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Friday
March 19, 2010 Since 1922 |
Story brings appreciation for Anahuac
By Deana Nall
Baytown Sun Published November 26, 2003 I have to admit it.
When I first learned I would be driving to Anahuac to interview the great-niece of Ross S. Sterling, I envisioned sitting with a frail, elderly woman in a wheelchair with a blanket over her lap as she talked about the old days.
This image was shattered as soon as a white car pulled up in front of Hill’s Grocery and a vibrant, silver-haired Dorothy Hill popped out.
“You ready to go to lunch?” she called out.
“Sure!” I replied, hoping we weren’t headed to the establishment advertising “ROAD KILL & SUDS” I had passed on my way into town.
This was my first trip to Anahuac. Like a lot of people around here, I didn’t know to appreciate this town and its history while I was growing up in Beaumont. I’ve always prided myself on being a southeast Texas girl, but I had wilted a little when Mrs. Hill had asked me on the phone if I had ever been to her town.
In high school, all Anahuac had been to me was an exit I passed on the way to Houston to buy a prom dress. The only roots I cared about back then were the ones I kept having to get highlighted.
Thankfully, Mrs. Hill wasn’t in the mood for roadkill either, because we pulled into the parking lot of the Panther Den — Anahuac’s hub of social activity every day around noon.
“You want to eat off the steam table?” Mrs. Hill asked.
Are you kidding me? With slabs of chicken fried steak the size of the plates on which they were served, I wasn’t about to say no.
“Our meat's fresh,” said the lady behind the counter. “It’s from Hill’s.”
Having owned and operated Hill’s Grocery for close to 60 years (she still works there every day), Mrs. Hill knows the importance of doing business with people who do business with her. She mentions the other restaurants in town she visits regularly to help keep Anahuac’s commerce circulating. Just about everything here is locally owned.
“And don’t even talk to me about Wal-Mart,” she said of the discount store giant that is her biggest competitor. Anahuac doesn’t have a Wal-Mart, but some residents drive the 25 miles to Liberty to shop at the one there.
“That money should stay in town, but it goes to Arkansas instead,” she said. “I don’t know why businesses have to be so greedy.”
Over lunch, Mrs. Hill talked about growing up the daughter of a banker-turned-rice-farmer-turned-Humble Oil-executive, the niece of a governor, the wife of a grocer and a descendant of some of Anahuac’s early settlers.
Mrs. Hill was glad to tell me about the virtues of small-town life and the rarity of someone still living in the same place in which their ancestors had set up camp almost 200 years earlier.
I had a burning question. As a 1932 graduate of Robert E. Lee High School and a niece of Ross S. Sterling, which Baytown high school does she root for?
She smiled and took a sip of her iced tea.
“I don’t like football,” she said.
It takes courage to say something like that around here. And courage is something that defines Mrs. Hill. She isn’t afraid to have her say, and, at 89, she isn’t afraid of growing older.
In fact, she is having a pretty good time.
Deana Nall’s column appears every Wednesday. Her e-mail address is cldnall(at)cs.com.
Baytown Sun Published November 26, 2003 I have to admit it.
When I first learned I would be driving to Anahuac to interview the great-niece of Ross S. Sterling, I envisioned sitting with a frail, elderly woman in a wheelchair with a blanket over her lap as she talked about the old days.
This image was shattered as soon as a white car pulled up in front of Hill’s Grocery and a vibrant, silver-haired Dorothy Hill popped out.
“You ready to go to lunch?” she called out.
“Sure!” I replied, hoping we weren’t headed to the establishment advertising “ROAD KILL & SUDS” I had passed on my way into town.
This was my first trip to Anahuac. Like a lot of people around here, I didn’t know to appreciate this town and its history while I was growing up in Beaumont. I’ve always prided myself on being a southeast Texas girl, but I had wilted a little when Mrs. Hill had asked me on the phone if I had ever been to her town.
In high school, all Anahuac had been to me was an exit I passed on the way to Houston to buy a prom dress. The only roots I cared about back then were the ones I kept having to get highlighted.
Thankfully, Mrs. Hill wasn’t in the mood for roadkill either, because we pulled into the parking lot of the Panther Den — Anahuac’s hub of social activity every day around noon.
“You want to eat off the steam table?” Mrs. Hill asked.
Are you kidding me? With slabs of chicken fried steak the size of the plates on which they were served, I wasn’t about to say no.
“Our meat's fresh,” said the lady behind the counter. “It’s from Hill’s.”
Having owned and operated Hill’s Grocery for close to 60 years (she still works there every day), Mrs. Hill knows the importance of doing business with people who do business with her. She mentions the other restaurants in town she visits regularly to help keep Anahuac’s commerce circulating. Just about everything here is locally owned.
“And don’t even talk to me about Wal-Mart,” she said of the discount store giant that is her biggest competitor. Anahuac doesn’t have a Wal-Mart, but some residents drive the 25 miles to Liberty to shop at the one there.
“That money should stay in town, but it goes to Arkansas instead,” she said. “I don’t know why businesses have to be so greedy.”
Over lunch, Mrs. Hill talked about growing up the daughter of a banker-turned-rice-farmer-turned-Humble Oil-executive, the niece of a governor, the wife of a grocer and a descendant of some of Anahuac’s early settlers.
Mrs. Hill was glad to tell me about the virtues of small-town life and the rarity of someone still living in the same place in which their ancestors had set up camp almost 200 years earlier.
I had a burning question. As a 1932 graduate of Robert E. Lee High School and a niece of Ross S. Sterling, which Baytown high school does she root for?
She smiled and took a sip of her iced tea.
“I don’t like football,” she said.
It takes courage to say something like that around here. And courage is something that defines Mrs. Hill. She isn’t afraid to have her say, and, at 89, she isn’t afraid of growing older.
In fact, she is having a pretty good time.
Deana Nall’s column appears every Wednesday. Her e-mail address is cldnall(at)cs.com.