00:00:00Wisby: My name is Emmitt R. Wisby, Sr. I was born on February 19, 1936. I was born was at John Sealy Hospital, Galveston, Texas. My father, Ernest Wisby was born on December 11, 1904 in Sugarland, Texas. He died in 1965. My mother is Artis Wisby who was born December 13, 1915 in Augustine, Texas, and she died in 2007. My oldest brother, named Ernest Wisby, Jr., was born August 10, 1934. He died in 2023. He lived in Texas City, Texas all his life. Our address was 810 First Avenue South Texas City, Texas. My father’s Ernest Wisby, Sr. He had a white father who lived in Houston, Texas. Uh, he came to Texas City once to visit my dad, and I met him. I, I have never seen him since or heard anything else about him? As far as our daddy's mother, she was a Black woman and her name was Lillie Reed, who lived right behind our house. My daddy’s mother sent him to live with some white folks in Sugarland, Texas, who he was raised because he, he had skin being as light. And once he was, became older and named, was moved to Texas City. My mother, Artis Wisby, had, her father was F. D. Evans and her mother's name was Martha Price. They had ten children, including my mother. They moved to Texas City because there was a sugar refinery (unintelligible) and work was available. He, and, available, work was available. He and the family bought a rooming house that offered room and board to the community. This rooming house consists of over two, uh, twenty-two rooms. The Evans families remained in the community and raised the children while they was of age, until they became adults. My brother and I were very close. We were only two years apart and I, --everywhere he would go, go out, I would try to go. There was a, there was a neighborhood center where, with the pool located on Third Street in Texas City, Texas. However, before the pool could open, we needed licensed, licensed lifeguards. So, my brother, Jose, and I went to their pool, a pool for white people, and they taught us. All three of us became licensed lifeguards. The pool had a fence around it, and so I had to pay to get into, into the pool. People had to pay to get into the pool. I do remember one time when I was on duty, a girl jumped into the deep part, and I had to jump in the pool to save her. In the beginning, I remember both of my parents worked at the Cotton Compresses in Galveston, Texas. While they was at work, my brother and I would stay with my Grandmother Evans, my mother's mother. Well, I stayed down there until they were able to pick us up. My daddy also worked at the Sea, Seatrain at, at the docks. He became a foreman there. And from times, when I was little, work there with him. All of the workers were Black men, and the head man was a white man. The head man would come to our house once a week to give my daddy the money to pay the Black workers. When I was about twelve, thirteen years old, my parents opened an ice cream parlor and meat market store. This building was directly right across the street from our house and gave, and right next to Barbour’s Chapel Baptist Church. The store was opened seven days a week, and we opened, I think from nine to ten. The store was named Wisby’s. It was Wisby’s Ice Cream Parlor and Store. The ice cream parlor side was sixteen foot wide and about thirty feet long. The store side was about16 foot wide, also about 30 feet long with the big glass windows in front of the building. On the ice cream parlor side there was a bar. And about six bar stools and there was also six to seven tables with table booths. The store employed about five, six Black adults and a few being my, my aunts and cousins to work along with my parents. We not only served ice cream in the parlor, we also offered hamburgers, uh, sandwiches, fries, and different types of candies, different types of cookies, cigars and cigarettes, different types of meat, along with regular grocery items, the household goods. There was also a few people in the community who had accounts with us and they were able to pay their bills off once a month. My brother and I would work the store after school if we was needed. At these times we would come home, go to school, do homework, and then head to the store. We worked both sides of the store and there was also an adult present. When there was no customers inside the store, my brother and I would go outside and play games with our friends outside in, in the street and in our, in our front yard so we could keep our eye on store. So, I, so if someone had to come walking, we had, we would go in wait on them. The parlor side should, would be very busy during lunchtime because a lot of children would walk over from the school at lunchtime to get one, two of our famous hamburgers and fries. Three churches surrounded the parlor, and we would also be very, very busy, right after church on Sunday and throughout the week if there was anything going on at the