The Goree All Girl String Band, popularly known as The Goree Girls, was a band of eight female prisoners of the Goree Unit which performed in the 1940s. It was one of the first all female country and western bands in the United States. [1]
In the 1930s, while Thirty Minutes Behind the Walls, a musical show involving prisoners from Huntsville Unit played on radio waves, one Goree Unit prisoner, Reable Childs, suggested starting a band consisting of women from the Goree Unit. Of the original members, Mozelle McDaniel and Ruby Mae Morace served as the main singers. Georgia Fay Collins, Ruby Dell Guyton, and Bonnie Scott played the acoustic guitar. Lillie Mae Dudley played the bass fiddle. Childs played the banjo and the steel guitar. [2] The band held its debut on July 10, 1940 at the Huntsville Unit. Three months later, the prison system asked them to be the intermission singers at the Texas Prison Rodeo. [3]
The band performed on Wednesday evenings in an auditorium in Huntsville and its music was played on WBAP, a radio station in Fort Worth. The band had fans throughout the United States and they received mail, gifts, and marriage proposals from fans. Band members had been convicted of crimes like cattle rustling, murder, robbery, and theft. Skip Hollandsworth of Texas Monthly said that music historians do not pay attention to the band since the band never made a record and it never went on a national tour. [1]
The band changed when its members were paroled. Hollandsworth said "The Goree Girls were on the verge of becoming genuine celebrities—as long as they stayed in prison. But conceivably, the reason that they had started the band was to receive early parole and leave. They may have been the only band in musical history that set out to gain attention in order to disappear." [3] As members left, the prison system found other prisoners to replace them. McDaniel was the first member of the group to leave. In the spring of 1942, Morace was paroled. Reable was paroled in October 1943, and Collins replaced her as the group's leader. Since the founder and most notable member of the group was gone, WBAP paid less attention to the group. Attention from the public further decreased as Americans tuned in to radio programs about soldiers in World War II. The radio program Thirty Minutes Behind the Walls ended in 1944. Hollandsworth said that the radio show had ended "quietly." [3] As of 1947 women under the name "Goree Girls" had performed at the prison rodeo. [4]
The women never reunited to make reunion appearances on the radio or at the prison rodeo. [5] McDaniel was the last known surviving member of the band. [1] At a time before May 2003, McDaniel, then known as Mozelle Cash, died from a heart attack, induced by choking on food, while in a nursing home in Tyler, Texas. McDaniel's burial site is in the Pines Cemetery, south of Tyler. McDaniel's obituary refers to her as "Mozelle Cash." Her nephew stated that she did not want to be listed as "Mozelle McDaniel Cash" in her obituary because "[s]he thought it was best that no one remember." [5]
A film with Jennifer Aniston, The Goree Girls, about the band was reported in 2009 as upcoming. [6]
Walker County is a county located in the east central section of the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 census, its population was 76,400. Its county seat is Huntsville. Initially, Walker County was named for Robert J. Walker, a legislator from Mississippi who introduced into the United States Congress the resolution to annex Texas. Walker later supported the U.S. during its Civil War and earned some enmity for it. In order to keep the county's name, the state renamed it for Samuel H. Walker, a Texas Ranger and soldier in the United States Army.
Huntsville is a city in and the county seat of Walker County, Texas, United States. The population was 45,941 as of the 2020 census. It is the center of the Huntsville micropolitan area. Huntsville is in the East Texas Piney Woods on Interstate 45 and home to Texas State Prison, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Huntsville State Park, and HEARTS Veterans Museum of Texas.
Doris Elizabeth Angleton was an American socialite and murder victim. Her husband, Robert Angleton, had been accused of planning the crime. His brother, Roger Nicholas Angleton, was arrested in possession of a contract for a murder in exchange for $100,000 per year for ten years, in addition to cassettes containing audio recordings purportedly of conversations between himself and Robert planning the murder of a woman named Doris in exchange for money. Roger killed himself in custody, after writing a suicide note in which he admitted to killing his sister-in-law and claimed his brother had no involvement.
Juanita Dale Slusher, better known by her stage name Candy Barr, was an American stripper, burlesque dancer, actress, and adult model in men's magazines of the mid-20th century.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of Texas for murder, and participation in a felony resulting in death if committed by an individual who has attained or is over the age of 18.
Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville or Huntsville Unit (HV), nicknamed "Walls Unit", is a Texas state prison located in Huntsville, Texas, United States. The approximately 54.36-acre (22.00 ha) facility, near downtown Huntsville, is operated by the Correctional Institutions Division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. The facility, the oldest Texas state prison, opened in 1849.
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) is a department of the government of the U.S. state of Texas. The TDCJ is responsible for statewide criminal justice for adult offenders, including managing offenders in state prisons, state jails, and private correctional facilities, funding and certain oversight of community supervision, and supervision of offenders released from prison on parole or mandatory supervision. The TDCJ operates the largest prison system in the United States.
