Anna resident honored at State Fair of Texas

EDITOR from the

It’s a great time of year now as we are getting ready for Santa and celebrating the birth of Jesus. I love to see the excitement in my grandchildren — all children actually — as they think about gifts coming their way, Santa Claus and the Elf on the Shelf.

But there’s another side of Christmas and that’s the people who want to but can’t provide those gifts for their children and can’t afford to buy food. The stress that comes along with those heartbreaks is a very real issue.

My husband and I have decided to donate more this year than usual because of the havoc from COVID-19. Normally, we donate gifts for children through the Angel Trees and other programs. We’ll increase the amount of toys and gifts we donate, but we want to donate more food. In this time of a Covid pandemic, people need help.

I’m impressed with the giving spirit of the people who live in Anna; not only in monetary values but the way people are willing to donate their time to worthy projects. More than one church is involved in giving away food and providing for people in trouble. It’s inspiring.

Regardless of your position and how you choose to donate during this season, we at Anna Living Magazine are wishing you the merriest of Christmas seasons and the happiest of New Years. Like everyone else, we have a strong wish to see COVID-19 come to an end.

On another issue about Christmas, I don’t know what to get for my husband. He thinks I love my dog more than him, but he’s wrong. I love them both the same. And besides, I already have her gift. So any suggestions will be welcome.

Lastly, our family is serious about celebrating the birth of Jesus on Christmas Day. Then, after lunch, the house will be filled with such joy and excitement as children (all grown now) and grandchildren and one great-grand will be opening gifts, wrapping paper and ribbons flying amid squeals of excitement.

Merry Christmas to all!!!

PUBLISHER Joyce Godwin

EDITOR Joyce Godwin

AD SALES Amy Jukes, Jamie Roubinek, Joyce Godwin

PHOTOGRAPHERS Xaviar Jukes, Joyce Godwin

DESIGNER Open Look Business Solutions

DIRECTOR BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT AND SPECIAL EVENTS Amy Jukes 469-389-2636 amy@annalivingmagazine.com

CONTRIBUTORS Claude Webb, Lafe Angell, Don Eldredge, Jamie Roubinek, Jimmie Gibson, Jennifer Sexton

SPECIAL THANKS Anna Area Historical Preservation Society, Director of Public Works for the city of Anna, Greg Peters, Kimberly Winarski, President and CEO of the Greater Anna Chamber of Commerce Kevin Hall

FOR ADVERTISING QUESTIONS OR EDITORIAL REQUESTS Please email joyce@annalivingmagazine.com

MANAGING OWNER Joyce Godwin 903-815-0044

P. O. Box 341, Anna TX 75409

Meet the Neighbors

Local Man Receives Food Awards at State Fair of Texas

By Joyce Godwin

For some it’s no surprise that Nick Bert’s Fried Frito Pie was selected at the State Fair of Texas for the Ultimate Big Tex Choice Award of the foods offered during the fair each year. He’s been involved in it since he was really young and is his family’s third generation to operate the food booth of Bert’s Burgers and Fries at the fair grounds.

“This is the one and only, the best of the best award,” Bert said. “It’s from all the past winners. All the ones who’ve won through the years were put together in a bracket and we won. So it’s really exciting.”

The Big Tex Choice Awards started in 2005 for the fair’s concessionaires. “We entered almost every year, and I still sell most of what I’ve entered,” Bert said.

Bert and his family have been Anna residents since 2002, and every year, he takes his four weeks of vacation from his job and spends it at the Texas State Fair to run the family’s vendor booth.

He said his grandfather started in 1919 selling mini-match books, and in 1936 he started Bert’s Burgers and Fries at the fair grounds.

“He had the big roller coaster, little roller coaster the Wild Mouse and the Flash rides at the State Fair,” Bert said of his grandfather. He invented the snow cone machine and Bert says it’s patented under the name of Samuel Bert. Nick Bert said his grandfather started out scraping the ice by hand and he decided “This is for the birds.” So he designed a machine that allowed him to drop a block of ice in the machine. “An arm would push the ice down to the blades and then another arm would turn it off when it finished,” Bert said.

“I’ve just grown up out there and it’s just in my blood,” he added. “I used to butter buns for the hamburgers and take the money and I’ve done all sorts of jobs.” He added that his grandfather used to have a roller rink out there, and a taco cafe was in the next building.” That was basically his only income except the income he earned through running a farm in the Trumble area.

“He grew crops down there so there was another income, but most came from the state fair,” Bert said.

The fried cheesecake came along in 1999. “When we started selling it out there, it took off like gang busters,” Bert said. Spurlock’s Malt Shop in Anna has just this year started selling it. Bert said, if it does well then he wants to see about providing some of the other products he sells at the fair.

