid during the Tertiary and Quaternary Periods. There were, I say, four or five ice ages in that time. And, when the ice was one the earth, the, you know, water would be taken up in these great ice masses and so sea level would fall, and the coast would be 200 miles out from where it is now. They find Indian artifacts when they drill way out there. This is, oh I suppose it goes back to, there’s a lot of argument about whether it’s 300 million or 30 million, or whatever, but, you know, a long time. And, then when the ice masses would melt the sea level would rise and the water—the Gulf would move back into the land and it would go as far as Woodville, up in there. The sand hills of the second Willis Ridge and the Catahoula formation are relic dunes from ancient coasts and, in fact, right over there I have got an imprint of a Palm leaf and Palm wood from—that I got from that—from that area. And, then when they would come in, then the land would start eroding and filling, coming back and filling in. And making great deltas out into the Gulf. And the weight of all of this deposition out into the Gulf would cause the floor of the Gulf to sink. So it didn’t fill the Gulf, it just caused the floor of the Gulf to sink. And, then, okay here come another ice age and, you know, go down and the streams would cut deep valleys and—and all. And then another melt and the seas come in and another delta on top of that. Now these deltaic depositions, let’s see, there’s the Beaumont formation closer to Beaumont. Then there’s the Montgomery, then there’s the Bentley, we’re on the Bentley right now. Then there’s the Willis that’s between here and Woodville. And then there is the Fleming which is a marine deposition. It’s calcareous. Marine deposition. Well, the deposition of the Willis and the Bentley and the Montgomery are acidic deposition. Okay, the Beaumont formation, that is from material brought down by the Trinity and—and that great delta and it is calcareous also. So you’ve got all of this influence here. And, the way to this deposition pushed the ends of these deltas up, to where you have got a line, you know, sort of like ridges. And so the uplands around Woodville, those hills up there are there because the weight of the deposition in the Gulf of Mexico is mashed down and pushed the ends up. And those that are the younger, you know, as you get toward Beaumont, it gets flatter and flatter. And so, what you have here is a—a basin, at least 30,000 feet—feet of—of
0:51:59 – 56
alluvial sand, clays and gravels. The basin comes up, oh what’s the peninsula down in Mexico, the, but anyway, Yucatan. And, so this is—this is a big basin and the deposition of the streams, the Neches, has made two main stream levee deposits. One is called the China Ridge and the other is called the Neches Ridge. This turn, Pine Island Bayou and Little Pine Island Bayou come down and then these ridges turn them to the right, to the east, over to join the Neches. So you’ve got a—a—a topographical basin here. You know, the—the land has come down at about five feet per mile, the gradient ran five feet to the mile. And the—to the west the Trinity has stream levee deposits are rich over there. And the Sabine has the same thing. And the Neches dissects this basin. The Neches and the Pine Is—Village Creek and Pine Island Bayou dissect this basin. Okay, the bottom of this basin is, well, the traditional Thicket. That’s why the traditional Thicket is wet and swampy and thickety and all of that, because it’s the bottom of the basin. And because of the—the soil is impermeable, it’s not like the sands, clays and gravels of the upper formations. But, the—and the clay—cal—calcareous clay is not permeable, so it stands on the ground there. And these are all things that make the Big Thicket wh—what it is. It’s just a great big tilted basin. And the bottom of it is in the traditional Thicket. And as you get farther up the upland, you get more high, dry places like, you know, the Long Leaf Pine Uplands.
DT: It sounds like a geological matrix and also a geographical mix. I think earlier you said there was also sort of an evolutionary mix, that there were plants such as ferns and Pitcher Plants that occurred very close to each other. I wonder if you could tell me a story about that?
0:54:45 – 2056
GW: I don’t know. They’re just—they’re just here. They—ferns, the Osmunda Ferns like Regal Fern and the Cinnamon Fern, they have survived over the millennia. We have club mosses here that are—grow to be about a foot tall, that grew to be about a Pine tree size during Carboniferous times. These are remnants of those ages. And why they’re still here, I don’t know. And how these—the, Calopogon Orchid, for instance, it grows on this, oh this root system, great big masses of the root system of the—of the ferns. And they depend on a mychrorrizae in the soil that grows along with the ferns. But they seem to be interdependent. And, you know, why, I don’t know.
DT: You’ve learned so much about the Big Thicket. I was wondering if you could tell me how you learned it and who taught you and why you thought it was important to learn these things?