Patrick O'Daniel Unit is a Texas Department of Criminal Justice prison housing female offenders in Gatesville, Texas. The unit, with about 97 acres (39 ha) of land, is located 4 miles (6.4 km) north of central Gatesville on Farm to Market Road 215. The prison is located in a 45-minute driving distance from Waco. In addition to its other functions, O'Daniel Unit houses the state's female death row inmates.
Allan B. Polunsky Unit is a prison in West Livingston, unincorporated Polk County, Texas, United States, located approximately 5 miles (8.0 km) southwest of Livingston along Farm to Market Road 350. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) operates the facility. The unit houses the State of Texas death row for men, and it has a maximum capacity of 2,900. Livingston Municipal Airport is located on the other side of FM 350. The unit, along the Big Thicket, is 60 miles (97 km) east of Huntsville.
John McClamrock was a Dallas high school American football player who received media attention and sympathy from many Americans after an accident that left him with near-total paralysis in 1973.
The John M. Wynne Unit (WY) is a men's prison of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, located in northern Huntsville, Texas, at the intersection of Farm to Market Road 2821 West and Texas State Highway 75 North. The Windham School District has its headquarters in the unit. Wynne, the second oldest prison in Texas, was named after John Magruder Wynne, who served as a prison employee and later as a board member of the prison system from 1878 to 1881. The unit, on a 1,412 acres (571 ha) plot of land, is co-located with the Holliday Unit.
Dr. Lane Murray Unit is a women's prison of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice located in Gatesville, Texas. The prison is located on Texas State Highway 36, between Farm to Market Road 215 and Farm to Market Road 929. The 1,317 acres (533 ha) unit, which opened in November 1995, is co-located with the Christina Crain Unit, the Hilltop Unit, the Mountain View Unit, and the Woodman Unit. The unit is named after Lane Murray, who was the first superintendent of the Windham School District.
The Thomas Goree Unit (GR) is a Texas Department of Criminal Justice men's prison, located in Huntsville, Texas, 4 miles (6.4 km) south of downtown Huntsville on Texas State Highway 75 South. The Goree Unit is located within Region I. First opened in 1911, it served as the only women's correctional facility in Texas until 1982, after the women were moved to state prisons in Gatesville. For a period Goree held the state's sole female death row inmate, until her conviction was changed to a non-capital offense. There was more than one death row female at Goree in 1979.
The J. Dale Wainwright Unit is a Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) prison for men, located in unincorporated Houston County, Texas. Formerly called the Eastham Unit or "The Ham," the prison was renamed the J. Dale Wainwright Unit after a former chairman of the Texas Board of Criminal Justice. The 12,789 acres (5,176 ha) prison is located on Farm to Market Road 230, near Lovelady and 13 miles (21 km) west of Trinity.
The Texas Prison Rodeo was a rodeo and an annual celebration event for inmates in the Texas Prison System, held in a stadium in Huntsville, Texas. The stadium was located at the Huntsville Unit. The events included bareback basketball, bronco riding, bull riding, calf roping, and wild cow milking.
Bernie is a 2011 American biographical black comedy crime film directed by Richard Linklater, and written by Linklater and Skip Hollandsworth. The film stars Jack Black, Shirley MacLaine and Matthew McConaughey. It is based on Hollandsworth's January 1998 article, "Midnight in the Garden of East Texas", published in Texas Monthly magazine. It explores the 1996 murder of 81-year-old millionaire Marjorie Nugent (MacLaine) in Carthage, Texas, by her 39-year-old companion, Bernhardt "Bernie" Tiede (Black).
Walter Ned "Skip" Hollandsworth is an American writer, journalist, screenwriter, and executive editor for Texas Monthly magazine. In 2010, he won the National Magazine Award for Feature Writing from the American Society of Magazine Editors, for "Still Life", the story of John McClamrock. His true crime history, The Midnight Assassin, about a series of murders attributed to the Servant Girl Annihilator that took place in Austin, Texas, in 1885, was published in April 2016 by Henry Holt and Company.
The Captain Joe Byrd Cemetery is the main prison cemetery in Texas, located in Huntsville and operated by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ). The colloquial name for the cemetery is Peckerwood Hill. The name originates from "Peckerwood", an insult towards poor white people, because many of those buried at the cemetery were poor.
The William P. Hobby Unit (HB) is a prison for women in unincorporated Falls County, Texas, United States. Named after William P. Hobby, Lieutenant Governor of Texas, it is a part of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ). It is located on Texas Farm to Market Road 712, off Texas Business Highway 6 and 6 miles (9.7 km) southwest of Marlin.
Dorothy Marie Robards is an American woman, known for the poisoning murder of her father in 1993, when she was aged 16, in Fort Worth, Texas.