Hunt Co., TX - News: Two Celeste Businesses ***************************************************** This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb by: Sarah Swindell USGenWeb Archives. Copyright. All rights reserved http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm ***************************************************** Two Celeste Businesses Last What do a Celeste beauty salon and a Celeste garage have in common? They are both businesses run by friendly, likeable people who've been as faithful to their customers and their customer have been to them since the 1940's. In a joking way, they agree that they've held the town together, but actually, what they have done, along with the Celeste bank, is hang in with their own Celeste businesses through thick and thin. Lenna Bell Compton Barr Since August 18, 1945, Lenna B. Barr has been giving permanents and fixing the hair of faithful Celeste customers. Lenna is a friendly woman who has been several beauty shops come and go in Celeste and who, though seemingly least suited for it, was the one of three Celeste students of a Dallas beauty school who stayed in the beauty business. She and her sister, Francis, and their friend Sybil Alexander (Hutcheson), went to the beauty school together. "My sister and Sybil were going to tear the town down. I just went along for the ride. I didn't like beauty work much. I was too timid and shy. I was a very few words person." Lenna said. "My sister and I went into business here together." Francis only worked a year before getting married and moving to Trenton. Lenna stayed with the business because her customers encouraged her and she sure didn't want to pick cotton. "We were just little ol' country girls who knew nothing but work." Lenna said. Lenna feels one reason her customers are faith is because of her lower prices. She serves fifty to sixty customers a week she said. Gladys Lewis is one of Lenna's original customers who still visits each week. She and Lenna reminisced on one of the early years. "Was it in '46 when Lucille had to dry her hair by the stove?" Gladys asked. "That was a $15.00 cold wave," said Lenna, "one of most expensive permanents!" Lucille Keller was a friend to Gladys from their husbands having been stationed together. Lucille and her husband had come up from Florida to visit Gladys and her husband and then all went to Dallas together to see friends and attend the wrestling matches at the Sportatorium. But Lucille wanted to get her hair fixed first and "we were trying to be so nice to her!" Lenna explained. The electricity went off during the expensive permanent and Lenna and Gladys worked to get Lucille's hair dry by the stove. "I have had quite a few permanents and a few sets," Gladys recalled. At the time Lenna opened her shop, Celeste was a much busier town than it is now. Lenna said a friend of hers once told her in those busier days, " 'You're gonna see Celeste die.' And it did," Lenna said, "but it would grow back. We need more businesses in this town." Businesses at the time Lenna opened were Denny's Grocery, Norris' Drug, Celeste Post Office, Pete Hudson's Tailor Shop, Bickham's Grocery, Jones' Variety with a cafe in it, Bell's Grocery, and Joe Gaulden's Drug Store. Next to Lenna was a cafe run by Al Kline and his wife, then John Cawthon's Barber Shop, and then Spider Barnett's Cafe. Oral Smith Oral Smith has run a garage in Celeste since December 27, 1939. "I've been here when many of them have come and gone," Oral said. He's stayed because he had the desire to; "I love these people," he added. "I feel like I can assist and help people out in Celeste every day and never repay what they've done for me." One debt which he has repaid is the $40.00 he borrowed from the Celeste bank through S. R. Granberry, with which Oral bought G. K. Cheatham's garage. "If Albert Granberry's daddy hadn't stayed with me, I couldn't have made it." Smith's Garage and Wrecking Serviced moved from its original southside location where a saloon used to be to the land he now owns and from which he operates. But the building he is in now was built in 1954, after he tore down the 1940's structure. Now the business is Smith's Garage and Texaco, and run by daughter Orlean and husband, Tommy Moore. The gas Oral first pumped to customers was "plain ol' vanilla East Texas." He then carried Fina, then Sinclair, and started in 1954, Texaco. The cheapest he ever sold regular gas was for twenty-two cents a gallon while buying it for sixteen cents a gallon. The highest price on regular gas he has sold was $1.31. "Whatever I have made, I have made here," he said. "I came here $40.00 in debt." But Oral came to the garage business because his life as a farmer left him no money after paying for the crop. Oral never lived more than ten miles from Celeste, having been reared in the Arnold and Dulaney communities. "They're good people around here," Oral said, sitting by the stove in his garage last week. One of the garage doors was open, a truck pulled in, Tommy went to work on it, and other men still talked while gathered around the stove. Stocked along the back, under the fan belts hung on the wall, is plenty of wood. "We always keep a good warm fire. That is about the only place that people can hang out anymore. They say what they please." Oral has a box selling cold bottled drinks and plenty of people drop in for a coke and a candy bar. Garage hours are 7:00 AM until 6:00 PM daily and until noon on Sunday, when a "houseful" is not uncommon. "I love it or I wouldn't stay here. If you get in need, somebody in Celeste will help you." If somebody needs something Oral said he would give it. "I may not have much, but I'd give 'em something. I've got to feel needed every day. If I didn't, I wouldn't be nobody." (February 11, 1983, The Celeste Star) ---