Billy Woods came to Chandler from DeKalb, Texas in 1934. His wife, Dorothy Ellis, came to the area in 1939, from Greenville, Texas. Billy and Dorothy met while out working in the fields, got married and had 23 children. They had a home on Saragosa Street, where Dorothy grew tomatoes, cabbage, peas, cucumbers and other vegetables; Billy kept cows, pigs, chickens and goats. The home had four rooms: a living room, a kitchen with a gas stove, and two bedrooms. The children slept in double beds. Billy bought several lots on Saragosa at the same time, so as some of the children got older, they moved to homes nearby.
Photo: Billy Woods.jpg
Families in the neighborhood knew Billy as a man that they could turn to for help. He started out as a farm laborer and eventually became a contractor, hiring people to work in the fields. He helped recruit many of Southside’s residents from the southern United States to do farm labor for farmers such as the Willis, Hadley, Dobson, and Bogle families. His daughter, Peggy, remembers that “he would go around the neighborhood picking up everybody that needed work and had farm experience. They’d go chop and pick cotton, or pick watermelons.” Billy got a new Hudson car every year from the Tex Earnhardt dealership and also bought a truck to drive people out to the fields for work. At the age of eight, Peggy started going out to the fields to help her mother with the chuck wagon. The chuck wagon was a little wagon with a kitchen that Billy would tow on the back of his truck. Dorothy would make chili dogs, French fries, and hamburgers. She’d bake pound cake, sweet potato pie, apple pie and chocolate pie at home and bring those along as well. The food was reasonably priced, but if someone couldn’t afford lunch, they wouldn’t be turned away.
In addition to cooking in big iron skillets on the gas stove, the Woods family barbecued. Billy would butcher his own animals, and Peggy and her siblings would help clean out the chitterlings or kill chickens. They had a pit in their backyard, and Billy would put the meat on racks and barbecue for the whole neighborhood, making sure everyone else ate before his family did. Both Billy and Dorothy enjoyed cooking, and instead of a family meal, where everyone sits down to eat the same meal, everyone was given the opportunity to eat what they wanted. However, Dorothy made biscuits for every meal.
Religion played an important part in the Woods household. The family attended Mt. Olive Baptist Church almost seven days a week. The family faithfully attended Bible study and made it a point to arrive promptly for Sunday services.
Peggy Woods retired from Microchip three years ago. She has three sons and recalls that the Southside neighborhood was a safe place to be. Everyone respected and took care of each other, and “A lot of good people have come out of that neighborhood,” she says. Peggy provided a family recipe for pound cake:
Recipes
Pound Cake