Memories of Ennis

An elderly Ennis resident, R. L. Sparkman, was interviewed in 1955 about the changing times, and among the things he recalled was that “when he went away to college, students had to bring along their own featherbeds.”

In 1951 an Ennis family was trying to locate a family member who had disappeared. According to an entry in the Pittsburgh Courier’s Missing Persons Bureau column, Turner Bell had not been seen or heard from since 1929 when he was working as a Pullman porter in New York. His wife’s name was Jaunita, and his sister, Carrie Phillips, and his father, J. E. Bell, lived at 1301 N. Shawnee.

Ennis and surrounding towns were struck with an epidemic of infantile paralysis in 1937 but it was fairly quickly contained. The Waxahachie Daily Light reported that two children, Betty Lou Verlaine and Shirley Rothschild, were “convalescing splendidly” at their homes where the quarantine imposed had been lifted. Quarantine was also canceled in the homes of Mr. and Mrs. John Slovacek at Ensign and J. Connico at Alma.

This week’s archival news items are again courtesy of newspapers.com as well as from a few original back issues of the Ennis Daily News on file at the Ennis Public Library.

Lake or no lake

A new lake was proposed by Ennis Mayor J. P. Clark and City Commissioners J. N. Goodwin and Howard Thomas in 1938 and a citizens meeting was called at City Hall. The lake was to be located south of the current lake and would add 134 additional acres to the property.