0:56:12 – 2056
GW: Well, they were making such outrageous claims for the Big Thicket that we were being made fun of, and all that sort of thing. And so I started collecting plants, the plants of the Big Thicket. Well, I started making a list. I was collecting for Doctor, oh, he was working on the—the plants of Texas, Don-Doctor Correll, Don Correll. He was working on this—this epic book on—on the plants of Texas. And I was collecting for him. I had found a fern that I’d never seen before. I took it the Lance Rosier and Lance said he’d never seen it before. And Lance said, “Let’s take it to Doctor Correll.” So, we did send it to him and it was something that hadn’t been collected in Texas before. So, he came down, very next day and he made me promise that anything I saw that was unusual I would collect it. He gave me plant presses and literature and everything on how to collect and preserve the specimens. And, so, I realized that this list I’d been keeping was worthless without the voucher specimens. So I started collecting. And then, when I went back to Lamar, Richard Harrel got me involved in setting up a herbarium. Because we didn’t have, botany wasn’t taught at Lamar. The Dean of the School of Sciences said, “Plants, in a 30-minute lecture I can tell you everything you’ll ever need to know about the plant kingdom.” Well, Richard was trying to teach plant ecology, especially aquatic ecology and all of the—the plants he was listing were mis-identified, and everything. So he got me involved in setting up a herbarium, which I did. And, I had around 4,000 specimens before—when I quit. I went to work for the Park Service when the bill was signed. And worked for them for fifteen years. And I delineated the vegetational zones in the Big Thicket and listed the vegetation of all of the different zones and all of the different Units and worked for the Park Service for fifteen years.
End tape 56
(Misc.)
DT: Miss Watson, you collected a lot of plants for the herbarium and for the book that Don Correll was putting together. Could you describe some of the field trips that you’ve made to find and bring back these plant specimens?
0:01:33 – 2057
GW: Well, I just like to roam the—the streams, the back roads, the woods and the streams, just me and my dog. And, when I went to work for the Park Service, I had this VW van, 1986 VW van. And I would go and—go into the middle of the Units and stay a few days. And, cover the Unit and collect, you know, while I was there. And, of course, press the specimens and then mount them when I’d get back to the, you know, to my base.
DT: What would a typical day be like on one of these collecting trips?
0:02:19 – 2057
GW: Well, up in Big Sandy Unit, I would—I remember it was in the summer time and I—early in the morning, after I had fixed my breakfast, I’d go out walking in one direction covering an area and collecting in that direction. And I’d come in, and I always camped by this little stream, crystal clear, you know, spring creek. And there was a pool, little pool there. And so I’d take all my clothes, lay in that little pool, cool off for a while. And so then in the afternoon, well I’d go back through the other, you know, another direction. And there was one—one day there I was—I—this was in the middle of a wide, highline right-of-way, it was a little pool. Here I am, naked as a Jay Bird, and so I heard this sound and I thought it was motorcycles on the highway. And it was two helicopters patrolling that highline. Here they came over the hill and here I am. You know, Aaaaa. And so I jumped to run for my van. And they zoomed up over that hill and zoomed around and came back and by that time I was already in my van. But, I had a lot of in—interesting adventures, but, it was mostly just walking and—and collecting and enjoying being there.
DT: What sort of gear would you take with you on these trips?
0:03:54 – 2057
GW: As little as possible. Just, you know, coffee, always my coffee, and bread and cheese and, you know, canned beans and—and that sort of thing, oatmeal, and sleeping bag. Mostly I just—I liked to sleep on the ground in my sleeping bag.
DT: Would you have collection bags and presses and that sort of thing?
0:04:26 – 2057
GW: (talking over David) Oh yes, I’d have all that with me. Yes.
DT: Did you ever need a map, or did you typically know where you were?
0:04:35 – 2057
GW: (talking over David) Oh no, I generally knew where I was. Well, I’d have a topographic map. I’d have a topographic map. But, I always knew that—I knew where I was. And if I got turned around there’d be a stream to the east of me and there would be a—a, you know, high hill to the other side of me and a road up ahead. And if I walked long enough I’d hit something I recognized and turn around.
DT: Were there people who told you, you should search a certain area for a certain plant?
0:05:08 – 2057
GW: No. Once you learn the habitat of the different plants and you have a topographic map, and you look and you say, “Hey, here’s …”, you know, “…here’s a sensitive area, there should be “so and so” there.” So, you go there and generally there’s “so and so” there.
DT: Did you find many rare species when you were on these trips?
0:05:36 – 2057
GW: (talking over David) Oh yes, many, many of them. I have a list of what I call my “minus four” plants. I categorized everything from minus one, to minus four, or plus one to plus four. You know, plus four it was plentiful and everywhere. But, minus four, it was only one, or one popu—small population, you know, it was—it was considered rare. So I had a long list of minus four plants, which I pinpointed on mounts, you know, to where people could find them if they needed to.
DT: Was there something in common that these minus four plants had?
0:06:24 – 2057
GW: It was the type of habitat that they needed. And, more and more we’re losing the habitat of these rare plants. Just like the—these Pine Savannah wetlands, they’re all being drained, and ditched and—and drained. And there’s a—an Orchid, the White Bug Torch Orchid, Hevenaria Nivia(?), and everywhere I have now it’s—it’s very specific. It’s only on Savannahs on the Montgomery formation. And so everywhere I know that it grew, they have ditched and drained the areas and made—made residential subdivisions there. And it’s—the plants are becoming scarce because of habitat change.
DT: Can you mention other plants that are perhaps rare to begin with and now sort of trending down?