Currently, the concession booth at the fair sells fried cheesecake, Mexican fire crackers which is really good, fried Frito pie and fried pecan pie. “I’ve had people, who don’t even like pecan pie, say its wonderful,” Bert said.

The fried Frito pie wasn’t easy to develop. The first year they sold it, the process was labor intensive and it was frustrating.

“Over the years, we’ve redeveloped it,” Bert said. “It’s still Chile cheese and Frito but it’s wrapped in masa dough, and it’s still good.”

Keeping the price down is important to Bert. He wants people to be able to afford the product he sells but it’s also important to him to sell a solid product. “I don’t want to just sell a gimmick,” Bert said. “What we use is pecan pie, cheese cake and Frito pie. Nothing is artificial.”

It’s a family effort, Bert says. When his grandparents passed away his dad ran the business. He passed away. and then Bert’s mom and uncle took over.

The only time one can get the Bert’s Burgers product is at the state fair once a year; unless one goes to Spurlock’s.

Like his grandfather, Bert’s Burgers and Fries is not his only income. He is a deputy sheriff for Dallas County and has been there for 37 years. He hopes to retire soon.

In 2002, Bert and his wife Kimberly, realized they didn’t want to continue living in their aging neighborhood in Dallas so they looked north and discovered Anna. Bert said the small numbers in the classrooms were attractive to them. So their second of three children, Noah, started kindergarten in Anna. Their third child, Marianna, was last year’s valedictorian at Anna High School. She is on scholarship at Austin College in Sherman and a member of the Roo’s basketball team.

The older of their three children, Nicholas, has graduated from the University of North Texas where he majored in Information Technologies and is now searching for employment.

Noah is in his senior year at Texas A&M University in the Corps of Cadets and the band. He is majoring in electrical engineering.

Bert says all three of his children have done well in Anna, each finishing in the top ten of their graduation classes.

Of the process for developing products to sell at the fair, he says it’s an art. “But there are some good vendors down there that give me some good competition.”

He says he is working on some new things to offer that he will come out with soon. He uses the kitchen in his house in Anna. “We will see what we come up with. It’s a lot of trial and error.”

Nick Bert stands in front of the Big Tex statue at the Texas State Fair grounds with his Big Tex Choice award for the Fried Frito Pie served at the Bert’s Burgers and Fries concession building.

They Called Him Yank

By Bert Wetherill, MA, RPA October 9, 2018

Early historic records of Anna, Texas list numerous black people with a postal address in Anna. Virtually all of them lived in the rural areas surrounding Anna and most made their living primarily as farmers or farm hands Only one black citizen was living within the city limits of Anna from the late eighteen hundreds through the mid nineteen thirties. His name was Henry Clay Washington, but the people of Anna called him “Yank.”

There is some question as to just when and where Yank was born, and when he came to Anna. In his book A Town Named Anna, Chester Howell says that Yank came to Anna from Parsons, Kansas as a young man. The Federal Census for 1920 lists Yank’s age as 60, born in Tennessee, and the 1930 Federal Census lists his age as 65, born in Texas. These records taken together suggest he was born between 1856 and 1865, most likely in Texas. Howell lists Yank’s age as 17 at his arrival in Anna. This information, combined with the calculated dates based on the census reads, places his arrival between 1873 and 1882. Yank’s death certificate states he was born in Navasota, Texas, was about 80 years old when he died in 1936 and had lived in Anna for about 40 years. The Death Certificate information suggests an arrival date of about 1896. Thus, we may never know just when he actually arrived.

Our story about Yank’s arrival says that when he first came, some of the citizens of Anna wanted to run him out of town. As the story goes, Yank had an injured leg but it’s not clear if the leg was injured before Yank arrived or was injured as a result of the effort to evict him. In any event, the people of Anna relented and Yank stayed.

Through the years, Yank worked at various odd jobs for the residents of Anna. He also worked as janitor at the Houston and Texas Central Railroad Depot, at the Interurban Railroad Station, at the bank, post office, and at some of the stores in town. One of his main jobs was to haul the mail to and from the depot

ILLUSTRATION COPIED FROM “THE SPARK THAT IGNITED THE Town of Anna”. This is an illustration of Yank drawn by Chester Howell and found on page 424 of the book.

and the post office. He had a small, ironwheeled pushcart that he used to carry mail and other small items for delivery. Yank’s… “feet always hurt, and his shoes, which appeared to be about size 13 had many slits cut into them to relieve the pressure on his feet.”

Several incidents reflect the relationship between Yank and the town’s people of Anna.

