West Dallas' Mama
July 18, 1946
(From article written in the Dallas Morning News by Kenneth Foree)
On a gloomy November day of 1934, with a cold rain falling, two women
drove out to the muck and filth of the West Dallas Squatters Camp.
One was Mrs. Ruth Norris Fox, relief supervisor. In tow, was an inexperienced
case worker, Mrs. E. W. Winston,
born and raised an aristocrat. They walked in the muck, talked with unfortunates
in tin hovels, saw hungry people who had no food, no stoves, no wood,
found two big families to one small room, a room which had garbage and
slop on the floor.
Said Mrs. Fox to her companion, whose finely chiseled face, beautiful
brown eyes and black hair indicate the beauty of the young woman who
refused a debut, "You're going to like West Dallas."
Mrs. Emma Weaver Winston, who had just sold her home after the $50,000
in stock left her by her father in the Briggs-Weaver Machinery Company
had been wiped out, and had asked and received a $100-a-month job to
support her two children, was terrified. It was the day of Clyde Barrow
and Raymond Hamilton. She went home and bawled.
In the middle of her cry, she stopped. Those poor friendless, hungry,
browbeaten people. Why, it was her duty to help them, it was her duty
to do for pay, what she, as a rich man's daughter and well-to-do young
matron, had once done for fun.
She has been doing so ever since. And, you who lift your noses at West
Dallas, or dub it a crime center because it once produced two notorious
bandits, can get an earful from Mrs. Winston, thusly: "These people are
just as nice as they can be. They're just unfortunate. And, if they had
the education, they'd be just as smart as you. They have much native
ability."
But, she did not think So, that day she took the job and went back
alone. The women hovel dwellers quickly asked, "Is you a government
woman?" meaning an informer, and learned, "I'm just trying to make a
living helping you." That ended that, and Mrs. Winston quickly found,
"They were the sweetest men and women I ever saw. So appreciative."
In fact, in a month she could have pitched a cot in the middle of
squatters camp and anyone who bothered her would have been killed.
She went all over that area trying to run down cases with addresses on
unmarked streets such as "back of the green store," "north of the
filling station," and among those who were most helpful, was Dad
Barrow, who said quietly, "My kids didn't have a chance. Got started
pilferin'."
And, Mrs. Winston's heart went out to kids who had no park, no school
clothes, no lunches, no carfare, nothing to do but get into trouble.
She saw things that were against the law. One day, she saw the hunted
Raymond Hamilton.
"Hadn't we better call the law?" asked her companion, and was told
"I am not a policeman." She was there to help them, not to arrest them.
One day, the PWA opened a nursery project. Mrs. Winston was put in
charge, and up the hill came 125 kids to get in a place that was
warm, where there was food, kids with malnutrition, tuberculosis,
bugs, impetigo. She washed them, deloused them, treated them, in
what to them, was heaven.
Then, after a year, the gates to heaven were slammed shut. The project
was closed. Mrs. Winston called a meeting of women at her home and told
her tale. Said Mrs. Doak Roberts,
president of the Sunshine Club, "I don't know how we'll do it, but the
Sunshine Club will take over."
They found a 65-year-old, four-room house on Chappell Street It had
no sewerage, no water, but a father hauled a barrel of water, the
Sunshine Club provided shoes and clothes, and Mrs. Winston carried on.
One night, in an area of no street lights, she decided to give the
bigger girls a slice of heaven—a party. Just as the girls held in
their hands tin plates with refreshments, big boys rushed in, slapped the
plates in the air. The girls ran into the night. The boys faced her
with "Well, you old hag whatcha gonna do about it? Tell the law?"
Mrs. Winston stood her ground. "No, I'm not But, I was going to give
you a party, too. Now, I don't think I will."
They snuck out. Two weeks later, they begged for a party, were given a
picnic, ball game and ice cream. She has never had any trouble since.
Since then, she has worked incessantly with adults as well as children.
She appealed and got city and county help, and in 1936, the Community
Chest took over. Her first big problem was health; you can't sell
religion and education to sick people. She found a congregation praying
for divine healing over a screaming baby; she found mothers, attended
only by midwives, and newborn babies dying in shacks where there were
no stoves, no wood, no sheets.
Brother, she went into action, saved lives, overcoming first, a fear
of hospitals and doctors who might Administer the black serum of
death. Religion, too, she sold, one teacher even going to a fishing
pool to teach boys who had cut class on a pretty fishing day.
But, all that is over the hill. Nowadays, there are mothers and dads
clubs, birth-control and prenatal clinics, visiting nurses and
physicians, athletics, Scouts, a nursery from which go good-mannered
pupils who study hard. Health is up, crime is down and West Dallas
is ambitious—ambitious to have the little things others take for
granted—water, drainage, sewerage...