0:07:37 – 2057
GW: Well, here you have pyric plants and—that—and the area hasn’t been burned for a long time. I know there’s an Orchid, a—a small Orchid that hadn’t been known to be in Texas and lightning struck over there at the Kirby State Forest one time and a certain area burned. I went over there later and I found three of the Calopogon Pallidus, first time, you know. And, then the Big Thick—National Preserve, the first time they in big sa—in the Hickory Creek Savannah area, I found them coming in there. And, here there is a—a Rose Milkweed that is very rare. I’ve only seen it once in all my years. I found it once in the Turkey Creek Unit. And, I found one over across the road alongside a little branch and it was in bloom. And I took it because the Highway Department would have exterminated it anyway. And I planted it down here, in the proper place, you know, proper pH and—and moisture and all of that. Well, it’s survived. The next year it didn’t. The next year two came up. And I was burning the area, so the next year two of them came up. I was so proud. Okay, we were clearing the far end of this which had been growing up in brush, and we had burned there the year before. And, my son David came up and he said, “Momma”, he says, “There’s some plants over there that look just like that Rose Milkweed.” So I went over there, there it was, just an ocean of them in this area where we burned. So, it’s—that—that’s a very important factor in these plants that—that are fire-dependent.
DT: You talked about the Rose Milkweed and other plants that you’ve managed to protect and collect and I believe that many of them are here at the Watson Preserve, near Warren. Can you tell how and why you went about setting up this preserve?
0:10:05 – 2057
GW: Okay, now, like I told you before, I don’t want people to think this is just a wildflower garden, that I go out and—and collect wildflowers everywhere and bring them here and plant them. I bought this area because these—all these rare plants were here to start with. And, if there is one nearby, like the Rose Milkweed, that I know is not going to be saved where it is, and it belongs in my—in this particular habitat, I will take it and place it here. But I don’t just go out looking for things to plant here. But, the reason I bought this is because of what was here to begin with.
DT: How did you first find it?
0:10:50 – 2057
GW: Well, I was over on the other side of the dam, crossing the lake, and with my binoculars, watching the birds on the lake, and I thought, I bet I could see those a lot better around the back side of the lake. So, I found the road coming around here. And I stopped and I walked out on this point, and I looked around and I said, “This is where I’m going to spent my declining years.” So, I picked out the place where I was going to build my cabin and went home and drew the plans for it. And, came back and I—I didn’t have any money. And my husband certainly wasn’t going to buy it. And, I was so determined that I was going to have it that I was in Pier 1 Import the next day, and there was this gorgeous fake Navaho rug. And I said, “That’s going to go in front of the fire place in my—my house.” So, I—I bought, I paid—I paid five dollars down on it, when I paid it out. I had got a good contract and had made a down payment on this one lot. I’ve got twenty lots, and I have bought them one at a time. And I started digging the holes for my—the first level is under ground. And so, that’s—of course I had walked around and seen what else was on it. And, so, as time went on, well, I became more and more intent on restoring it to what it used to be.
DT: And, you talked earlier about restoration when lightning struck over at the Kirby State Forest and these Orchids came up. Maybe you could talk a little bit about the potential for restoration and some of the tools for doing that.
0:12:53 – 2057
GW: Well, if you’ve got lots, you know, thousands of acres, that’s one thing. Not everybody can, you know, this is a relatively small area. And my son and I have done most of the work with hand tools, you know. I haven’t got the money to hire help. I haven’t got the money for chain saws, all that sort of thing. So we used a buzz saw and clippers to remove the invading species and to try to—to, and then the fire is the main thing that removes the invading species. But…
DT: Can you describe some of the invading, exotic species that you’ve seen?
0:13:35 – 2057
GW: Okay, up here in the uplands you might have, without fire, you might have Sweet Gum and Red Maple and Water Oak and Loblolly Pine and all of that come in and form thickets. And then the Yaupon comes in and forms very dense thickets. Okay, all of those plants are not fire-tolerant. Fire will keep those—will kill those—keep those out. And the Long Leaf Pine is fire-tolerant, in fact, it has to have fire. Plants are either fire-dependent or fire-tolerant, or either completely non-tolerant, one of the three. And if they’re fire-dependent like many of the plants on—in this community then they have to have fire for, you know, for their seeds to open, or for—like Long Leaf Pine, and it comes up and it’s like a tuft of grass. Okay, it stays in a grass stage for, oh, three to six years, without fire. And in that time it will probably die from Brown Spot Disease or whatever. But, with fire, it causes a little in-bud to start—it stimulates the in-bud to start growing up. And, it also, the fire kills off the needles that the Brown Spot Disease stay on. And, then it will start growing up. It may stay in the grass stage from three to six years. With fire, it will come out within three years. Without fire it will stay longer and maybe die of something else. But, then it starts growing up. So, the fires that come along don’t—won’t kill it. It has a thick, scaly—thick, scaly bark and the in-bud is very well insulated by a lot of hairs. And, so with every fire it just gets an extra spurt of growing speed.
DT: Talking a little bit more about exotics, do you have any problems with species that are non-native such as Tallows or Privet or Nandina?
