Mayoral Memories, Our Celina Magazine, February 2018

MAYORAL MEMORIES: LOOKING AT THE PUBLIC, PRIVATE LIVES OF THOSE WHO HAVE LED CELINA By: Lisa Ferguson February 23, 2018 ourcelina Celina Main Street City of Celina When he’s not presiding over city council meetings or otherwise working to lead Celina toward its anticipated future as the second largest city in Collin County, Mayor Sean Terry is a fixture at local businesses, eateries and community events. It’s not unusual to spot him shaking hands with Celina residents at the supermarket or in the downtown square, and answering queries about where our burgeoning burg is headed. Terry’s modern mayoral duties likely are similar to those undertaken by Celina’s previous mayors, each of whom faced their own unique sets of challenges and opportunities while shepherding the city over the last hundred-plus years. Read on to learn more about the lives and times of four of Celina’s former mayors. (Due to incomplete and missing records, the dates of each mayor’s terms in office could not be verified for this article. Howard Lee Bounds (1868-1928) – Born and raised in Celina, Bounds is credited as being the city’s first mayor. A little person and the son of pioneer-settler parents, he was a charter member of the local Christian church and for years led a men’s Sunday school class. In 1900, records show that he was a member of the Odd Fellows Lodge at Old Celina. According to church records featured in the book “The People of Old Celina Cemetery,” by author Gayle Maxson, “His body was dwarfed, but he had a big heart and a clear head and no citizen of the county had more friends.” Celina was established as a “corporate village” in April 1909. During the first meeting of the city council, Bounds reportedly was installed as mayor and the city’s government was organized. One of the council’s first items of business, according to early city meeting records, was “keeping the city in a sanitary condition” and “providing for working streets.” Bounds died in a Forth Worth hospital on Aug. 1, 1928. Funeral services were held at Celina’s Methodist church, and he was laid to rest at Old Celina Cemetery. Upon his passing, Celina Record newspaper Editor C.C. Andrews wrote: “The familiar form of Lee Bounds will be missed from our streets and the church, the services at which he rarely missed. … There will be sincere grief in this congregation as well as all over this section of the county at his departure.” Bounds was preceded in death by his wife, Claudia Drake Bounds, who was also a little person. James Edgar Ousley (1885-1931) – Also a Celina native, Ousley reportedly served multiple terms as the city’s mayor during the early part of last century. According to records included in the book “Cottage Hill Cemetery, Collin County, Texas,” also authored by Maxson, he was the son of Mr. and Mrs. J.C. Ousley, and attended local public schools before heading to the former Grayson College in Whitewright. For years he was a member of Celina’s Methodist church as well as the Masonic Lodge. During Ousley’s administration, Celina was said to have experienced one of its most progressive eras. The city welcomed natural gas service, as well as round-the-clock electricity service through Texas Power & Light. It’s water system was built, and streets were re-graveled. In records featured in the book, Mayor Ousley is described as having been “broad minded. He would contend for what he believed to be right but held no malice against those who opposed him. … What he did as mayor was open and above board.” Ousley was married to Edna Rooney Graham and the couple had two children. He battled cancer and reportedly sought treatment in New York with a surgeon from the Mayo Clinic. He died on April 21, 1931, while sitting in a chair at his family’s Celina home where he was said to have spent his final hours with family and friends. William Edward “Will” Seitz (1873-1948) – Seitz is probably best remembered locally as a proprietor of the former Patrick & Seitz Hardware store, which opened in 1923. For years the business was housed in a building on Celina’s downtown square, the site of which is now the patio area at Papa Gallo’s Mexican Grill. It was also the scene of a 1932 heist by notorious bank robber Clyde Barrow and a couple of cohorts who stole guns and ammunition during a crime-filled night the trio spent in Celina. A Celina Record article penned around the time of the hardware store’s 25th year in business read: “The Patrick & Seitz Hardware store has been of great service to the farmers and people in general here, furnishing them with anything in the way of hardware or implements close at hand. They carry a large stock of durable and dependable hardware of every kind.” According to 1900 census records, Seitz was a farmer born in Arkansas (although other records list his birthplace as Denton County). He married his first wife, Lissia Elizabeth McGee, in 1898. The Celina Record reported that Seitz arrived in Celina in 1911 and later became its mayor. A prominent member of the local Methodist church, for several years Seitz also was director of First State Bank. For a time, he was chairman of the board of trustees for the Hubbard estate, proceeds from which benefitted the former Alla School that merged with Celina ISD in 1958. Following his wife’s death in 1944, Seitz wed Mary Perry. He died four years later, on Jan. 15, 1948, at age 74 of a heart attack. His funeral was held at First Methodist Church, and he was laid to rest at Old Celina Cemetery. Grover Cleveland Sheets (1884-1975) – Virginia-born Sheets reportedly moved from Plano to Celina in 1912 and established his blacksmith shop on North Louisiana Street, in the building now occupied by Carmela Winery. According to a 1971 Celina Record article: “The shop, which has operated continuously since that date, has metamorphosed into a wondrous place of iron and steel, hardware, nuts and bolts and plumbing supplies and fixtures and you name it. The proprietor of the shop still works at anvil and forge, though he is at times a bit incapacitated by a stiffness in his joints.” Sheets reportedly also lost several fingers due to a planer-machine accident at the business. “Don’t talk to me about the ‘good old days,’” he said in a 1962 interview with the newspaper. “I don’t think the old days compare at all with times now. Why, we used to saw out wagon and cultivator tongues from a piece of 3×12 oak with a hand saw. And if you think that’s not work, you ought to try it. We didn’t have electric lights or power, and we had to do everything the real hard way.” Records indicate that Sheets served as Celina’s mayor from 1947 to 1952. He was also a Celina City Council member for 16 years; spent 50 years as a member of the Masons; was a member of the board of trustees of Collin Memorial Hospital in McKinney; and served a dozen years on the county’s Red Cross board prior to his death on Jan. 8, 1975, at age 91. He is buried at Cottage Hill Cemetery beside his wife, Winnie Larue Sheets.