(light melancholy piano music)
(lively piano music)
- Last year
in 2016,
I got a chance to do some oral history interviews
as part of the work I do with the Southwest Collection,
and it was like pulling teeth
to get Louise to talk about herself.
Her parents had been well-to-do for one thing and another,
during the time period of the depression and other factors,
they were less well-to-do and she had siblings,
and so their folks worked very hard
to give them opportunities,
which in the 1930s was,
that took work,
it was a difficult time.
So there are great stories about that,
but the one that just jumped out at me
was her casually mentioning that as a senior trip,
you know celebrating her graduation from high school,
she got to go to the Olympics.
Well it was the 1936 Olympics.
(lively instrumental music)
- [Announcer] The picture of the opening of the 11th
and greatest Olympic games of modern times
is one that will live forever in the memories of those
who had the privilege of witnessing them.
Crowds were massed in the Berlin streets
long before the scheduled opening of the ceremonies.
From the lush gardens to the entrance of the stadium,
the streets were one long stream of color.
Green flag poles bearing a scarlet banner
with a swastika in the center were spaced every 50 feet.
- [Louis] It was spooky because you were in this crowd
of hundreds of thousands of people in the stadium
and this goofy little thing coming down,
you know prissing down the stairs.
And then to have all these countries come in you know,
the pomp and circumstance.
Oh it was just so wonderful.
And all these people would beat up everybody,
you've seen it on the television 100 times.
But it didn't feel like that in real it was spooky.
- [Announcer] The 52 nations led by the Greeks
as is their right for having originated the games.
- [Louise] When they had the parade or whatever
that comes in the entrance and come right,
See, Hitler was,
I could've touched him almost.
- [Andy] Really?
- [Louise] I gotta jumped over a few people
but he was always coming down that
big center thing you know.
And then he was giving his speech and everybody was ...
Oh It was just,
of course we didn't know what he was saying
but he was crazy!
- [Narrator] Immediately the band stopped the march
it was playing and broke into Die Fahne Hoch.
The audience rising promptly.
- For a person to have lived such a rich life
that that's not sort of the pinnacle of things
that they can recount to you,
that says a lot about Louise.
(compelling piano music)
- [Louise] We lived in a little village called Bronxville.
- [Andy] Bronxville?
- [Louise] It's not the Bronx.
- [Andy] Right.
- [Louise] It's a little village one mile square.
- [Andy] Wow!
- [Louise] And imagine now a childhood
where you were allowed to wander.
We walked to school every day,
Doris and Home.
- [Andy] Mm-hmm.
- [Louise] But we could do anything
as long as we came home before dark.
You know after school
- [Andy] Yeah.
- [Louise] Or if we wanted to play with somebody
we could say,
"Well, we're gonna stop off at so-and-so's."
Imagine that!
- Louise married and came out here to West Texas
when Texas Technological College was a small school.
It was very dusty here in Lubbock.
She immediately became part of this community.
Raised her large family and adapted beautifully.
- Mother's been involved in the arts since she was a kid.
She grew up in New York
and her mother took them to all kinds of
theatrical performances, museums.
So when she moved to Lubbock during the war
when daddy was overseas,
to have me,
she was really concerned
that she wanted to be sure her children
were exposed to as much as she had been.
In the 40s in Lubbock that was a little bit challenging.
So she's been involved,
we all,
I'm the oldest of six
and we all participated in little theater performances,
we traveled,
we did all kinds of lessons.
Some of us took piano lessons,
some of us took dancing lessons.
So somebody always had a toe in one door or the other.
So we've all been involved in everything
there was to be involved in
in Lubbock as long as I can remember.
(light piano music)
- [Louise] So we always had a baseball team
it seems like here.
And we had the boxing!
And by golly that was about it.
And of course the little theater.
Living in a college town of course you're gonna you know,
it was such a tiny school at that time,
and tiny town,
it was 35,000 people here when I came when Jane was born.
- [Andy] Yeah.
- [Louise] So we made our own fun.
We had lots of treasure hunts.
(laughs)
- [Andy] Is it fair to ask
if you felt like you were a little bit maybe banished
to the French Foreign Legion?
- [Louise] Oh absolutely!
Absolutely!
You can imagine.
(lively piano music)
- Another thing she did that's different
was that she really believed
that you need to have bodies in the chairs.
So she showed up at everything,
and she took us,
all of us,
all our kids.
