A kind of a Galveston Story or How my father came to be in Galveston

 

My grandfather, Gustav Adolf Von Bernius was born April 20^th, 1886 in Philadelphia, where he attended the Julliard School of Music, did a stretch in the Army Band during the Great War (WWI) (this is when he quit being Gustav Adolf Von Bernius and became Gus Bernius. He also made a life long friend, Robert Oscar Burgess, (Bob) who was also in the army band. And this is where he meet my grandmother who attended a dance at Fort Morgan, Alabama.

    After the war, grandpa and Uncle Bob (I'll explain shortly), created a vaudeville act. They were Vaudevillians. Burgess and Bernius... They bought a matched set, a guitar and a mandolin by Gibson. The guitar has vanished, no one knows, but we still have the mandolin. I know nothing of the act. Now this is late teens and early twenties... Movies were becoming a thing, as were nickelodeons, vaudeville was fading. They played New Orleans, Mobile, Galveston and many other places. My father was born during this time, December of 1917 in Mobile...

    When his sister, Henrietta Emma Bernius was born in August of 1923 grandfather went to work for C.G. Conn music company in Mobile, were my father spent his younger years. Then for awhile in Cincinnati, and then later on, Birmingham, Alabama. When he worked in Birmingham, they lived in Bessemer, Alabama, about 10 miles east of Birmingham.

    Along about 1928, when My father was about 11, C. G. Conn closed the store in Birmingham and grandfather was out of work.

    Meanwhile, back at the ranch..... My grandmother was born in Shell Banks, Alabama (fifty miles south of Mobile, on the other side of the bay, on the beach, very near Gulf Shores. Francis Amelia Fulford, June 6, 1889, the eldest of ten. She was a quarter Indian for her grandmother was the famed Princess Nancy Ward of the Cherokee Tribe.(I know, some name for an Indian). The Fulford's were members of the 1803 Nelson grant, awarded to Lord Nelson after the battle of Waterloo. Anyway, her mother, Henrietta Fulford put all the girls (Grandma, Winona, Susie, Ruby, Armitta, Roberta and Ilean, in a girl's school in Mobile, Alabama, so they wouldn't marry kin-folk. About 1914, Fort Morgan called on this school of girls to provide company for the soldiers at a dance, and of course, this is where my grandparents meet. They Soon married and dad came along in December of 1917 and my Aunt (Hen) Henrietta Emma in August of 1923. Now here I should mention that grandma's sister, Susie, also attended that dance, and fell in love with Robert Oscar Burgess and married him, thus, Uncle Bob. He was later Justice of the Peace, Gulf Shores, Baldwin county Alabama. He kept an alligator in a pond, in front of the courthouse. He claimed he feed it hooligans. “If I see you in my court again, I'm throwing you in the pond with Chief.” Chief was the alligator name.

    My Grandmother also had three brothers, Elbert, Joseph and Adrian. Adrian was known as Uncle Buck, cause he could dance. Now great Uncle Buck put himself into the chicken business. Fried Chicken business. He opened the fist walk-up and take-out fast food joint in New Orleans (the famous one), in the mid-twenties. It took off, and so he opened a store in Mobile, and it took off and so he opened a store in Galveston, on a triangle shaped piece of property at 15^th and Boulevard. Uncle Buck's Famous Fried Chicken.

    Now if you remember, grandpa is out of work in Bessemer, Alabama. So grandma wrote a letter to Uncle Buck to see if there was work anywhere. Uncle Buck wrote back and told them to come to Galveston and he would put them in the chicken business.

    Sooo...as the story goes.... Grandpa bought a brand new 1928 Ford model A flat-bed truck. Now keep in mind, this is 1928, there where brick streets in Birmingham, but otherwise, no paved roads. They piled everything they owned onto that flat-bed Ford, with grandpa and grandma and Henrietta in the cab and my 11 year old dad sitting atop everything else in the back. Dad said it was like being atop a camel.

    They rambled on through the woods of eastern Alabama and on into Mississippi which was also deep forest, pines, oaks and magnolias.

    Some where around Meridian, Mississippi they managed to get on the wrong road, now keep in mind, there are no paved roads, nor are there signs, least ways a map. After awhile they came across three men with shotguns standing in the middle of the ruts demanding to know who they were and 'what the hell are you all doing on my land..!!!!' Well grandpa explained they were on their way to Galveston, and the men explained there was no Galveston 'round these parts, and they'd better get on back to Meridian and find another way. (grandpa said most likely bootleggers, fearing revenuers, and we was most likely closing in on the still.)

    Now keep in mind, my 11 year old dad was sitting atop the heap which were their belongings, there on that flat-bed truck, watching all of this. Sitting there atop his camel, rain or shine.

    Dad said it was really quite the ride, he was hanging on the whole time as the truck rocked this way and that down the rutted dirt roads. Dad said the small rivers had bridges, a couple of the larger ones had rope ferries, but the Mississippi had a steam ferry at Natchez. (I'm thinking the Sabine River was a rope ferry.)

    Some where around Baytown, in the swamp, they became stuck in a mud hole, and a farmer and his mule pulled them out. They crossed Buffalo Bayou there at Morgans point ferry. Daddy said the first paved road he saw, was the causeway into Galveston.