0:16:03 – 2057
GW: Well, so far, e—every time I see a Tallow seedlings I rip it out. And I haven’t had too much trouble with that. But, somehow Mimosa got started over there, right over there by the side of the house. And I’d have to keep chopping that down. But, Mimosa is a pretty bad invader, you know, cultivated invader.
DT: Given all the forest cultivation and agricultural work, do you think there’s enough left in the seed bank for the original forest to come back here?
0:16:43 – 2057
GW: I think so. I have seen areas that—Long Leaf Pine forests that had been grown up and just a dense—dense thicket of shrubs and brush and all of that. And after a fire I have seen grasses and plants come back in there that indicate that the seeds were there all along, just waiting, you know, to come back. I think there’s hope.
DT: Talking about hope, maybe you could talk generally about some of your hopes and fears for the long term.
0:17:25 – 2057
GW: Well I’m a pessimist. I quit the Park Service because I got disillusioned because there was no money or—or personnel to manage. And I watched all the communities disappearing. And the people not having the guts to—I mean they were too scared of their possessions to—to take a chance on—on burning, because if something went wrong they’d be at the… And, the lack of fire I saw all the—the rare communities disappearing and I decided to just… And also, I raised all the money to buy 50 acres of real prime habitat over on the other side of the lake. So, we gave it to Nature Conservancy. I raised all that money myself. We gave it to Nature Conservancy. Okay, when I managed it, I managed it by burning. Okay, when it got in the Nature Conservancy’s hands, that was the end of the burning. And you see it now, it’s just a—a mess of brush and shrubs and all of the—completely… I went looking that direction when I pass by it. So, I just decided, I can’t do anything about the Park Service. I can’t do anything about the governments not giving the Park Service enough money. I can’t do anything about how Nature Conservancy manages, or mismanages. What I can do is manage my own preserve and for that reason, I’m not involved in any organization. I don’t solicit volunteers or—or anything like that, because I don’t want anybody telling me what I have to do here, or what I can’t do here. I think I know how to manage this, and I will manage it the way it should be.
DT: Do you have thoughts about why the Nature Conservancy or the Park Service, despite, I think, good intentions, might not be as effective or successful in managing the lands they’re entrusted with?
0:19:32 – 2057
GW: I really don’t—I really don’t know. It’s—they’ve got more important things to deal with. This is just a little 50-acre tract. You know, they’ve got preserves for thousands and thousands of acres and those are what’s important, and—and all of that. And, it’s just like Mary See Prairie. Micky’s probably told you about Mary See Prairie. Nature Conservancy abandoned that and it grew up into a forest. And, it just—I don’t trust these organizations to—to do what I want them to do.
DT: A lot of the public land in Texas and certainly forestland is entrusted to the Forest Service. What do you think about their management of Sam Houston and Davy Crocket and Sabine?
0:20:38 – 2057
GW: Well, when I was young the—all the areas, those National Forests, you know, Angelina National Forest and all those up there, had been cut over. As far as you could see, rolling hills. A few s—scraggly Long Leafs and a few Scrub Oaks. Okay, the CCC boys, Civilian Conservation Corps, came in there and replanted to Long Leaf Pine, the native species. Okay, the National Forest Service managed it by periodic burning and periodic harvesting. Okay, it’s restored to the point where it is so beautiful and looks so natural that Ned Fritz decides that this ought to be National Wilderness area. Okay, the National Forest Service says, “Oh you can’t have a wilderness area because th—Long Leaf Pine has to be managed. It has to be burned periodically. And you can’t manage a wilderness area.” Okay, Ned sets out then to prove that you don’t have to burn Long Leaf Pine. So, here starts the big fight between Ned Fritz and the U. S. Forest Service. That’s how it all began. Ned was pro-fire before that. And, but that’s—he switched then and made a big battle against fire. He even stopped the Park Ser—National Park Service from using fire in Big Thicket. We had a—a wonderful fire management program set up and it just started. Ned Fritz hit us and they were scared to make a move because Ned would sue us. And so, we had to scrap our good policy and come up with a program that was legally defensible to please Ned Fritz. He was up here one day and I had not acquired those last lots and they were dense like that. I mean, there was—you couldn’t see a Pitcher Plant, you couldn’t see an Orchid, you couldn’t see anything but just dense brush. Okay, on this side of the line where we had been burning and—and managing it, gorgeous, you know, just oceans of Ferns and Orchids and Pitcher Plants and everything. Ned were—and I were walking along there and he was talking about, you know, we were discussing the matter. I said, “Okay Ned”, I said, “Look. Just look at this. Here fire, here, no fire.” And he said, “Well, yes, but where’s your documentation. You have no documentation whatsoever.” I said, “Hell, Ned, you don’t need anything on paper. You’ve got empirical evidence before your eyes. You know, here I burn, here I haven’t burned. What’s happened to all of these—these plants?” Do you know, he still wouldn’t admit it. He said, “Well you just don’t have any documentation, no proof.”
DT: I guess there are other tools that the Forest Service has been using, or failing to use, besides fire. I think they tend toward even age management…?