She had artist friends.
She would go to all the exhibits and the galleries
and meet people and a number of people
have said that at one point the tornado hit
and Lynwood Kreneck said
that all of his work was being framed
and the only thing that didn't blow away
was what mother had and what Lynwood had at their houses.
So she was a good friend of the artist
before they got well known.
- Yeah that reminds me,
I had a date in college,
first date,
so grandma's inviting me to a play at the university
and I thought,
"This is gonna be real impressive!"
"I'll take her to this date with my grandma!"
"My gosh I'm a caring kid."
And she took me to Equus,
I don't know if you've ever been to Equus
but eventually the guy ends up in his underwear
with a horse,
it's kind of a strange deal.
And about halftime it breaks
and I'm sitting in between my date and my grandma going,
"Oh my lord that man is riding that horse in his underwear!"
"What in the world?"
Yeah I didn't have another date with Jamie after that.
(laughs)
She took us to everything.
- She liked serious,
hard-thinking,
challenging theater.
- I, as an artsy-fartsy individual,
she encouraged us so much.
Any of us that said,
"Hey, I wanna try this."
"I wanna try that."
When she could she came out to everything.
I did a play down here on 34th Street,
I don't want to speak ill of it but it wasn't very popular.
So one night I think we looked out before it started
and it was like this guy had one friend
and this girl had a boyfriend
and I had grandma.
There were literally four to six people there,
we knew 'em all.
We were like, "Can't we just take 'em out for a beer?"
(laughs)
Just forget the show?
But she sat through the whole thing
and she had notes.
She's like, "You look good."
"This could've been better."
But she sucked it all in.
She just loved the theater which is probably why I'm great.
- I think she always said that she wasn't an artist herself,
but she saw her role as a connector.
That she could introduce people who were interested
in something that other people
who might want to be involved in it.
I think that was one of her-
- Yeah.
She would host parties here at her house
and invite people from different walks of life,
City Council maybe,
artists,
any of the big players in town and then
she'd have them sitting next to each other and talking.
So that they were sharing ideas
and things that could advance their purpose.
- We began to work together on various community projects
as well as being friends but of course the most important
was without question the foundation of the board
that would lead to the establishment
of the Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts.
(lively piano music)
- We have some pictures here and while we frame these up,
Mrs. Underwood many have pointed to you
as being the inspiration behind this entire process.
In fact they've been so inspired by you
that they're actually renaming the facility.
What an honor,
the Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts.
How does that make you feel?
- Oh boy!
(laughs)
I'm still overwhelmed by that.
- Mm-hmm.
- I have worked hard but there have been so many
that have worked right along with me.
We got representatives from all the arts groups
and around our dining room tables
is how this all came about.
- Louise had been thinking and talking
about establishing some type of center
where local and regional artists could display their work
and have it appreciated by people in this area.
Gradually here thoughts began to come together
and that there should also be a museum
or gallery would be properly say associated with it.
- Louise was very interested
in getting this center together.
Not to have her name on it.
In fact I think she resisted that.
She was interested because she understood
that the center was more than a physical place.
It was more than a building.
It was a collection of people.
It was a culture.
- We were trying to get a place that the artists
could not only show their work but sell 'em!
They couldn't make a living
outside of their professorship or whatever.
But now I think it's just been a tremendous boost.
And what CASP has done.
- We were friendly,
I knew her.
But we became close through the affiliation
between CASP & LHUCA.
The two non-profits work together as much as we can.
We try to support each other as much as we can.
We consider ourselves completely separate and autonomous,
but we share what we call a campus.
She wanted LHUCA to be a catalyst for all the arts
as opposed to being a producer of art.
She wanted LHUCA to be some place where people could come
and look at art and show their art.
So she's there for view,
we're there for make and we're a great partnership.
- It was to help artists,
performers,
actors,
musicians have a place to come together and do their thing.
I think that whole complex it wouldn't be the same
without Charles' loving arms wrapped around the whole thing,
but the combination has just made such a wonderful place
for people who've never thought about throwing a clay pot
or getting behind a metal ...
I don't even know enough about metal working
to know what you get behind to do all that stuff.
(laughs)
Anything that gave people a chance to express themselves
or to learn a new fun thing.
- I think it meant the world to her,
but I think it also meant the world
to everybody that touched it.
I'm a broke actor in California.
I'd send $50, $100.
