In the early to mid-1960’s my father, Judge Wilmer Brady Hunt sat on the board of Riverside General, Houston’s first African-American hospital. Here is an article on the institution, which finally closed in 2014. He took me there on a visit in the summer of 1963.
Sperry Hunt
The article reads:
The Houston Negro Hospital was created in 1926 when the earlier black Union-Jeramiah Hospital was no longer capable of accommodating the rapidly growing black population of Houston, Texas. African American community leaders began a campaign to garner support from local physicians when oilman Joseph Cullinan, who had earlier supported the existing hospital, donated $80,000 to construct a new facility. The city of Houston donated three acres of land in the Third Ward for the new fifty-bed hospital. Construction began in 1925.
The dedication of the hospital was held on June 19, 1926, a major local holiday in Texas known as “Juneteenth,” which commemorates the day Emancipation occurred in the state. At the dedication a bronze tablet from the Tiffany Company was unveiled stating that the building was erected “in memory of Lieutenant John Halm Cullinan,” Joseph Cullinan’s son who had died during World War I. The tablet also declared that the hospital was “dedicated to the American Negro to promote self-help, to insure good citizenship, and for the relief of suffering, sickness, and disease among them.”
The following was scanned from a newspaper. The unedited result is what the computer determined the article said.
October 20, 1939
Lubbock Morning Avalanche from Lubbock, Texas · Page 22
HOUSTON, Oct. 18 — A suit to cancel a 20-year lease held by the Humble Oil and Refining company on 1,250,000 acres of the famous King ranch In Southwest Texas went on trial before Federal Judge T. M. Kennerly in Houston today. The plaintiffs are Edwin K. Atwood and Miss Alice Atwood of Chicago, grandchildren of the late Captain Richard King, founder of the ranch. The defendants are Alice O. K. Kleberg, et al, Including the Humble Oil & Refining company. Filed Five Yean Ajo The suit originally was filed some five years ago, court attaches said, at Corpus Christ!. The case Is being heard in Houston for the convenience of parties concerned. Taking of written evidence over a period of several months for use in. the case was completed about a month ago before Wilmer Hunt of Houston, appointed by federal court as master in chancery. Attorneys for the plaintiff argued today that the Humble company’s lease should be cancelled by reason of a mineral trust executed In 1919 by Mrs. Henrietta King, Captain King’s widow, in favor of Robert Kleberg. Claim Leave Void The plaintiffs contended this mineral trust severed minerals from the estate, and therefore a lease made September 26, 1933 to the Humble company by trustees of the King estate under Mrs. King’s will was void. The plaintiffs contended the trustees under the will had no minerals to transfer, by reason of the trust. Trustees under the will, according to records in the course, were Robert Kleberg, sr., Robert Kleberg, jr., Richard King, Caesar Kleberg, Richard Miflin Kleberg, Richard King, Jr., John D. Finnegan. The plaintiffs also contended the lease should have borne their signatures. Was For Specific Tim* On the other hand, attorneys for the plaintiff argued before Judge Kennerly that the mineral trust was for a specific time and purpose, and that in some later land transfers, Mrs. King did not except minerals from the land, while in others she reserved certain minerals. Defense attorneys said this showed It was Mrs. King’s feelings In the matter that the lands should go with the minerals and that the minerals should go with the land; that they were not separate. The defense said the Humble company had loaned the King estate $3,500,000, and the company felt It should have some protection.
Dear Ones. The terrible week of decision. This has happened many times and I have yet to come out of ahead. What to take on an extended trip to a foreign country, where I really want to work. Of course the first selection is whether to take a husband. This is an impossible decision. He will go. I will enjoy him. I will not get as much done as I would like to. The second selection is paints. I go to a country where there are thousands of artists. Last time I went to France I decided to leave my paints and other supplies here and buy a small, fresh supply there. Paris is immense. It was icy cold and my French is always scared, so the supplies I purchase were to say the least inadequate. So I shall take them with me. On the ship going over the weight will not matter, but we are flying back. So, I shall take an adequate amount and use them up and only return with the finished products. Voila! Then comes the clothes. We go over on the Queen Elizabeth which is sailing on the 21st of July. We dress for dinner every night. Then we will be in the country in France where it will not matter so that means an extra suitcase of clothes, which they will weigh on the plane when we return. So I have decided to take caftans which will serve as dress-up clothes and country clothes. I will fix those French for over-weight. I think that they should count the weight of the person. Wilmer [husband] certainly should not be allowed as many pounds as I, who have so systematically shed so many pounds, that soon I have to have y face lifted.