0:24:07 – 2057
GW: (talking over David) Well, they did go through—they did go through a period where they were pretty well under the thumb of the forest products industries in East Texas. And they were going along because the—the lumber companies could buy timber off the National Forest a lot cheaper than they could grow it themselves. So they were persuading the Forest Service, I mean the—the National Forest Service to do the kind the lumbering they wanted; the clearcutting where they could go in and take all this great stuff, you know. And so, Ned was—he was—he did well in trying to stop that. And, so it really—it made a difference. It made a difference. They have made a lot of changes.
DT: What about the Forest Service’s policy about Pine Bark Beetle control? What do you think about that?
0:25:03 – 2057
GW: Well, of course, I’d like to see it just, you know, let nature take its course. But, when you’ve got a lot of things to consider, like surrounding landowners who are screaming. I know the Park Service has had to do that. If an outbreak is in the middle of a big Unit, they just let it—they watch it and let it run its course. But, if it’s on the edge of the Unit and headed in the direction, you can always tell which direction it’s headed, and headed in the direction of private forest, then they have got to do something to stop it.
DT: Another policy issue for the Forest Service has been how to protect the Red Cockaded Woodpecker. Can you talk to us a little bit about that?
0:25:58 – 2057
GW: Well, I have seen a lot of their areas that they are managing it particularly for preservation of the Red Cockaded Woodpecker. And I think they’re doing very well, better than Big Thicket National Preserve, I’m sorry to say. But, I have seen some really great areas with Red Cockaded Woodpeckers flying all over the place. Areas that they keep burning, you know, they burn periodically. And, Red Cockaded Woodpeckers like open land. And they often built they’re nests by highway ri—rights of way, or pipelines rights of way, because they like to have this—these big openings. And where you’ve got nothing but brush and—and—and junky trees and everything, well, you’re—you’re not going to have any Red Cockaded Woodpeckers.
DT: You’ve spent a lot of time in the forests of East Texas. Can you tell me about some of the very rare and maybe non-existent species such as the Ivory Billed Woodpecker or the Red Wolf? Have you ever heard tales of them or seen them?
0:27:14 – 2057
GW: Well, when I was at Lamar there was a fellow there who was doing his master’s work on the Red Wolf. And, he had some there in cages that he had captured. There’s a lot of ranching going on in the coastal prairies near Beaumont. And that’s where he had—he had them. And, I understand they have been loosed somewhere in some—some preserve. But, that’s all I know about the Red Wolf. We have what we’ve always called wolves here, what we always called Timber Wolves. They claim we don’t have them, never had them, but nevertheless, you, you know, I know what I’ve seen. I know what’s been found shot and—and all that sort of thing. They say, “Oh they’re just coyotes or they’re dogs”, or something like that, but, no, you know, it’s my opinion that we still have… Even here, they’ll be—they’ll be, in this area and you can hear them howling at night. I was on—coming down the Neches one time. And I was camped on a big sand bar. It was way down and I heard them—I heard them, you know, they were hunting, you know the—the sounds they make when they’re hunting. And they got closer and closer and so, all of the sudden something crashed through the brush and it came right up to my cou—my tent and stopped with a big snort, quelled(?), ran and jumped in the river and—and perilous swim… And then I heard the—what was chasing them come around. Well, you know, I just was just laying there like that. And the next morning there was all their prints. They have been chasing the—a deer. And so, and I know people who trap them all the time up in the Big Sandy Unit. There’s a lot of—of stock people up there who have traps out for them all the time.
DT: Do they ever run across bear up there?
0:29:25 – 2057
GW: Well, I can only s—speak of what I have seen with my own eyes. In fact, I was with the Cornell people at the time and the—where Beech Creek goes into Village. And, we were going along and I found this young bear. Somebody had shot him, probably the night before, because he was still limp, you know. And, so we had a—a Zoologist, I guess he was, with us and he said it was about two years old. And so I went there later and got his skeleton. I think Micky’s still got the skeleton. But, Pape—some wood cutters had told me the year before that they had seen a she bear and two cubs in that general area. And I talked to other people who see them occasionally. So, we do have bear.
As far as panthers are concerned, we have panthers. Every once in a while somebody will kill one. My son was sitting on the high bank of Village Creek one time, and there was a log crossing the creek down below. And he watched while one crossed the creek on that log. So, we have those here.
DT: Speaking of hunting and trapping, what’s your opinion? A lot of conservationists have roots in hunting and fishing. Do you?
0:30:51 – 2057
GW: (talking over David) Well, I’ve never hunted. I have no problem with—with people who hunt, like the people up in the river bottoms, it’s you know, part of the way they live and all. I don’t worry about the—the animal itself that’s going to be shot. You know, that’s not a bad death for—for an animal, clean shot with a bullet. I worry about a human being who has to kill something, who gets pleasure out of killing something, taking a life, you know, that—that bothers me. My daddy was a hunter when he was younger. My sons gave it up. My husband never—never hunted. We haven’t been—we haven’t been hunters. You know, I have no, I wouldn’t say stop all hunting. Now the trapping’s another thing. They allow trapping in the Units and that’s a commercial thing and it should not be permitted. But they do permit it.