That was back when it was an old fire station
and a pile of dirt and to see what it's become
and I know I didn't give a whole lot
but I think that everybody that's darkened those doors
feels that way.
But it was her vision
and I really have this sneaking suspicion
that she hung on til the 20th anniversary,
that really meant a lot.
Everyday she was blown away by what was going on up there.
(lively piano music)
- One of the great successes I think
is the First Friday Art Trail,
which when we first started it,
it was this building and across the street
and that was the extent of it.
That's all the people had to do was come here
and walk across.
Not all this was finished it was all brand new.
And yet we know what that's like today,
it's a major event in this community once a month.
- The reason individuals gave funds for it's establishment
and for it's expansion into the campus that it is now
all really is because of Louise.
People admired her.
People liked her,
they respected her and what she was doing.
Frankly if it had been someone else
I don't think that center would exist
in the form that it now exists.
And as long as she lived she always went to every event.
Even if she went in a wheelchair toward the end of her life.
- Every month she would say,
"Well I don't know,
maybe I'm too tired to go to the Art Trail."
and then she'd say about 4 o'clock in the afternoon,
"Oh I think I'm gonna go one more time."
So off we'd go
and inevitably someone would come up to her and say,
"You're the reason,
you and what you've done down here
are the reason I stayed in town."
You know, or,
"I grew up here and I never dreamed it would be,
that this many things coming from different directions
would be available.
All kinds of new ideas and innovative ways
to look at things and learn things."
It was just kind of rejuvenating.
- I started at LHUCA on the 28th
and my very next Friday was First Friday.
She was OMNI President First Fridays.
So that was my first meeting of Louise.
Everybody had built her up
and there was so much anticipation
and she was just this lovely human being
who made everybody feel welcome and pleased to be there.
- Louise was extraordinarily proud of this place
and again not because her name was on it
but because it represented a fulfillment
of the dreams of a lot of people,
from the start this idea of a campus.
She was quite proud of what had happened.
Also I hope that one of the things she recognized,
although you couldn't get her to say this either,
was that she was this perfect mediating influence
on the various factions in creating something like this.
At the same time she inspired them and that's tough to do.
It's one thing to be the hall monitor,
you know when you have people with varying stakes
in a big endeavor like this,
but to able to keep the kids
from scruffling around the halls
and inspire them to do better,
that's a real talent.
(bittersweet piano music)
- One of the things I do every year,
and I've done this for years,
is I take a small group of fourth year
medical school students right before they graduate
and I try to work with the hospices around town
and ask the hospice if I could have a patient
that my students could interview as they're actively dying.
I got a call from hospice they said,
"We've got it set up."
"We have a very special patient for you."
I had never met Louise Hopkins Underwood before,
so this was very special to me,
of course everyone knows her in Lubbock.
So it was really a treat and I thought,
"Wow, what a generous lady to do this."
I had no idea that we actually met with her
about 96 hours before she died.
That's when I met her.
So that contact is important because she struck
and left such an impression on me
and also my medical students.
I ended up taking six students with me that day.
Louise was at home in her beautiful home
and invited us in.
That first of all struck me as incredibly generous
and really over and above what you would expect
someone who's dying to do.
So I was incredibly appreciative of that.
She was sitting up in bed.
She had her makeup was perfect.
I knew that she had been in the hospital
but you would never have known it
the way that she carried herself,
the way that she presented herself.
More than that,
usually when I meet with folks who are in this condition,
we'll meet for about 15 or 20 minutes.
Oh, no, no, no, no,
not with Louise Hopkins Underwood,
she kept us there for an hour and a half.
I finally said,
"I am sure that we are wearing you out."
You would never have known that she lacked a bit of energy.
The next day we got a thank you note from her.
We got a note from her saying,
"Thank you for coming."
"Thank you for bringing those beautiful medical students
to talk with me."
"It really made my day."
And I thought,
"Wow, this is a very special person."
I've never gotten that before.
I've been doing this a long time,
but she's remarkable.
(bittersweet piano music)
- The weekend before she died she went to the gala,
the LHUCA Gala,
which she didn't dream she was,
but after all it was the 20th Anniversary.
So she better get up and go.
Then she went to First Friday Art Trail.
She went to the theater because they had Raisin in the Sun,
which had never been performed in Lubbock.
She went out to the Ag Museum and saw the old train car
and looked around out there.
- Met her great-granddaughter,
Cheryl's daughter.
