Leola Shanklin was a longtime figure in the Port Aransas fishing community. Shanklin works on the waterfront on a day in 1974. Courtesy photos
Feedback from occasional readers of this column seems to indicate that some of the folks who are mentioned are rather interesting. How they ended up on our island, how they contributed to island life and often who their descendants are allows those who follow to better appreciate where we live today.
Leola Shanklin is one of those folks.
Born in Snyder, Texas in 1925, Leola grew up in the oilfield. Her dad was killed by a rig explosion in the mid 1930s. In 1937, mother Addie Littleton moved sons J.D., Melvin and daughter Leola to Port Aransas and lived on the beach for an extended period.
As time went on, Addie was known as “Granny” to most everyone on the island. She and daughter Leola were magnificent cooks and “could make dirt taste like steak” as a prejudiced family member remembers.
Leola went to the Port Aransas school, where she participated in volleyball and declamation, which today might be described as dramatic reading. After graduation in 1941, she married Lee Roy Milina. Tragically, her husband was drowned while seine fishing on the beach in 1948.
She stands with two big tarpon on a dock in Port Aransas. The photo is believed to have been shot around 1950.
In 1950, Leola married Jack Shanklin and Jack adopted her two sons, Roy Lee and John. They had two additional sons, Carl and Art.
Jack was a fishing guide and boat captain. Leola and Jack worked together, and by 1953, she had her captain’s license from the Eighth District of the U.S. Coast Guard, which covered the coast from Pensacola, Florida, to Brownsville. At that time, the fact of a woman captain was unheard of. From 1953 until 1970, she was the only female captain in the Eighth District.
Being competitive and wanting to better provide for a growing family, Leola stopped working with Jack on the Riptide and bought the Shellamar, the only steel boat in the Port Aransas Boatmen fleet. It had two Corvette engines and was first to the fishing grounds and beat all other boats home at the end of a day’s fishing.
In those days, the 32-foot boat, captain and deckhand were $75 with bait and ice extra. Navigation aids such as GPS did not exist, and captains left the mouth of the jetties and followed a course that they had plotted to take wind into account.
Mark Creighton is a longtime researcher of local history, supplying much information and many historical photos to the Port Aransas Museum, an arm of the Port Aransas Preservation and Historical Association. With J. Guthrie Ford, Creighton is the co-author of “Port Aransas,” a photographic history book on the town of Port Aransas. Creighton can be reached at markwcreighton@gmail.com.
They would run for what they figured was the time to get to 40 fathoms of water and hopefully the snapper banks. At this point they would do soundings with a lead line and try to find the rocks that marked the beginning of the banks. Sailfish, red snapper and kingfish were the offshore fish. Sometimes a party might want to try tarpon, and the work was closer to home.
Besides being the first woman captain in the history of the Eighth U.S. Coast Guard District, Leola was the first woman inducted into the Port Aransas Boatmen Hall of Fame. Even after giving up chartering, she participated in and won prizes in the Powder Puff Derby.
In August of 1970, Hurricane Celia arrived at Port Aransas. Leola and son Carl stayed on her boat at first, then moved to an apartment near the harbor, and in the 30 minutes the eye was over the community, she and Carl went to another boat, the Lady Lorraine, owned by Butch Ousley. As the winds howled, her family recounts that she made a promise to God that He would never have to bother with her again if only He spared her and her son.
After Celia, she quit guiding and moved inland with her two teenage sons, Carl and Art. Carl and Art went to Pettus High School and, with her ambition and intelligence, Leola became office manager for Ballard Well Service in Pettus.
Today, four of Leola’s 13 grandchildren are important members of our community: Chris Shanklin is associated with Mark Grosse Real Estate, a pilot, manager of our airport and former fire chief. Justin and Eric and father Art run Shanklin Services, which installs pilings, operates cranes and has equipment rental. Chris, Justin and Eric are Eagle Scouts. Addie Shanklin Belcher is a real estate broker and owns Whitten Realty.
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