DT: Do you know what they’re trapping for?
0:32:01 – 2057
GW: Fur. Coons and—and Otter and Mink and all sorts of stuff.
DT: And why does that give you offense?
0:32:15 – 2057

GW: Well, nothing should be done in the—the Units commercially. You shouldn’t be able to hunt deer and—to sell, you know. If—if people are just going to kill them to eat, they’re not likely to wipe out a whole populations. But, they almost wiped out all the deer in this area when it was legally permissible for them to sell them. And, oh, I mean, they would kill them by the hundreds, sell to the cafes in Beaumont. But mostly the hides. Deer hide was, you know, they’d sell the deer hides. They almost wiped out all the deer in this area, because it was a commercial thing. But, no, that—it should be a—trapping shouldn’t be a commercial thing.
DT: I’ve heard that Wild Turkeys were at one time common and that they were almost wiped out as well.
0:33:15 – 2057
GW: That’s—that’s—that’s true.
DT: Why was that? How did that happen?
0:33:19 – 2057
GW: Just over—over hunting. It’s like the Passenger Pigeons. They would kill the Passenger Pigeons by the thousands and put them down in barrels of lard and ship—ship them east, until they exterminated those. And the same thing with the turkeys. My daddy used to hunt turkeys when he was a boy. And, I saw turkeys in the Neches bottom lands, over on the east side one time when I was—I was camping out over there, I saw some turkeys. So, there’s a few left. And, I think some of the hunting clubs are stocking them, hoping they’ll come back.
DT: I understand that for many years there was a running battle with game wardens and hunters and pasture riders and hunters and poachers. Do you any experience with those stories?
0:34:18 – 2057
GW: Oh yeah. They—there’s always been a—a, you know, sort of a battle between those—those forces. The people who had the freedom to—to hunt and fish, as they—as they have for generations, and then all of the sudden they’ve got all these rules and regulations and the do’s and the don’ts and—and everything. And it really rubs them the wrong way. And, I think they take a little pride. I’ve heard them boast about being in the Units at night and about the—the Park Rangers coming, you know, their four-wheelers down the—the—the woods road and all that, about how they’d stand behind trees and watch ‘em and laugh. And the Park Ranger is scared to get off the—the road, which is—is pretty true. But, I realize the need for rules and regulations and laws and everything, but I also understand that these are the last fr—really free people that I—that I know. And…
DT: Freedom from what sort of limits?
0:35:26 – 2057
GW: Well, the limits that we ha—you and I have, most people have. Like I say, all the laws and rules and regulations and do’s and don’ts and—that tell them that they can’t go out and catch a fish to eat or—or kill a squirrel, go down behind their house and kill a squirrel for supper. Or anything like that. If their dog gets out of the yard and goes across the fence into the Unit, the Rangers can pick him up and take him in and—and you know, that sort of thing. I’ve heard them say, “Hell, that dog can’t read no sign.” You know, crossing the Park Service sign, but, for a while there a lot of really—really bitter, they’ve—they’ve sort of worked things out.
DT: I’d like to switch course a little bit and talk about not so much about the trees and the habitat, but about the water that East Texas is known for. You know, so much of Texas is dry and so many Texans comment on the water in East Texas. And I’m curious if you’d had much experience with proposals for dams and reservoirs and channels and so on?
0:37:06 – 2057
GW: (talking over David) I can’t understand why they have to go to the High Plains where there’s no water, and they have to irrigate and all that, when there’s a lot of land here that could be cultivated, where’s there’s plenty of water. No, I don’t believe in transporting water from here over there. Especially at a—to Houston so they—they can get bigger and—and all of that. And, as far as—as all these dams are concerned, this effort that they’re putting forth to put in the dam up at—near Rockland, that was decided a long time ago that, that wasn’t needed because the all the industry that had said that they needed it to begin with now have to treat their water. And they can reuse it, so they don’t need all that water. But, I hope I have time to tell this. Okay, there’s…
(Misc.)
