Tales of trick riders and softball players

Good journalists are generally blessed (or plagued) with an eye for detail and an innate curiosity about almost everything – people, places, events – past or present.

We love the opportunity to tell a good story. But, unfortunately we can’t, or don’t tell them all.

In representing The Enterprise, I frequently have the opportunity to share my love of journalism and to tell members of my audience that every one of them has at least one story we could tell.

I was reminded of that by a couple of events this week. This is National Assisted Living Week. That’s not the story because almost every week is designated as some “week” of recognition.

But, my 86-year-old mother happens to be in an assisted living facility. In recognition of the week, family members were asked to put together brief biographies of their loved ones, as well as photos, to share with others. I think we frequently forget the lives older people have lived and that, though they might now have memory issues or be in a wheelchair, they are still people who have lived fascinating lives.

My mother’s life hasn’t been particularly extraordinary, but it has been varied and interesting.

I’ve grown up knowing my mother was an athlete who played a variety of sports in high school and went on to play softball at the national level at about the time WWII started. I, however, never chased down the facts until I started to write her brief biography. Being a journalist, I wanted to make sure I had the FACTS and that I was correct in everything in wrote.

The facts are: She traveled to California to play for a team called the “Hollywood Victoryettes.” The year was 1942, a year before the establishment of the All-American Girls Softball League, the predecessor of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, the inspiration for the movie “A League of Our Own.”

I have newspaper clippings about the time and the team, but in today’s Internet world, the “Hollywood Victoryettes” are non-existent. It’s a story that, apparently, wasn’t told. Today I wish it had been, for myself, for my daughter, and for all the others who would love to have read about it.

Today, in The Enterprise, we missed at least one more of those great stories. Our obituary page carries a paid notice about the life, and death of Dorothy Jayne Cash Whitehead. She was a wife, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. A native Beaumonter, she was a woman of faith who spent much of her life working for her church.

She also was a trick rider with Roy Rogers’ Wild West Shows and performed as such at Madison Square Garden.

Yeah, we missed that one.

Our library archives have no file on Whitehead and a cursory search on the Internet turns up nothing to confirm – or dispute – that information. I have little doubt it is true and that we simply missed the opportunity to write it. I can only imagine the stories she could have told, of traveling, of backstage antics, and of the adventure of a lifetime for a young girl from Beaumont.

Here’s hoping she told those tales to her children, and grandchildren, and great-grandchildren and that they know we would have loved to tell it as well.

And, please, if you have a great story to share, let us know. Our reaction is not always immediate, but we love to know about them and have the chance to share them. Help us not wait too long to hear those great stories.

Send me an e-mail , please. Give us a chance to tell these stories.