Total recall
Native Lampasan never forgets names, places
By Bobbye Alexander Behlau Special to the Dispatch Record

My remarkable Lampasan this month is Melvin Earl Hetherly, better known as Nootie. I first remember him as a precocious younger kid when I was in elementary school. He came back into my life in the 1990s at the Lampasas Club in San Antonio where we, by anybody's standards, would both have been considered senior citizens.

In the years since, I have seen him and his wife, Dayle, frequently at parties, reunions and community events, mainly in Lampasas. Nootie has intrigued me with his recall of facts and trivia about Lampasas. He was and is the most loyal former Lampasan I have known.

We met recently on a Sunday afternoon at a downtown restaurant. He and Dayle drove from Temple well prepared with the written answers to the interview questions I had sent them. I decided, after reading his responses, that his remarkable memory and loyalty to Lampasas were brought about partly by his association with remarkable people and also by his own desires and initiative.

Nootie and Dayle Hetherly are show in front of the Ivy Cottage, 604 S. Western St., where Hetherly was born Oct. 8, 1931.

The first remarkable persons in Nootie's life were his parents.

His father, W.F. "Buck" Hetherly, came to Lampasas in 1913 at the age of 11 with his parents and five siblings. They purchased a café on the square at 515 E. Third Street and lived upstairs.

The building is now occupied by attorney Richard Hammett. Nootie's cousin, Judith Hetherly, operates Old Town Antiques next door.

His father dropped out of Lampasas High School after 10th grade to work at the Lampasas Steam Laundry. When he was 23, Buck and a co-worker purchased the laundry. The young men made a wise decision, as the business brought them through the Great Depression with relative ease because of government contracts with the Civilian Conservation Corps and The National Youth Administration Camps at Inks Lake.

Then during the World War II years, they were kept busy cleaning the clothes of servicemen from Fort Hood -- and stayed open late to accommodate them.

Nootie, as a 10-year-old elementary student.

After WWII Hetherly's operation expanded to include dry-cleaning and a large number of commercial customers such as Rollins-Brook Hospital, Producer's Produce, hotels, motels and cafes.

Nootie remembers his father's work week was always in excess of six days, but he never heard him complain about any hardships.

His mother, Faye Isabell Field, born in 1908 in Rosebud, Texas, arrived in Lampasas at the age of 13 with her mother and three siblings. She graduated from LHS in 1925 and went to work for the R.J. Paine Insurance Agency, then at Stokes Brothers Department Store.

In 1927, at the age of 19, she married Buck Hetherly. Their first son, Melvin Earl, was born in 1931; then second son, Jimmy, in 1934.

Mrs. Hetherly was a devoted mother. She was sensitive to her children's needs, and her sensitivity carried over to animals. In cold weather, Nootie recalls, she wrapped their milk cow in a blanket and penned her in a shed. When necessary, she even gently performed surgery on their house cats.

During WWII, her caring ways extended to Fort Hood servicemen's families when she offered them lodging in a spare bedroom with kitchen privileges.

Nootie remembers his mother as full of enthusiasm, loving to play bridge, golf, to go on family hunting trips, and to visit with friends and relatives. She planted a love of reading in her children who saw her constantly with a book in hand; her favorite author was Pearl Buck.

On Nootie's fourth birthday, she took him to the library to check out his own books.

Another influential person in Nootie's life was his younger brother, Jimmy. Their parents instilled in them a love of the outdoors with their frequent hunting and fishing expeditions. They had two bird dogs for hunting quail. In 1947, Jimmy, using Nootie's dog Anchor, was successful in shipping 66 processed raccoon pelts to a fur company in St. Louis.

The remarkable Melvin Earl started his education in 1936 at Mrs. Bistrol's kindergarten and then advanced through the Lampasas school system until graduation in 1949. That was a good year for Nootie because he participated in the state basketball and track finals in his last semester at LHS.

Other activities that influenced him were memberships in the Boy Scouts and the Methodist Church, and in hearing his parents discuss current events and politics.

He had a rough start to his higher education, as he had to drop out twice to cope with his mother's illnesses and his own lack of stability. During that time Nootie attended Jackson's Business College, worked at Fort Hood as a clerk-typist, and then worked for his father, picking up and delivering laundry and learning all he could about the business.

About that time, another remarkable person, Betty Dayle Lively, entered his life. He first remembers her in August of 1950 when he went stag to a dance at the Hostess House. They dated for three years while Dayle finished high school, where she was a cheerleader for three years and football queen in 1952.

They were married on Aug. 18, 1953. Then in 1957, with two-year-old daughter Caroline, Nootie entered Southwest Texas State College at San Marcos, where he subsequently received bachelor's and master's degrees with honors. He appreciates that at the same time Dayle was getting her PhT (putting husband through) degree.

