Doctor, Editor, Banker, Merchant – All Women
Dallas Morning News
Sunday, 29 Jul 1962
Section 3, Page 1
By Ann Adams Melvin
~~~
If there is anyone left who voted against woman suffrage way back when they still had a choice – he ought to visit Forney, Kaufman County.
He’d come back muttering, “I told you so.”
Because there, the women run the town.
Amid the sleepy, shady streets of Forney, drop by the 68-year-old Adams Drugs “where there hasn’t ever been a soda fountain and never will be.” A trio of ladies – Mrs. Mae Mill, the buyer; Mrs. Virginia Yandell, the pharmacist, and Mrs. Eva Lou Moore, the bookkeeper – dispense soap and sundries.
The prescriptions are made by Dr. Christine Walker. A Forney native, Dr. Walker had not planned to return to her hometown to practice.
However, an awkward but determined committee of elderly townsmen called on the young woman as she entered her second year of residency at Parkland Hospital in Dallas.
“Now Miss Christine, we need a doctor back home. You’re one, and a native besides. Come home. We need you.”
Now the wife of one of the younger farmers and mother of two, Dr. Walker grins, “Maybe there was some doubt at first about a lady doctor, but when I tell one of those old fellows ‘roll over for a shot,’ they roll over. Guess I’m just the Doc around here now.”
The Forney citizens, in fact, have sort of fallen into the habit of accepting the female lead. When bank president O.W. Reagan [Reagin] died, his natural successor was his wife. Mrs. Reagan [Reagin], an amiable lady who looks like she’d be more adept at arranging flowers than loans, will take over the job Tuesday.
“She knows this bank inside and out, I reckon,” commented one depositor.
The lady banker herself added, “I guess I fit right in here. The old grill-work windows, antique marble counters, even the fishing tackle boxes folks use for safety-deposits – they seem right to me.” She laughed, “Can’t you see some young Dallas banker stepping in here?”
All over Forney it remains the same. Women stepping in where the menfolk stepped out. Or women doing a job no one else had time for.
At the post office, the mailmen are all mail-ladies. It’s not a stagnant job. Mrs. Cleo Hinton, postmistress since 1935 and widow of a former mayor, is full of plans for remodeling her archaic post office.
Forney loves her. “Guess visiting with Cleo is as much fun as picking up the mail,” one farmer mused. “And she’s a pretty sharp card player… canasta, bridge,” he winked. “Even a little poker.”
The favorite of Forney’s wonderful women is Helen Cullan McCain, editor, publisher, Linotype operator and printer of the Forney Messenger, circulation 1,000.
She is credited with backing the bond issue that got Forney its first public water program, and cherished for her sense of humor. The grandmotherly little woman lives with her husband in the newspaper office, just a wall away from the black, greasy presses that grind out weekly Forney news.
Her wry humor showing, Mrs. McCain reviewed the town. “Pity the poor woman-hater around here,” she said.
A woman delivers his babies, and a woman dispenses his pills. The lady editor tells him where to go and when, and the lady banker takes his money.
“And there is Mrs. M. Mitchell’s furniture store and Mrs. Nell Yates’ dry goods store.”
She laughed. “And if home cooking gets too bad, his only retreat is Feagin’s cafe – Mrs. Feagin’s cafe.”
Woman haters find no peace in Forney until the very end, she said.
The editor smoothed out her blue denim housedress and looked up from her Linotype machine.
“In a city where every major function is regulated by a woman, we’ve left the final job – an undertaker – to a man.”
