Many
years have come and gone since Leslie Jones Askey was born near
Old Moulton, in Gonzales County, Texas – over 97 of them, to be
exact. He was born on Oct. 12, 1907, to Margaret and John Harrison Askey. He was still quite young when the family moved to Nickel and that is where the young man grew up. Known to most folks as “Les,” he went to the old Nickel High School which was only about a block from his home.
“There
were only five kids in our graduating class, four girls and
one boy,” said Les. “I was that lucky boy.” He was
also the first boy to graduate from that school, doing so in
1925 – Les said the school only went up to the tenth grade
in those days.
While yet a teenager, he worked at Thompson’s store. He
remembers that the store had two aisles and was full of all
kinds of merchandise including clothes, hardware, and
groceries. It also had a cellar, which was used as a
warehouse, that included a chain hoist to lift the
merchandise up to the ground floor. Les said the cellar
would flood every time they got a good rain. He also recalls
that the store was the first in Nickel to have electric
lights.
Askey’s family owned about 280 acres right across the road
from the aged store which still stands on FM 532 about five
miles west of Moulton – most people know it today as the
old Nickel store.
Recently Les returned to the area for a visit. His son
George and daughter-in-law Joan, as well as George’s
nephew Mark Askey, and his wife Hetomie accompanied him.
After stopping at Kloesel’s for lunch, the group took a
tour around Moulton and Nickel; between stops, I was able to
visit with Les, for an hour or so, and he was kind enough to
share some of his memories with me.
As a young man growing up at Nickel, he spent a lot of time
with an uncle named George Cooper. “I probably spent as
much or more time with him then I did my own family,” said
Les. “I liked being with him ‘cause he had a truck.”
It is apparent that his uncle had a lot of influence on the
young man and Les mentioned him a number of times during our
interview.
It seems that about 1926 or 1927 his uncle George had to
haul some wool to the local depot for shipment to Houston.
The railroad agent told them that he was getting ready to
close and they would have to come back the next day. Les
said his uncle told the man that they lived a long way from
the station, but that didn’t make any difference to the
agent. “I told my uncle, ‘why in the hell don’t we
just haul it to Houston ourselves?’” But his uncle was
afraid they would get lost and so they didn’t try it; but
young Askey knew that he had just got his first taste of the
freight-hauling business.
Upon graduation from school Askey said he just sort of
“floated around” between Nickel and San Antonio for four
or five years before he finally settled down. It was during
these years that he bought a Model-T Ford truck in San
Antonio for $150 and did a little freight hauling. He got
jobs transporting cattle from Gonzales County to San
Antonio. Les said he has loved trucks ever since.
He settled in San Antonio and took what jobs he could find
to make a living. “I washed dishes and I worked for a
meat-packing company, a trucking company, you name it….”
said Askey. But there was little doubt that he was destined
to be in the trucking business, and that would be his trade
from 1927 up until he retired from it in 1960 – he was
only out of the business for a short time from 1929 to
around 1933; working as a cattle inspector in Zapata, Texas.
During his time in the freight-hauling business, Les Askey
owned or was in partnership with three trucking companies.
He owned Victory Truck Line in the 1940s, and it was during
that time that he took on a partner who stole half a million
dollars from him. “I could have had him put in jail,”
Askey said, “but we settled out of court.”
He also owned Hill Country Express which he later sold to
Basse Truck Line, and that company is still in business
today. Then he bought A&B Truck Line from a guy in
Corpus. His permit allowed him to haul freight all the way
to the Alaska Territory, before it was part of the United
States. In 1959, he sold A&B and then in 1960 he got out
of the trucking business to pursue other interests. He was
still “buying and selling” through 1980.
Les has many memories of his time spent hauling freight
across the country. “We moved a captured German V-2 rocket
from Alamogordo, New Mexico, to Pensacola, Florida, for the
government,” said Askey. “We did a lot of work for the
government that we weren’t allowed to talk about back
then.” He recalls carrying freight to Ft. Hood, Texas, and
how his trucks would be taken inside the mountains and
unloaded. Les says those mountains were full of ammunition.
While Les was hauling for the government, nearly every
railroad and trucking company in Texas filed suit against
him – they were envious of the lucrative contracts and
wanted a piece of the action. “They took us to court but
we won,” he said.
During his life, Les Askey has hauled an interesting
assortment of items. He mentioned hauling rice in the El
Campo, Texas, area; and even a little moonshine during
prohibition days – then there was that time when he bought
over 300 self-contained ice cream trucks and resold them
making an enormous profit. “I had a lot of fun in the
trucking business,” said Askey. “Selling those ice cream
trucks got me out of debt; I’ve got a lot of respect for
ice cream, I eat a bunch of it.”
Besides trucking, he ventured into the restaurant business
for a while. Les said his wife, Doris, was feeding nearly
all of the company drivers out of their home and the men
liked the food so much that they suggested she open her own
cafe. They built the establishment in 1958 on Roosevelt
Street in San Antonio – it was called “Mrs. Askey’s
Kitchen” and although it was later sold, the business is
still there and operating as a restaurant under a different
name. Doris Askey passed away in 1999.
Although he spent most of his life in San Antonio, there is
no doubt that Askey’s roots are in this area. He has
kinfolk in Lavaca and Gonzales Counties. He is related to
the Askeys from Gonzales who gained fame years ago raising
champion racehorses. “They had two famous horses called
Rebel and Joe Murphy; those horses were shipped to New York
and out of 38 races they won 34,” Askey said.
It is safe to say that Les Askey has accomplished a lot
since he left Nickel all those years ago. He loves
competition and when someone tells him that it is impossible
to do something, you can bet he is going to give it a try.
He could be considered as the classic example of an
entrepreneur. He doesn’t talk much about being retired;
fact is he doesn’t consider himself retired at all. “I
never did quit,” said Les. “I am still piddling
around.”
He comes back to Nickel every now and then just to see how
things have changed. Recalling his memories of the old
store, Les is still upset about someone chopping down a huge
live oak tree that was standing out front. That happened
many years ago but he can’t understand why anyone would
take down such a beautiful tree. “People around here
should have never let them cut that tree down,” he said.
“It wasn’t bothering anybody.”
Les Askey still resides in San Antonio near the restaurant
he once owned and it could be that he is thinking of a way
to crank up another business – that’s what entrepreneurs
do you know.
|