I have made Daddy [husband] a caftan out of blue denim and it makes him look like an old sheik. All he needs is a wrapped white turban above his white beard. It was like making a tent. I have sewn seams and sewn seams. I think he needs a girdle.
Jeana wrote this circa 1950 about a 1920 camping trip to Galveston as a ten-year-old with her brother Ryland, her best friend Marie Lee and her family.
I raised myself on my elbow. The fire was out. The cot creaked as I sat up to see the reason why. There was a sound of lapping.
My ten years, even with the Lees for friends, had not prepared me. I was on a coot under a tent by an automobile. There were sleeping people around me. But we had all gone to sea! The water was swarming with jelly fish, round, opalescent, transparent pearl jelly. There they were gray, gargantuan quivering pearls bumping the legs of our cots. I parted the sodden mosquito bar [net]. I put my hand out and pushed one. It was cold and resistant. “Mr. Lee,” I called.
His head came up in his mosquito bar. Mrs. Lee’s head arose. Marie said, “It’s too early, shush!”
“Well, we have gone to sea.”
Mr. Lee yelped, and jumped from his bed into the automobile. The car would not start.
Mrs. Lee scrambling out of bed. “We’d better all pull our things back out to the beach.”
We put our feet over into the warm, sticky water of summer at Galveston. The small arisen tide was foaming gently on the hard sand. For three feet in the beach, was a mass of jelly fish that the water was busily moving about.
Mr. Lee ordered us all out to push the car to safety. Gabriel [Lee] and Ryland helped. But the automobile remained exactly as I and the down first saw it, stationary.
There were some net fisherman further down the beach. We were sent for them, to please come.
The whole earth was a replica of the jelly fish, grey sky filled with clouds, which the sun could not pierce. The sands were hard and grey and wet. Far out the water was silver moving in patterns of crinkled foil. Looking down the beach at the thousands of lumps of jelly through which we had to pick our way. I wondered if the car would sink or just wash out.
The fisherman reluctantly returned with us. We found sticks and brutally pierced the globs of jelly and Mrs. Lee took our picture so that the sticks were hidden while the men pushed the car dryward. We scurried out and pulled the cots back also.
“Firewood,” shouted our director. We fled toward the higher sand, and came back with satiny, cream branches which we heaped in a pile.
“Get those jelly fish back where they beyond, and we’ll have breakfast.”
Sand, wet and fish smell faded as the fire ate at the woods. The bacon and eggs were floating in bubbles of fat. We were toasting bread on our sticks, which were now divested of sea creatures.
“The clouds threaten rain,” Mr. Lee stated. “Guess, we better go in after breakfast.
Ryland and Gabriel were gobbling breakfast and objecting. They were already suited for bathing.
“Those jelly fish are knee-deep out there. You don’t want to get mixed up [with] them.
“But, Daddy,” this from Marie. “We just came here last night.”
I was tired. Mrs. Lee had kept the fire going for hours last night. I had awakened many times as he poked and pitched on wood. The waves were there making wind in the pines sounds. I was dirty and thought of home pleasantly.
So, we started the long journey home. Gabriel snuck a jelly fish in under the seat of the car. Mrs. Lee kept smelling and said we all needed baths. We giggled so much, she finally demanded the fish.
Mothers certainly are smart.
Eugenia Hunt (left) and Marie Lee (center) circa 1927,Marie Lee in 1926 at Rice University . [Marie Lee Phelps]
Eugenia Hunt, sister of Alfred Ryland Howard, , wrote a poem that she said he carried into the Battle of St. Lo that took his life.
Jeana wrote this at the bottom of the poem:
This was in my brother Ryland’s pocket, when he was shot down by the Germans at the battle of St Lo. He was a liaison pilot – and aide to General John Matthew Devine. He had 12 men under him, and refused to send them up on reconnaissance without him, even though his superior advised against it. This was on July 4, 1944.
![Marie Lee in 1926 at Rice University . [Marie Phelps]](https://i0.wp.com/allyall.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Marie-Lee-in-1926-at-Rice-University-.jpg)