Nootie said he is eternally grateful to his wife for bringing a stablity that had been foreign to him before his marriage. His companion has made the life journey pleasant, more downhill than up, he added.

Armed with college degrees, Nootie taught chemistry and biology at Austin High School from 1962-64, and then taught anatomy, human physiology and cell biology at Angelo State University from 1969-72.

He pursued a Ph.D. in zoology at the University of Texas after receiving a teaching assistantship and a National Institute of Health Fellowship. After completing his course work and most of his dissertation research, however, he had to drop out due to illness.

In 1972, Nootie went to work for Scott & White Clinic in Temple as a research assistant. He also was an analytical chemist and writing-support person for a laboratory director, which kept him in the medical library.

He is pleased his multi-faceted research has contributed to the health of Scott & White patients, as well as to Dayle's and his own health.

After working for 25 years, Nootie retired from Scott & White in 1997, but he still goes back to the lab quite often to visit. In retirement, he said he has been freed to pursue other avenues of interest, particularly reading, and activities such as skiing and dancing, which he and Dayle both enjoy.

I have encouraged Nootie to write a book about his life, but just to be sure my readers do not miss some of his delightful memories of Lampasas, I include them now, written in his own words:

• "I spent all my childhood years living in Lampasas and came in contact with numerous people. My paternal grandfather owned a hotel and café just a half block north from the square on Live Oak. Some of his children and grandchildren lived at the hotel. I came there often to visit."

• "My maternal grandfather, J.P. 'Press' Field, was city marshal, and I frequently spent time on the square with him and in Frank Cox's Candy Kitchen, where I enjoyed the ice cream Mr. Cox made. Grandfather Field also took me deer and squirrel hunting, too."

• "Across the street from my dad's laundry was Gillen's Gin, where Mr. Gillen would let me watch cotton being baled. My brother and I played on the bales when they were placed near the Southern Pacific Railroad tracks for shipment."

• "A big event for me was going to Hancock Park swimming pool during the summer. This was a popular meeting place."

• "I got a bicycle for Christmas when I was nine years of age. After that, there was hardly any place inaccessible to me in town."

• "At Christmas time, fireworks were always purchased at the Candy Kitchen. On a Saturday about three weeks before Christmas, the old LaFrance fire truck with Santa Claus sitting on top would come down Third Street and circle the square with Santa throwing candy for the kids. Lights were strung from the top of the courthouse to buildings around the square."

• "People on the square that I saw infrequently, but they caught my attention and the memories remain of: Ikie, who was said to be gypsy. He was very short and dressed the part. His live monkey sat on the music box. The monkey could do tricks on command. Offerings were gleefully accepted in a cup attached to the music box."

• "Happy Smith, a grocery salesman, who always gave me a nickel, and Mr. Chaffin who sold hot tamales from a white push cart. They could be purchased from his house two blocks off the square at 302 E. Fourth St."

• "Emmett Ramsey who always wore a suit with vest, tie and watch fob plus a Stetson hat. He had an air of dignity that caught my attention. He was frequently seen at the Candy Kitchen."

• "One day in December 1941, I heard that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. At the Leroy Theater, Paramount News gave reports on the war with the regular features. One of my aunt's brothers was lost at Bataan. I had a cousin serving on the submarine which evacuated General MacArthur's family from the Philippines. Relatives and acquaintances began to volunteer or be drafted. War bond drives were conducted, and rationing was instituted. Scrap-iron was being sold, and empty toothpaste tubes were turned in when purchasing a new tube. Girls played with Ouija boards to try to find out when their boyfriends were coming home from the war. Captain Gould, stationed at Fort Hood, took me with him one day for an all-day military adventure. I sat by him at his desk, rode in a jeep, tank, tank destroyer, went to the firing range for 105mm howitzers and ate lunch at the officer mess.

"The next day at school, I was a pseudo-military war hero."

• "Going through the Lampasas school system, I came in contact with eight teachers who greatly stimulated me to learn. Among them were Miss Bessie Page, Curtis Bozarth and Sam Fowler. The others are still remembered by grade and name."

I have found other reasons to think Nootie Hetherly is remarkable. Among them is the way he has conducted his life, solving problems without giving in to them. Other remarkable facts are that he says he has never been bored for a second because of his love of reading, and that he has been diagnosed with three incurable illnesses and their treatment is on-going, yet he has never been permanently incapacitated.

Lampasas can be proud of a native son who has done well.

*

Bobbye Alexander Behlau was born in Lampasas and graduated from LHS in 1946. After living for 50 years in San Antonio where she was an elementary school principal, she and her husband, Joe, have retired in Lampasas.

Mrs. Behlau is a descendent of the Alexanders and the Davises who settled here in the 1800s. She can be contacted at 556-4076 or at bbehlau@earthcomm.com.