Memories of living on a farm and going swimming in stock tanks, rivers and the Terrell Wells Swimming Pool in San Antonio during the 30's and 40's, and 50's.
Tanks, rivers and Terrell Wells Swimming Pool
We didn’t know there was such a thing as a swimming pool when I was on the farm in the 30’s and 40’s. We always swam in the tank in the middle of the pasture. It always had a muddy bottom, but if you walked slowly out in the deeper water it wouldn’t stir up the mud as much. But we always had to watch out for the water moccasins. I hate snakes; sometimes I could see a snake swimming nearby with its head above the water. I got out of the pool lickedy-split!
In the hot summer time that water was heaven to us kids. I can remember the dank moist smell of that tank. I loved it, and when it was getting dark, I remember the air getting cool around the tank, and the sound of the frogs and cicadas chirping, and an occasional croak of a giant bullfrog.
My brothers and daddy sometimes went swimming in the San Antonio River at Camp Ranch, where the river backed up to my Uncle Warren’s farm. My brother Bob says he learned to swim after his uncles tossed him in the river when he was about 8 years old, and he almost drowned. The next Labor Day when we had our reunion at the river, he had learned to swim in the tank at home.
But after I went to high school in Poth, I learned there were such things as swimming pools! The nearest public pool to Poth was the Terrell Wells Swimming Pool in south San Antonio. I remember going swimming there a few times.
I talked to my Aunt Clare whose memory is great, and she reminded me that you could rent bathing suits at the pool! Then I remembered: that is what I did for a bathing suit that year! I rented a bathing suit. Can you imagine renting a bathing suit to go swimming these days!
They had a diving board, a slide, and swings out over the water and a pavilion that had a jukebox. Clare remembers riding the bus from downtown to the pool on the South Side of town, and it was so far out, when you got the end of the line, you still had to walk a long ways to the pool. She remembers many nights going to Terrell Wells to swim and also she and her friends would dance to the jukebox on the pavilion.
What I can remember is the smell! It was a large pool fed by a artesian well that pumped sulfur water which was always warm, and it was supposed to be good for your health, and it smelled like rotten eggs. When I asked people what they remembered about Terrell Wells Swimming Pool, every person said what they remembered most was the awful smell. Many people referred to Terrell Wells as “Terrible Smells”.
Several people remembered that the man who owned the pool didn’t allow Hispanics to swim in the pool. One person said even though he was Anglo, his older brother was very dark skinned and the man refused to let his brother in, and they had to go home. I read where the man closed the pool after integration came in.
After my sister and I married Eddie and Johnny Wauson, we lived in San Antonio. A few years later, their sister Helen and her husband Harry, moved down from New York to San Antonio and we three couples – it was around 1954 - used to take our little boys (four altogether) to Terrell Wells to go swimming in the summer time. I wonder if the boys remember Terrell Wells Swimming Pool and the famous smell of sulfur - or rotten eggs. I sure do!
Your Memoir brought back my own childhood memories of trips to Spring Lake before our family gravitated to the ocean beaches. Whereas Terrell Wells Swimming Pool smelled like rotten eggs, I'm wondering if today's public pools smell like chlorine.
This book is an autobiographical account of the lessons I learned about life and how I was able to apply them to inspire, motivate and empower others in my own work as a firefighter, as well in my daily life as a husband, a father and a man. When I w