churches. During that time, we also owned several properties. One was on one side of our house. Later, it became my brother's house. One house behind our house was where my grandmother lived, and there was one behind my brother's house. Also, there was two more rent houses behind the store, across the street from our house. We should, we would rent out these houses to the people in the community who needed a place to live. Texas City Disaster happened April 16, 1947. Our store. At our store, there was the anchor from one of the ships that had flown in the air through the roof and came stuck in the floor of the store side, for a long time, as we had the store. My brother and I dug it up and kept it as a souvenir. However, I don't know what ever happened to it. Speaking on that day, it was a sad day for me. A couple of my friends died that day. They were trying to go and see what had happened on the deck. I remember. I remember we were all in school and after the first explosion we all ran out of it, out into a big field and our parents came and met us at, --in the field and we all were told to return home. After things settled, settled down a little bit from the explosion my daddy who was also a carpenter. My brother and I started remodeling homes and doing restoration in our home that was damaged by the disaster. My daddy was a deacon at Barbour’s Chapel Baptist Church, which was right across the street from our house. My daddy also, he was a reverend, and he was a pastor at Greater New Hope Baptist Church in, uh, 1961 until his death in 1965. Therefore, my father was, and therefore, my father went to church all the time. My family, therefore, my family went to church all the time. Daddy’s sister lived, was a teacher who lived in Oklahoma City. She told my mother about a great Vo-tech and carpentry they had, --was being offered over the Oklahoma City over in the high school. I, I had, --would receive a great education, and my parents asked me if I wanted to go. I told “Yes”, I, --we would go and try it out. All of my friends in Texas City didn’t want me to move, partly because I was, I was known as the fastest hundred-yard dasher, two-hundred-yard dash in Texas City. Hundred-yard, hundred-yard. I ran the hundred-yard dash in ten flat. We would go to the white school, and I would win all my races. They wanted me, to go to school. They wanted to, --so, they really didn't want to see me leave. However, I moved to Oklahoma City to finish high school in 1952. I was sixteen years old and a junior in high school. I attended Douglas High School and graduated 1954. During the two-year period, I would go back home to Texas City to my, --during my break and help my parents, visit the family and friends. While in Douglas High School in Oklahoma City, I enrolled in a carpentry class in the area of Votech because my, of my interest in carpentry. After I graduated, enrolled in Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama. My oldest brother was there, so I went to go too. However, I only went one year because I thought I knew more about carpentry than what they was teaching me. Texas City after that year, I met and married the love of my life, Hortense Simien from Galveston, Texas, on October 29, 1955. We were married for thirty, I was married about thirty-three years until her death in 1988. We had five children, three boys and two girls also all of Oklahoma City. Then in ’55, I enrolled in Texas Southern University. During the time, I subcontracted with a local builder, Mr. Ricky, -- Richard Taylor, a Black man who also owned a lumber company in La Marque, Texas. While I was home, I helped my daddy add his second floor to our house and renovated the main, main house to our house. I moved back to Oklahoma City in 1959 and started working for head foreman for Jim Dawson Construction Company. Mr. Dawson was my Votech teacher while I was at Douglas High School. He had contacted my aunt about the foreman position, and I wanted, --he wanted me to be that position, so I, --so she contacted me to0, and I accepted it. In 1969, I went into business for myself. My company’s name was Emmitt R. Wisby Construction Company. I specialized in new construction, remodeling, cabinet making and some, some commercial. I employed both of my sons and two other young men to help. I mainly built homes in Northeast for minorities. I became a carpentry teacher at SAGE, which was changed to Metro Tech in 1980, --1981 to 1998. The company, thanks to my youngest son, Michael Wisby Sr., who joined me full-time after he graduated from high school in 1981, also changed my company's name to Emmitt R. Wisby and Son Company in 1989. We incorporated in April 1999. From the seventeen years of teaching, I focus on teaching children, children a trade, as well as the business-side of running the business, running the business. My business still exists as of 2024 with my son Michael.