0:38:12 – 2057
GW: Okay, you were asking about the water situation, flooding, all of that. And, you know, I explained to you how Big Thicket was a—a tilted basin. Okay, the bottom, very bottom of this basin is where Pine Island Bayou and Little Pine Island Bayou meet. And, this is a collecting basin for flood waters. Because you’ve got the Neches Ridge as a barrier and Pine Island Bayou cuts very sharply and—and deeply through that ridge. But that’s a barrier to—to flood waters. Okay, a developer, and this is—this is pretty land when it’s not under water, you know. So, I developer put a big development over there, big expensive houses and all of that. Okay, here comes the flood and the houses are up to their eaves in water. And so one of the home owners, was named Genie Turk(?), decided that something needed to be done about the flooding. And, everybody tried to tell her that there is no way you can stop that area from flooding. When you’ve got 12 inches of water a day, and—and the watershed coming down, and you’ve got a storm in the Gulf that’s pushing the tides up and the Bayou is tidal to that point—up to that point. And you’ve got the—the, you know, storms in the Gulf pushing the water up to—and that acts as a barrier there. And there’s nowhere for the water to go, except out over the land. And, so there’s no way you can—you can stop that. Well, you wouldn’t believe what this woman went through. She was a—a very influential Republican. And, what she went through to get studies done, and studies had already been done on the situation, I had been involved in a study on that. And, there’s—it’s, and everybody who was any authority at all had—had made it clear that there was no way you could stop the flooding on there. Well, she wanted to dike Pine Island Bayou, well you got all these creeks and branches come in, it—it would have been a—a tremendous boondoggle, financially, engineering feasibility, everywhere else. And, so, then when the Neches was in flood, where the Pine—where Pine Island Bayou goes into the Neches, the Neches was in flood. That was a dam, so Pine Island Bayou wouldn’t drain. So, that’s when she decided we’ve got to put in Rockland Dam to stop the flooding on the Neches. And would you believe, she persuaded them to spend thousands and thousands of dollars on a study to—to prove that this would stop the flooding problems. You know, the government could have bought them all out and said, you know, “Go buy your house somewhere else”, for far less money than it would have cost to even make studies of these boondoggles. So, I think she managed to get them to say, “We’ll reactivate the—
0:41:46 – 57
the Rockland Dam project.” Also—also, Genie Turk could live in a floodplain. It’s just, it’s—it’s mind boggling. It’s—it’s strange what influence some people have, the things that they can do.
DT: It seems like we should know better and I’m curious if you’ve got any thoughts about why we do these sort of perverse things, like build on a floodplain, or other things that are sort of counter-productive?
0:42:24 – 2057
GW: I have no idea. I have no idea. Genie Turk said, “It is my God-given right, as an American tax-paying citizen, to live where I want to live. And it is my God-given right, as a tax-paying American citizen to expect my government to protect me.” That’s Genie Turk’s. And also, she had gone into the real estate business and she had—had bought some of these houses that had been flooded in that hundred-year—once in a hundred-year flood. So, she thought, you know, she’s make a killing off the people were—were wanting to sell, get out. So she had bought them up. Okay, what happens but two years later we have another hundred-year flood and she’s up to her eaves in water again.
DT: What was her response to that?
0:43:21 – 2057
GW: Oh, her response was to start screaming about the Rockland Dam.
DT: Have there been other dams that you’ve been interested or involved in?
0:43:33 – 2057
GW: No, not particularly. Dam B was built, I think in the, oh, either right before or right after World War I, I think right af—I mean World War II, I think right after World War II. That’s the only one I’ve been, you know, anywhere close to.
DT: We’ve talked about forestry, and water development and residential development. Can you maybe tell us about any other issues that you think face East Texas and its biological integrity?
(Misc.)
0:44:21 – 2057
GW: No. I am beginning to have some help when I—I see that the schools are trying to educate the children to be, you know, conscious about pollution and littering and—and all that sort of thing. I think the schools are doing a good job trying to teach the children. I don’t think there’s any hope for the older generation. But, the older generation, my age, all the women are interested in is watching soap operas and eating. And all the men are interested in is boats on the lake and fishing and—and sports on television. But I think there’s hope for the—the kids, if there’s anything left for them when they get old enough to do anything.
DT: What sort of reaction do you see in kids when you explain about the outdoors?
0:45:18 – 2057
GW: Some of them are very, very interested and they—they listen. But, I had great hope for the sixties generation, the, you know, that group. And, I got very close to a lot of those, the students, you know. And I was involved in the anti-war movement. And, I’ve been involved in just about every kind of movement. But, I got to know a lot of them. And then they all grew up, and, you know, got good jobs with the oil companies and computer companies. And, but I think they have made a difference in a lot of ways. I—I worked as a consultant with an oil company and all those—those guys, they were of the sixties generation and they were beginning to make a difference. They couldn’t completely turn things around, you know, stop things, but they could make a difference in small ways. So, I guess it can happen.
DW: Speaking of children, how old is your son now?
0:46:27 – 2057
GW: Which one, I’ve got three.
DW: David, you mentioned.
0:46:31 – 2057
GW: Oh, David. David is forty-one.
DW: Now, you mentioned earlier that he helped you with the garden and picking out the trees that were non-native.
0:46:40 – 2057
GW: (talking over David) Yes. David has been the closest one of my children. I have two, I’ve got an older son who is fifty-five. He became a rich Republican who hates liberals and environmentalists. Okay, my number two son lives in Austin and he’s pretty—he’s pretty aware. But it’s David who has always been involved. He was the one marching on Washington. He was always the one up here with me, you know. And he’s the one who will take over when I’m gone.
DW: So then, in spite of the fact that he seemed to pay an emotional price for what you were standing up for, then do you feel that, in spite of that, it transferred a generation anyway … as opposed to what happened with the older sons? Or, because of it, maybe?
0:47:35 – 2057
GW: No. That is David that, that happened to.
DW: Oh.
0:47:41 – 2057
GW: Yes. No, it—all of that just goes to prove to him that there’s them and there’s me, there’s them and there’s us, you know. And I’m glad I’m one of us. You know—you know what I’m trying to say?