- Yeah.
Sorry, newest great-grandchild,
and then was gone.
(laughs)
It was just remarkable.
- On the way out she,
in her final hours ...
(laughs)
she wanted to make sure that we hired a bartender and ...
- Got out the good china.
- Got out the good china.
(laughs in unison)
- So she knew she was leaving.
(laughs)
- She really did change the fiber of life in Lubbock.
She changed the culture here.
We were more than cotton and football
after Louise got hold of Lubbock.
I think that's huge.
I often think about what Louise was able to accomplish.
She started LHUCA when she was 78 years old.
When she passed away
my little hashtag that I did on Facebook
when we were all kind of posting our sadness
about Louise being gone was live like Louise.
And the more I thought about that the more I'm like,
"Hey, I've got a 20 year jump on her!"
"I could actually maybe do something at 52."
She left Lubbock better than she found it.
- It think it was my Uncle Bussie that said it first.
I called him crying and he said,
"There's no reason any sadness on our part it's selfish."
She checked every box you can imagine and then some extras
which is really, really awesome.
- She lived a good long life and she was ready to go.
It was time.
Her body was wearing out.
Fortunately her mind didn't wear out.
- There wasn't anything
she wasn't able to say she didn't do.
Oh my gosh I can't believe I'm gonna tell this story.
When I was in Costa Rica at a ...
- (laughs) I can't believe you're telling this story either!
(laughs)
- So I was in Costa Rica
and I went to this bar that was just fantastic!
You're in Central America,
so you don't see bars that remind you of home
and there's this long wooden bar with pictures of
Willy Nelson and Waylon Jennings on the wall
and I was just loving it.
I called mom and I was like,
"I think I found the coolest bar!"
But then someone told me that it's a whore house so ...
- You had a lot of luck with your dates didn't you?
(laughs)
- Yeah, exactly!
So mom told grandma
and grandma's like,
"Oh, I've been there!"
"Yeah, they got a little hair salon right next door."
(laughs)
- You go to the left it's the beauty shop,
you go to the left it's the whore house.
(laughs)
I said what's wrong with me,
I'm the only one who's not been to the whore house
in Costa Rica.
But she was that kind of a mother that you would ...
David said,
"I can't believe I'm calling my mother to tell this."
And I said,
"Well, I'm gonna call my mother and tell her."
(laughs)
So it's a long family heritage.
- Louise changed my life.
She changed the course of my life
and she's also changing the course of other people's lives
and she'll do it long after she's gone through her facility,
through this arts district.
We have interns that work in these facilities
and subsequently when they look for new jobs,
when they hit the market they're not just a Masters student,
they're a Masters student with experience
and she enabled that to happen.
So she's changing kid's lives
as well as the general public's.
- Knowing Louise all those years,
five decades.
It was not only a great experience
to have a friend like Louise,
but to know well someone who truly
made a positive impact on a great number of people
and on the community in which we live.
- Louise's death,
or physical death is a reminder that first of all,
even if you're as spry and sharp and with it as Louise was
right up to the end
but we're all gonna go,
it reminds us of our own mortality,
but it also reminds us
that irrespective of what religious belief you may have
or world view about what happens to a soul when it's gone,
you don't have to look very far from Louise's life
to see that there's a lot that is still alive about Louise.
This place is one thing,
but her children,
her friends,
all of us who were influenced by her,
that still goes on.
I think our challenge
is not how do we continue the work of Louise,
she would want us to say,
"How do we continue our own work?"
And that is maybe as big and important a gift
as anyone could ever give you as an artist.
- I think right now there's a wonderful spirit downtown.
I think there's a wonderful momentum happening.
There's a wonderful symbiotic relationship
between tech and downtown
and they're getting more off-campus and doing ...
I just think there are great things happening all over.
But it's very easy just to get on the Marshal South
and go back to the Southland and never come out.
I think if we're not careful we can lose it all again.
It's gonna be dependent on all of us to show up.
I can't tell you how many times mother would call and say,
"Let's go to so-and-so."
and I'd be like,
"I can't do another thing."
and then I would be so happy I didn't miss it
because they're you know, I just ...
- And something would come from that right?
- Yeah.
- You learned something there that would take you over here
and zam you were helping something over there.
- Exactly.
- She's amazing.
- Yeah.
We got a lot of work to do.
(laughs)
(bittersweet piano music)
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