    Now remember, my great Uncle Buck is down at 15^th and Boulevard selling fried chicken. Grandpa rented a two-story home at 35^th and R (at that time, this was the west end of town)and they lived upstairs and ran a chicken market downstairs, and supplied Uncle Buck with fresh chickens.

    The way it worked is, dad and grandpa would load up that flatbed Ford with chicken cages (which grandpa built), and headed up the ole Shell Road which started at Virginia point the other side of the causeway, they would take it through Hitchcock and over the high ground pass the Alto Loma depot, passed the Arcadia depot and on passed the Algoa depot to the Alvin depot where there was a shell road to Angleton.

    Now in those days, 'chickens' was money. Little grocery stores kept a pen out back, and you could pay for groceries with chickens, 'cause soon, some one like my grandpa would come along and want those chickens. So the grocer would turn those chickens into money (heavy pieces of silver) and wa-la, my grandpa now had chickens for a chicken hungry Galveston.

    Now grandpa was soon up to his ears in chickens, so he opened to the public... and quickly did a business. You would come into their market and pick out a chicken. A live breathing chicken. You could take it home on the hoof, or grandma would kill it and dress it for a fee, and for an extra nickle, my dad would delivery it on his bicycle. To say the least, he rode that bicycle all over Galveston...

    They dumped the chicken guts off of 53^rd there on the east end of Offatts Bayou. That, in those days, was the dump, and that was way out west.

    Now my father was tough, his name was Frances Adrian Bernius, he was named for his mother and his Uncle Buck (both could be considered a girls name at the time) and he shows up in Galveston wearing nickers...(So he was a boy named Sue). He had to beat up every boy at school (with some pointers from Uncle Buck) in order to have any peace. (Peace through strength).

    In the summer, dad said every kid had an ice pick, so's you could chip ya some ice when the ice man came around. The ice wagon was pulled by a horse. Customers had a wooden wheel, divided into colors like a pie, with an arrow on it. Each color was for so much ice. So you selected your color, (how much ice you wanted) and put the wheel in the window and the ice man knew how much ice to bring, and wa-la...you had ice in your ice box.

    Later on, when he went to high school, his mother would give him a dime for the bus, a nickle there and a nickle back. He said he would ride the bus to school and then walk home, thus saving a nickle, and walk down Postoffice. Now in those days, Postoffice was famous. Lets just say, the girls would whistle at him and say, “Hey young feller, want some company, I know ya got a nickle..” Dad said he would keep his head down and just keep on walking. I was grown before I realized Postoffice was two blocks out of the way. Now he walked from Ball High, there at 21^st and Winnie over to 35^th and then down to R. Pretty good walk.

    Well, there were so many new boys in high school (Ball), and he being the boy named Sue, he had to start beating them up all over again, he got so good at it, that Uncle Buck took him down to the wharves were he would fight (Box) on the water front as a welter weight, (and made a little money on the side.) Somewhere along the line, dad won an important fight and made the Galveston Daily News, and that's when grandma found out and put a stop to it.

    Ball high also found out and put him in the ROTC. (which led to dad becoming an officer in the US Army Air Force. He flew B-17's in the war, retired a Major.) Funny how things change. For the record, dad was also in the Ball High Band and played a cornet. Graduated the class of 1935.

    I want to spend a minute on Uncle Buck, James Adrian Fulford, (1891-1974) he was quite a character. They said he made million in the twenties with his Chicken, and put it all in the bank. He was the first of his kind, fast food. No tables, no chairs, no bathroom, no inside, you walked up to the window, ordered your chicken and sides, which were already cooked, and he would bag up your order, and off you went. He lost it all in the 1929 market crash, millions. They said he made millions after the crash, but he spent every dime of it. No more banks for him.

    Now he used to do this stunt, or spectacle to promote 'Uncle Bucks Famous Fried Chicken.' that is to say, draw a crowd. He did it three times, once in Mobile, Once in New Orleans ('Ripley's Believe or Not' was there, and recorded it, and he is in their book) and once in Galveston. When he did it in Galveston, my grandmother, my grandfather and my father witness it.

    It; Uncle Buck would start with a live chicken, he would kill it, pluck it, cook it and eat it in a minute and forty-five second, among-st a flurry of feathers. Look it up. And he did that at 15^th and Boulevard. (People today would Swoon.)

    The chicken business started to slow down, so dad found a job at the Buccaneer Hotel as an elevator operator. (Years later, when they dropped the Buccaneer onto the Boulevard, dad got to see the elevator motors he operated so many years earlier. He said it was not easy stopping the elevator car right on the floor. He was always saying, “Step up please, or Step down please.”

    Then he got a job peddling Purity Ice Cream, you know, one of those bicycle ice cream truck things, he peddled that thing all over Galveston selling Purity Ice Cream. He ran it into a fruit wagon on Broadway and turn the wagon over... Spooked the horse, which dragged the wagon down Broadway. Daddy said there was fruit everywhere, and grandpa had the pay the damage....Twelve dollars. Twelve, one once silver dollars..!!! Of course he kept peddling Purity Ice Cream till he paid it off...

    I'm going to stop here, for the next story is, 'How my mother came to be in Galveston.'

April of 2023

Gary George Bernius