DT: What is the difference between them and us, the ones who care and the ones who don’t care as much?
0:48:01 – 2057
GW: (talking over David) Yeah. Uh-huh.
DT: Any comments on the whys and wherefores?
0:48:09 – 2057
GW: I don’t know. There are people who care about the land and the people own it. And there are people who don’t. They’re out for one thing, and that’s for what’s good for them, to get everything they can out of everybody and everything, with no thought for—for the future or the consequences. And then there are people who are willing to make a lot of sacrifices to make the world a better place. That’s us.
DT: So, I guess a lot of this plays out in the consequences for the future. Can you maybe speculate about what the big challenges and opportunities are for the future, environmentally, in Texas?
0:49:01 – 2057
GW: I—I really couldn’t say. I have a lot of hope and when I see so many people, young lawyers, like yourself, involved in environmental affairs, involved in human rights affairs. It’s so much better than it was when I was young. Really, the world is a better place than it was when I was young, and it’s getting better all the time. And, I guess it’s because of—of people like you who are coming along, who are educated and care. In spite of—of the “them”, there’s still of enough—of a—the “us” who are making a difference. I was visiting with Ralph Yarborough a few years before he died, and I was really upset because the Republicans had taken over. And Watt had taken over the Department of the Interior and everything was just, you know, everything that we believed in and had fought for and hoped for, it looked like it was just gone to nothing, and everything. And, I was bewailing the situation and he said, “Oh”, he says, “But, you know, all of history has been a series of ups and downs, ups and downs.” And he says, “You know, every time it goes down and it comes up, it comes up a little bit higher than it was before.” He said, “Every time.” He says, “Things will change, and things will be better than they were before.” So, I—I think that’s—I’ve seen that’s true in my lifetime.
DT: So, you think that we learn?
0:50:42 – 2057
GW: I think so. Yeah.
DT: If you were to be a teacher and pass on a message, what sort of message would you pass on to future generations or those who had seen this tape?
0:50:56 – 2057
GW: When you leave this world, determine that you’re going to leave it better than it was when you came into it. In some way, one way or the other, it’s going to be better than it was because you were here. I think that’s the only thing you need—that you need to face when you’re going to die, you can say, is the world better because I was here?
DT: You talked earlier about how you were active in human rights issues and in environmental issues. Is there a connection? Is there a place where those mesh?
0:51:33 – 2057
GW: Oh, I don’t know. I haven’t given it any thought. I have—I have found the people who are most involved in human rights aren’t particularly interested in the environment. And, but then on the other hand, a lot of people who are very much involved in the environment are concerned with human rights too.
DT: So, you don’t necessarily see humans and wildlife as antagonists?
0:52:09 – 2057
GW: Not all together. Uh-uh.
DT: What do you think the remaining problems and opportunities are for us? People often talk about the problems of today being pretty difficult to deal with, but what do you think they are for tomorrow and years down the road?
0:52:43 – 2057
GW: Well, I don’t know how this fits in. I’m very much concerned with the good people letting demagogues control their minds and people who, you know, for instance who are—feel very strongly on the abortion issue. I know this issue is being used by people who will play—prey on their emotions and all, to get them to vote certain ways, vote for ce—for certain things that are against the good of the country, in every way. You know, environmentally and—and every other way. I hate to see good, innocent, ignorant people being used as they are—are today, over emotional issues. Prayer in school, my God, I—I’m sick of prayer in schools. That’s being used to persuade people to vote a certain way, which is not to the best interest or the good interest of the country. That bothers me a lot. It really does.
DT: How do you remain independent and free of the demagogues? I mean, for you it’s been a hard road to hoe, and there have been people who have really been harsh with you because you felt a certain way about the Thicket and other controversial issues.
0:54:24 – 2057
GW: Well, good grief, I’ve got a mind. I can think. I can read. I can find out facts for myself. I don’t have to have somebody tell me how to think or what to—and all that sort of thing. I can read. I can read the words of Jesus Christ, you know, and—and find out what a Christian ought to think and do. I don’t have to have some—some demagogue tell me. And, and all of that. It—but, I know people who—who can’t move, or—or do anything without the—the advice or approval of some priest or some preacher or some—somebody like that. And that bothers me. Why don’t they find out the truth for themselves? Why do they have to have somebody tell them what to think or what to do?
DT: Well, in case it’s bothered you that I’ve asked all these questions, would you like to say something without me prodding and poking with all these questions?
0:55:35 – 2057
GW: Not particularly. I can’t think of anything that…
DT: Well then let me say one thing. I just wanted to thank you for spending this time with us. It’s been a pleasure.
0:55:50 – 2057
GW: Well, I hope some day it may be of some good to somebody. I don’t know, I can’t think why. But, I think it’s very important, no matter what, to, once you know what is right beyond a shadow of a doubt, stand by it. Don’t let anybody, you know, drive you away or persuade you different and anything. But, just simply make your stand. And, once you’re concer—once you’re persuaded that the thing is right.
DT: Thanks very much.
End of tape 2057
End of interview with Geraldine Watson