Sunday, Dec. 27, 1998

Book lights up Sunshine's forgotten past

Old photos, memories remain of early farming community

   Ira Slough Leddy, Drewey Roper, Adolph Poenisch, Sophia Thigpen, Rafe Parry, Newsome Slough: Their youthful faces are forever captured in a photo, circa 1910, taken by the dusty front steps of what was once known as the Sunshine School.
   Who these children were, where they came from and what their families endured may belong to Corpus Christi's past, but as far as Mabel Ware is concerned, theirs is a history not to be forgotten.
   In a book titled "I Remember Sunshine!" Ware, 85, has compiled turn-of-the-century photos, family histories of Sunshine's early settlers and anecdotes handed down the generations to piece together a way of life that only a few now remember.
   "They were a very shy people, almost a town unto themselves," recalls the author. "It seemed to me everybody was kin to everybody out there."
   Although Ware, a Corpus Christi Independent School District teacher who retired 18 years ago, wasn't born and raised in Sunshine, she came to know and love it during childhood visits there. And there's another reason for the fond memories; in 1932, at the age of 18, she married a Sunshiner - Thomas Howell Ware - a marriage that lasted 63 years until her husband's death in 1995.
   

No official boundaries

   No one knows how Sunshine got its name, Ware said, but what is on record is that it thrived as a farming and ranching community from the late 1800s to the early 1940s. There were no official boundaries, but generally, Sunshine was bordered on the east by Cayo del Oso, on the south by King Ranch, and on the north by portions of Corpus Christi Bay and what was then known as the Aberdeen community. The west boundary was where Everhart Road is today.
   For these early settlers, Corpus Christi was the destination for which they hooked up horse and buggy, to stock up on staples like sugar and flour. But as time marched on, they no longer needed to trek into the big city. The city had come to them.
   One of its landmarks first to go was the Sunshine School. It lost the name it had borne for so many years when the creation of Naval Air Station in 1942 necessitated a merger with another rural schoolhouse called Aberdeen. It resulted in the Sundeen School District, derived from a portion of each name. In 1958, Sundeen slipped into history when it consolidated with CCISD.
   

Reunions began in 1967

   In 1967, 125 former Sunshine residents and students gathered for the first of what has become an annual reunion. Today, the number has dwindled to 50.
   "Many are not aware of the little communities that slowly amalgamated and became the greater part of Corpus Christi," said the Rev. Michael A. Howell, whose great-great-grandfather, J.M. Howell, ranched in Sunshine before the Civil War.
   "When Mabel tells the story of those ancestors, she tells the story that is true of all our ancestors. They are in essence the early pioneers on whose backs we stand.
   "We can find a lot of inspiration from what in fact they did put up with. Their faithfulness, their perseverance ... those qualities are as important today as they were yesterday. It's a history we want to live up to."
   Sylvia R. Longoria can be reached at 886-3718 or by e-mail at longorias@scripps.com