Howell recorded the following incident:

The only relative that Yank had any contact with during his many years in Anna was either a sister or a niece who lived in St. Louis, Missouri. Yank was illiterate, but someone would read to him the letters which he received from this relative and write answers to them for him. Some of the merchants and other townspeople conceived the idea of raising funds to pay Yank’s way on the train to St. Louis and back so that he could visit his relative. It was known by many people in town that Yank would return to Anna on a certain day. When he returned a large crowd was waiting to greet him at the depot. I have wondered what the other passengers, viewing this scene from their train windows, must have thought when they saw this crowd of white people giving such a

friendly welcome to this old, ungainly black man. Later as Yank was slowly lumbering along on the short walk from the depot to his home in the back of Morgan’s Market, with most of the crowd walking along with him, one of the men jokingly asked, “Yank, is St. Louis as big as Anna?” His quick reply was, “huh, it’s twice as big.”

Another Yank story passed on by Bart Morgan is as follows:

“My dad (John Eldred Morgan, Jr.) had a great deal of respect and fondness for Yank. My Granddad (John Eldred Morgan, Sr.) was a strict disciplinarian. One day he was giving my dad a whipping in the presence of Yank. The whipping was apparently severe. At some point Yank very forcefully said “Mr. Eldred you have whipped that boy enough. It’s time to stop now.” Daddy said Granddad Eldred stopped, put his belt back on and went back to work.”

Obviously, John Eldred, Sr. respected Yank’s opinion or he would not have so readily stopped the whipping.

A Yank story provided by John Rutherford”

“This old hand carved rolling pin was carved for my great grandmother, Laura Clarissa Ellis Greer, wife of John Flavel Greer, about 1888 by Henry Clay Washington, better known as Yank. In the sad days of segregation, he was the town of Anna’s only black citizen.

Yank came to Anna from his farm home in Kansas (he called it “Possom”) in 1872 at the age of 17. He first worked at the farm of Western Green Strother who gave him a home for many years. Yank later worked for a number of others, including my great grandfather, John F. Greer, doing odd jobs and janitor work at the train depot, post office and bank. He remained in Anna until he died as an old man. In his later life, the town took up a collection to send him to St. Louis to see his sister, whom he had not seen since he was 17.

The rolling pin is now well over 100 years old and was used by the Greer women; passed down to my grandmother, Harriet Gradie

PHOTO COPIED FROM “THE SPARK THAT IGNITED THE TOWN OF ANNA” Residents of Anna took up a collection and bought a railroad watch for Yank so he would always know the time to expect the mail train. At Yank’s death, the watch was passed to John E. Morgan, Jr. and at John’s death his son Bart Morgan inherited it. The watch is a 21-jewel gold Elgin Railroad Pocket Watch made in 1926. It has a gold chain and a shark’s tooth fob.

Greer Rutherford, then to my aunt, Laura Grace Ruthrford James, and then given to me by Aunt Laura. Juanita (John Rutherford’s late wife) would sometimes use it just to keep the spirit alive. Don’t y’all just love the names?”

Sometime in the late 1920s the citizens of Anna took up a collection and bought a railroad watch for Yank so he would always know the time to expect the mail train. At Yank’s death, the watch was passed to John E. Morgan, Jr. and at John’s death his son Bart Morgan inherited it. The watch is a 21-jewel gold Elgin Railroad Pocket Watch made in 1926. It has a gold chain and a shark’s tooth fob.

Was Yank well liked in Anna? Collections of money were made for Yank, and he was certainly liked by Cylis A. Morgan, and later by his son John Eldred Morgan, Sr., and his grandson John E. Morgan, Jr. who each provided Yank a sleeping place in the back room of Morgan’s Market.

As previously mentioned, just when and where Yank was born is not known for certain. It is known, however, that he died in Anna on February 3, 1936 of pneumonia and was also suffering symptoms of senility. At the time of his death Yank was living in a small building behind the home of Hattie Morgan, widow of John E. Morgan, Sr., where he was moved when he became unable to work and care for himself. Again, we see the concern the Morgan family, and most likely other citizens of Anna, had by taking good care of an aging black man when much of the rest of society tended to push blacks aside.

Yank had been under the care of Dr. S.D. Moore, M.D. of Van Alstyne from January 25, 1936 until his death. Fred Sherley was the informant of record on Yank’s death certificate. Yank was buried on February 3, 1936 at the Saint Paul Cemetery in Melissa, Texas with Wayne Sherley as undertaker. Yank’s grave is unmarked as are many others in this, a Black Cemetery. This was one of the few places in northeast Collin County, Texas where a non-white person could be lain down for their final rest at that time in our history.

This story is reprinted here with permission from the Anna Area Historical Preservation Society. “The Spark that Ignited the Town of Anna” is a wonderful effort on behalf of the historical society that includes the stories of Anna’s leading families and efforts through the years. Anyone who may have had a curiosity about how things have happened in Anna, will likely find answers in this book. Families and descendants have shared their stories and pictures of early Anna and the result is spellbinding. The book may be found online at www. amazon.com or by contacting the historical society whose website is http://aahps.org.