AMONG A PILE OF OLD BOOKS, FAMILIAR NAMES APPEAR

Special to El Rrun-Rrun

We've shared some of our finds in local used books stores and local thrift shops where we found books used by the likes of Dr. Arnulfo Oliveira for school work in 1959, and an (incomplete) set of the Complete Collection of Mark Twain short story set with a 1915 copyright.

In the last set we found a hotel bill dated September 8, 1964 made out to the late Jesse Sloss, a colorful local figure who was served at one time as city manager and commissioner in the City of Brownsville.

We found an English primer that belonged to one Nell Rutledge, a member of an old Brownsville family who established Rutledge Hamburgers in the pasillito between two existing buildings on Washington Street. Her child-like scribbling can be see under one written, perhaps by a teacher, in flowing cursive writing.

Traces of another branch of the Oliveira clan also appeared on the pages of a popular reader meant to upgrade the morals of young men. This was the Uncle Arthur's Bedtime Stories which carried a dedication to the recipient from "Mr. and Mrs. Rocha" to Victor Oliveira, age 8.

Did this book first belong to Victor Oliveira and then handed down to his brother David, at the time perhaps younger, but who in time would graduate from the University of Texas Law School in Austin? The copyright on this reader is 1928 ((MCMXXVII) and its author Arthur S. Maxwell stated that each story in the collection was "designed to impress some moral lesson."

How time has passed and how they've changed. If this is the same David Oliveira, he went on to serve on the Texas Southmost College board of trustees, and his father Arnulfo "Nuco" Oliveira would go on to be its president years before. In other words, this book is a witness to the local history of some of our city's oldest families who have gone on to serve the city, college, state, and country.